God or the Divine?: Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality 9783110698343, 9783110698169

Citation preview

God or the Divine?

God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality Edited by Bernhard Nitsche and Marcus Schmücker

ISBN 978-3-11-069816-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069834-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069841-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022946451 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Preface

IX

Bernhard Nitsche Introduction 1 Bernhard Nitsche Dimensions of Human Existence as Dimensions of the Hermeneutics of Transcendence 5 Bernhard Nitsche God or the Divine?

9

Florian Baab Transcendence in Difference to Creation: A Christian Essential as a Problem of Modern Philosophical Theorizing 41

I Buddhism Robert M. Gimello The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned: A Buddhist Vision of 51 “Transimmanence” Noel Sheth, S.J. (†) Effort and Grace in Relationship with the Transcendent in Buddhism

81

Perry Schmidt-Leukel Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality 87 Hermann-Josef Röllicke Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence” Paradigm to the Hermeneutics of Buddhist Scriptures 103 Anne MacDonald The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

117

VI

Table of Contents

Jörg Plassen Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought? Some Musings Centering on 133 Huayan Expositions of the Net of Indra Michael von Brück Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

149

Klaus-Dieter Mathes Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity: Does the Concept Lead to an Idea of All-Unity? 163 Dennis Hirota Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

183

James L. Fredericks The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person: Henri de Lubac’s Encounter with 199 Pure Land Buddhism Joseph S. O’Leary The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine 217 Personality

II Hinduism Brad Bannon Potters, Human and Divine: Manifesting Śaṅkara’s Īśvara through Pedagogy, Playdough, and Personhood 239 Godabarisha Mishra Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism 263 Francis X. Clooney, S.J. The World and the (Non)Transcendent: A Reflection on Some Abundant and Elusive Possibilities from the Brahminical Traditions 281 Gérard Colas The Supreme Being: A Person?

301

VII

Table of Contents

Anantanand Rambachan Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara: A Proposal for the Relationality of 319 Saguṇa and Nirguṇa Brahman John Nemec Śiva’s Claim to Identity: Can Personalism in a Theistic Tradition of a Strict Identity Survive? 331 Noel Sheth, S.J. (†) The Bhedâbheda (Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka Robert Zydenbos Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

345

351

Fabian Völker “The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism”: Śaṅkara and 363 Schelling on the Origin of the Finite World of Appearance Steven P. Hopkins Theology in Poetry: Divinity, Humanity, and the Natural World in 383 Veṅkaṭanātha’s Haṃsasandeśa Timothy Cahill Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator Between Personal and Impersonal Transcendence 411 Christine Büchner How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance? Michelle Voss Roberts Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism Marcus Schmücker The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha 469 Contributors Index

509

507

449

431

Preface There were many people who contributed to the realization of the Twin-Conference, which was held at the Katholische Akademie Schwerte (Catholic Academy of Schwerte) from 26 to 28 June and 30 June to 2 July 2016. Special thanks must go to the staff members Paulina Pieper, Benita Bockholt, Inga Markert, Martin Bornemeier and Jakob Ohm, who took care of the conference’s organization on site. The commitment of Daniel Rumel must be mentioned in particular. Not only did he take part in the preliminary conceptual planning, he was the main point of contact for the speakers and managed all aspects of their participation. Moreover, he was able to raise funding from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. We would also like to offer our sincere thanks to Gerhild Benölken for her careful administrative and financial handling of the conference and for undertaking some of the associated correspondence. Special thanks are due to the Katholische Akademie Schwerte for supporting an event that was much more involved than the usual conference. This was due to speakers and staff changing throughout the conference, a frame program taking place between the two parts of the conference and, at its conclusion, participants travelling to the Sri-Kamadchi-Ampal temple festival in Hamm, planning of alternative events, meals being served by an external caterer, and attention being given to accommodate the completely different meals and mealtimes of Ramadan. The organizers of the Twin-Conference would like to give their warmest thanks to the academy staff for their patience and commitment, above all to Dr. Ulrich Dickmann. Thanks are also due to the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) for its generous funding of the research project “God or the Devine?” The Twin-Conference was closely related to this project. We would also like to offer our sincere gratitude to all of the institutions that supported us financially, above all the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, which provided funding for the participants’ travel expenses and is now generously supporting the publication of this volume of collected papers. Supplementary funds were also received from the Bishop of Münster, the International Office of the University of Münster, and the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. Without the substantial financial support of these institutions it would have been impossible to realize the TwinConference. We would also like to thank Patrick Suchy, who carefully supported us to prepare the manuscript of this volume for the printer’s copy and helped to create the index. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-001

X

Preface

We dedicate this volume “God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, Between Personality and Impersonality” to the memory of Raimon Panikkar (1918 – 2010) and the memory of Noel Sheth, S.J. (1943 – 2017). Noel Sheth was an active participant at the conference, both as speaker and discussant. He passed away before he was able to make final revisions to his contribution to this volume. We printed therefore without any change his two lectures which were distributed for the auditory as a kind of handout. Raimon Panikkar and Noel Sheth were experienced scholars and dedicated believers. They both maintained a decade-long dialogue between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. As an expression of their devotion and commitment to this dialogue, the editors hope that the views concerning God and the Divine in this volume not only inspire scholars and specialists in the discipline, but are also a fruitful impetus for engaging with representatives of these respective religious traditions.

Bernhard Nitsche

Introduction Setting out on a journey of comparative research in the field of the theology of religions, in our case examining a point of encounter between the religious galaxies of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, is like diving into an adventure. Clearly it is an adventure that involves meeting the other, the unfamiliar. But the adventure is also fascinating and disconcerting. The endeavor of comparative theology becomes still more adventurous when it enters the heart of any religious mindscape, the dimension of the transcendent. It is here that the variances between religions are most vividly apparent, and where true differences are particularly emphasized. This is valid not only for the dialogue between Buddhism and Hinduism, but also for that between Buddhism and Christianity. It is no coincidence that a trialogue between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism is rarely attempted. And even if it is attempted, it rarely succeeds. Today, while Buddhist and Hinduist concepts have been popularly received in societies that are post-traditional and non-religious but have broadly Christian values, the dialogue between these traditions proves to be an undertaking that is still highly challenging. For many, from the modern Western perspective, Buddhism seems to be a religion free of dogmas, a religion that, dissimilar to both Christianity and Hinduism, manages without presenting metaphysical hypotheses or conceptions about a transcendence of the universe we as human beings inhabit. Accordingly, only the spiritual side of cosmic life is a subject of discussion in Buddhism. Its aims are merely a shift of mind and a change of lifestyle. Buddhism knows neither the concept of an eternal soul nor of a personal God, and interprets the paradise-like descriptions of nirvāṇa as mythological representations of a subjective experience of liberation. The quasi-divine buddha families (so called dhyānibuddhas) of cosmo-geographic lands are clever spiritual instruments. They are skilful means for triggering in human beings the buddha-nature that is active or valid in the entire cosmos. A life free of suffering is achieved through concentrated effort (self-power, Jap. 自力, jiriki) or/and trusting devotion (other power, Jap. 他力, tariki). Under these conditions, is a dialogue with Christianity and Hinduism, which are both based on metaphysical assumptions of transcendence, futile from the start? It is clear that anyone who enters the adventurous path of comparative theology will discover, as their inquiries become deeper, that these different religious galaxies involve different solar systems. Nonetheless, in their internal plurality and wealth, they also offer phenomena that can be used for comparison. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-002

2

Bernhard Nitsche

These comparable concerns have been described as “functional equivalents” or “third-degree analogies” (Raimon Panikkar). While this does not deny that there are conceptual differences, if one considers the logical system of each religion and its individual world of understanding, it is possible to find significant elements that are comparable. Furthermore, there is generally a difference between how religious traditions have been adopted in modern Western societies and their original intentions and original forms. An exploration of this internal wealth, with its comparable phenomena or third-degree analogies, was undertaken at the conference “God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality.” As the subtitle indicates, the contributions and discussion focussed on two topics. The first involved whether, or to what degree, it is possible to speak of great transcendence and a Divine. On one hand, this topic is especially important in a dialogue with Buddhism, since it concerns the character of Buddhist transcendence of the given reality. Here, the option of epistemic or ontological transcendence is significant, as is the question of a salvific-soteriological alternative to an existing limited reality defined by suffering and death. On the other hand, the topic is part of current religious philosophical discussions examining the mediation of immanence and transcendence within the alternatives of monism, theism, pantheism and historically-Triune monotheism in the Christian context. Terms developed in Western traditions have proven inadequate for describing the various cultural traditions of Asia and their images of transcendence. The second topic under discussion involved the widely established distinction between personal and impersonal concepts of transcendence. A careful view of religious traditions reveals that these two alternatives are inadequate, because they omit the difference between the semantic definition of transcendence and the specific religious-pragmatic logical reference. In popular expressions of modern piety, people speak at times of being supported, prima facie, in a quasipersonal way by an unspecified personal cosmic energy. In the Buddhist context as well, it can hardly be denied that the average believer, devoutly reciting “Namu Amida Butsu” at a temple, has not only chosen a resourceful means for his path to nirvāṇa, but is also invocating his faith in Buddha Amida as a powerful and helping counterpart. Nirvāṇa signifies an ultimate reality that is beyond name and appearance, figure or form. Hence, it is to be understood as emptiness (śūnya). Masao Abo defines the abundance of the Buddha as immeasurable light and life that lead to nirvāṇa, and the ultimate reality of nirvāṇa as a dialectic of negation and a logic of unlimited and non-discriminating abeyance: “śūnyatā is non-śūnyatā (aśūnyatā); therefore it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyantaśūnyatā).” According to Raimon Panikkar, śūnyatā does not exclude pléroma,

Introduction

3

but includes it. For example, in traditions of Chinese Buddhism the concept of pléroma can be referred to the fullness of the buddha nature. Such a meta-categorical reality defies all classifications of personal or impersonal by being neither this nor that (neti – neti). At best, it can be seen as “ahead” or “beyond” personality or impersonality, as a final unassailability that is characterized by both infinity and unavailability. The Hindu definition of brahman as nirguṇa brahman is comparable. Paul Deussen emphasized that brahman must be understood as over-personal, or should be thought of as un-personal only in terms of being “far above all personification.” This meta-categorical reality can only be visualized or conceptualized through a categorical differentiation between abstract, personal and impersonal perceptions of transcendence or of the divine. According to Deussen, in some way brahman can be seen as a theism of īśvara. In a strict sense, the ultimate realities of brahman and nirvāṇa are meta-categorical and thus are examples of a third-degree analogy. If it is assumed that a relationship with transcendence is a basic condition in the relationship of human beings to the world, as the research project “God or the Divine?” has done from an anthropological standpoint, this suggests the meaning of transcendent to be natural or cosmic. When interpreting religious transcendence, however, the social reference of human beings suggests a meaning that is relational or theistic. In contrast, human self-reference is related to an abstract meaning. Other philosophical concepts are needed to form a religiousphilosophical basis for conscious self-reference, or to unify self-reference, social reference, and the relationship of human beings to the world. This leads to other speculations. When searching for fundamental principles in practical philosophy, which understands human beings as freely acting subjects, the idea of a perfect, divine freedom can be used as the basis for defining consciousness as “egological” or personal. However, if these fundamental principles emphasize the different moments in the human consciousness, which is the unifying basis, then this basis can initially be understood as a differentiating all-unity that is non-“egological” or impersonal. If these two directions of philosophical speculation do not provoke a dualism at a higher level, the question arises of whether it is possible to have a unifying and unassailable view (apophatic and logical) of both. An exceeding view thus would be understood meta-categorically and appear to be a unifying condition for both alternative final thoughts of a total freedom and only differentiated all-unity. This meta-categorical condition can only be discussed as a logical preceding “condition of possibility” of a total personal freedom and differentiated impersonal all-unity. At the conference “God or the Divine,” the matter of different ultimate religious concepts was taken into account, as was their possible equivalent gestalt

4

Bernhard Nitsche

or systemic functionality within individual religious traditions. We are much obliged to all of the contributors to this volume of collected papers, who offered their expertise with regard to the guiding question of the conference from the viewpoint of their individual research disciplines.

Bernhard Nitsche

Dimensions of Human Existence as Dimensions of the Hermeneutics of Transcendence Being aware of the cultural as well as religious diversity of transcendental concepts, I would like to start with human self-understanding. I propose analytically differentiating three dimensions of being human. The differentiation into human self-relation, social relation and world-relation opens up three characteristic means of personal self-understanding. (Additionally, we can differentiate in each case between inner and outer relations). All human beings, as holistic persons, have these three aspects at their command (analogous to the grammatical speaking roles): 1. a subjective one (I), 2. an interpersonal one (Thou) and 3. a bodily one (He/She/It). The meaning of each aspect, however, can vary in different cultural contexts. I am currently being led by the intuition that the different basic dimensions of human existence are even valid in connection with the human interpretation of the ultimate horizon of existence; they enable motives to be outlined and support the process of lending importance to different interpretations. Human beings are mundane, i. e. they are corporeal and bodily. They are part of their cosmic “environment.” That is why ultimate reality can appear diaphanically as the subtle or majestic experience of nature. Ultimate reality, as the cosmic reason for natural processes, is often described as an ultimate It, an ultimate principle or a divine energy. Furthermore, human beings are social beings; they interact and communicate. In this respect, human beings are part of a world full of relationships with others; it is a reality that is pervasive. It is therefore not surprising that human beings express ultimate reality in the sense of a personal other, as an ultimate You/Thou an ultimate He/She. Human beings, however, are not entirely absorbed by the material environment and social world surrounding them. Because of their free mind they are also conscious of the reality of their own lives; by subjectivizing they are able to decide how to react to their given environment. Human beings are able to do this because their conscious lives are also selfreferential. When ultimate reality is conceived as relating to the possibility of human consciousness, the logical position of reason is before the conscious “I”. All this gives rise to the following questions: Is there evidence of these dimensions within the tradition you are dealing with? Are these dimensions emhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-003

6

Bernhard Nitsche

ployed when interpreting transcendence? Is there a dimension that is more prominent or occurs before the others? What are the reasons for this? Are these dimensions of human existence helpful for classifying the tradition you are dealing with, or are there any arguments against using them?

Understanding Transcendence Within my anthropological approach, I ascribe eccentric movement to human beings: In their rational faculties, human beings are able to transcend concrete objects and the conditions of their lives. This can be called the dynamic of transcending in the sense of a formal interminability that goes beyond all classes of objects. This transcending dynamic is characterized by a certain unconditionality, an unconditionality that is, however, inaccessible. Philosophically seen, this dynamic of the mind, in its relation to the inaccessible but nonetheless demanding horizon of the unconditional, might be considered formal unconditionality (Rahner/Pröpper). It is for this reason that Paul Tillich described religions as a “state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.” In itself, the unconditionality of this intellectual dynamic pursues the objective of qualitative fulfillment. Following this line of European thinking, the concept of the unconditional is connected to the idea of a positive infinite, of a perfect being (absolute completeness) that can force open every finite idea. In the Christian context this is connected to the perception of the human heart desiring peace and fulfillment. Augustine says “our heart is unquiet until it rests in you, o Lord.” This is related to the question of an ultimate unconditioned cause (as the foundation and objective) of the unconditioned dynamic of human striving. Whether the idea of the unconditioned must be considered a “greater” or “radical” alterity differs in the various teachings of religious wisdom. Comparing the different traditions, the question arises of whether these three relationship dimensions might also be suitable for characterizing ultimate reality in other religious traditions (e. g. Buddhism and/or Hinduism). How is the ultimate horizon and deepest meaning of the human spirit defined in the tradition you are examining? What is thought to give the human spirit peace and fulfillment? The human qualitative transcending leaves behind thinking about reality on two different levels. In Western traditions this is closely linked to the issue of unity and plurality: How does the worldly reality of plurality (including human beings) relate to the one ultimate reality? The problems linked to a concept that objectifies being (the absolute or God) were prominently shown by Martin Heidegger. When opposed to the plurality of being, being itself becomes a limited entity. The concept of being as ground regresses on the problem of thinking being as ultimate Being/essence.

Dimensions of Human Existence as Dimensions of the Hermeneutics

7

It is for this reason that Heidegger emphasizes the ontological difference between being and Being. For Heidegger, in the ungraspable actualization of being-event, an inaccessible “abyss” opens up. Theologically speaking, the ultimate reality has already been described by Nicholas of Cusa as “all in all” and yet as “nothing of all.” Thus, in a Christian context the immanence of the transcendent may become the ground for striving as well as the foundation of the most intimate relationship. Is the issue of the relationship between human finite reality and ultimate reality similarly applicable to Hinduism and Buddhism? How would the principle of Nicholas of Cusa be assessed from a Hindu or Buddhist perspective? Might it be helpful and applicable in an inter-religious context? Which significance does redemption as liberation have in this difference between “all in all” and “nothing of all”? Which additional or contradicting aspects can be detected in Buddhist traditions in the difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, or in Hindu traditions in the difference between the neuter brahman on one hand and the individual living being (jīvātman) on the other? Is the release from “egotism” (ahaṃkāra) accompanied by some kind of support from an other-power? If so, is this other-power a power that transcends the act of understanding to which human beings themselves are capable? Which aspects of the concept of transcendence, understood in terms of an event of a certain trans-immanence, would you accept, add, reject or regard as inadequate?

Personhood My anthropological approach tries to define personhood integratively and holistically. Personhood comprises world-bound existence, free intentionality, and living in and through relationships. The three anthropological dimensions related to ultimate reality are based on the concepts of being inaccessible or unavailable (Unverfügbares) and of being unconditioned (Unbedingtes), which are mediated through the possibility of human consciousness being naturalcosmomorphic, being personality-oriented sociomorphic, and being consciousness-oriented noomorphic. In order to apply this classification to God or the divine, a differentiation must be made between two perspectives: kataphatic accessibility and apophatic hiddenness. If personhood is favoured or identified within the kataphatic approach, the possibility and legitimacy of referring to a person according to the grammatical roles of the speaker (I: protopersonal; Thou: hyperpersonal; He/She/It: transpersonal) can be put to the test. If, however, the impersonal side is preferred, the question emerges of whether a further differentiation needs to be made. Under the term “impersonal,” motifs of nature (e. g. source, light, breath) and abstract concepts (e. g. energy field, abyss) can frequently be

8

Bernhard Nitsche

differentiated. The apophatic hiddenness extends beyond determinations such as being and non-being (Plato: epekeina tēs ousias). It describes a trans-categorical “beyond” and a pre-categorical “before,” which itself cannot be called personal or impersonal. In its strict beyondness, it is a complete emptiness of finite entities or concepts and a perfect and unfathomable completeness. It can thus, in a strict sense, not be called personal or impersonal, since logically it precedes any definition. This apóphasis thus explains the legitimacy of egological and non-egological interpretations of religious world views. It allows transcategorical and unconditioned origin to be imagined as an ultimate (and possibly divine) all-encompassing unity that has non-egologically (without activity on the part of the self) always been present in the world and in every human being. Another possibility is for the unconditioned to be imagined as a free activity, which is how it is unconditioned. And it is possible that these two perspectives are not separable in a strict sense, but should be seen as mutually complementary, because the absolutely unconditioned and the absolute are always found in the context of religious traditions. If this is the case, the pre-categorical origin, from which the world and free subjectivity emerge, is the origin of everything as complete emptiness and perfect completeness. Is the idea of the unconditioned and inaccessible helpful in interpreting the unfathomable origin or ultimate horizon in your tradition? Would you agree that there is a correlation between the ultimate dimension and human self-understanding in self-relation, social relations and world relations? Are aspects of the three basic dimensions mentioned above recognizable in the tradition you are dealing with? What supplementary statements or critical comments can you make?

Bernhard Nitsche

God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, and between Personality and Impersonality The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty that are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude.¹

With these words Albert Einstein expresses his religious approach to reality, what he calls “the apprehension of the marvelous structure of reality,” “the mystery of the eternity of life.” Consciousness he saw as the condition for striving to grasp “a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.”² If we follow Einstein, the human being appears as attuned to the immensity of a cosmos that is structured with divine regularity. This regularity, for Einstein, excluded arbitrariness and chance: God does not play dice, nor can he be thought of as rewarding and punishing human beings in their history. As in Spinoza, the fascinating logic of the cosmos excludes freedom. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims, and the sublimity and marvelous order that reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of development, e. g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling that knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image.³

 Einstein 1964: 69.  Einstein 2005: 10 f.  Einstein 2005: 18 f. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-004

10

Bernhard Nitsche

Awed at the beauty of nature, the luminous Milky Way, the living diversity of species or the singing of a nightingale, and struck as well by human masterpieces of art and technology, by joyful encounters and relationships, the human being begins to question his identity and his place in the vast cosmos. These questions deepen when one is faced with the finiteness of individual life, its limited time, fruitless toil, burdens of personal inadequacy and guilt. The questions weigh fearfully in face of people whose thin veneer of cultural domestication cracks and who then, wilder than the wildest animals, harass or destroy other lives, in perfidious malice or unbridled sadism. The human being is like a dancer between wonder at the immeasurable immensity of the universe and anguish about the radical contingency of his own existence as a living and intelligent grain of dust grain in a tiny niche of his galaxy. Human existence between appalled shivering and marveling elevation is a perilous and insecure path. One looks back in remembrance or thanking, and forward in anxiety and hope, always facing new questions and tasks, in a permanent travail of possible well-being or misery, success or failure, weal or woe. Life is an open-ended exploration in which each step is shaped by the one before, and shapes the one that follows, until the last step brings us face to face with death, which is either an exhausted fading or a devastating termination. What lies beyond is inconceivable, and what stretches around is infinite, and frustrates our grasp. Starting from this contrast between the finitude and contingency of existence and the vast enveloping horizon of unfathomable mystery, I should like to map different paths for thinking religious transcendence, and then attempt to bring the questions arising in interreligious dialogue into focus in light of this basic structure.

Human Existence and the Enfolding Infinite: Querying Transcendence According to David Bohm, relativity theory and quantum theory join in agreeing that it makes sense to understand the world as an undivided whole including each observer of the world so that these fuse into a totality. It is impossible to survey this totality, because each observer is part of this world, caught up in its process, and none can enjoy a “God’s eye view.” The last source of this processual, flowing reality is immeasurable and incomprehensible to us. Yet we face the structurally inescapable question of what this encompassing reality is and means. The answer is not necessarily given in a conscious and reflective manner; it may be given implicitly, indirectly in the everyday life tasks and questions that engage us. Death gives our existence a definite profile, and in running ahead to

God or the Divine?

11

death we anticipate this definitiveness. On the basis of the cosmic non-necessity of individual being – its limits, confirmed by the hard facticity of death, over against of the immensity of the whole of reality – each human being takes a stand in each act of his life in the immeasurable whole of reality and also takes a stance on the immeasurable whole of reality. A religious interpretation of life will understand the encompassing as an instance that is greater, and more comprehensive, and of a different quality than human existence in its current ‘Gestalt.’ If the last source of processual reality eludes knowledge, we live our existence nonetheless in the awareness that it is dependent on and “owed” to this ultimate source. We may seek to descry the ultimate boundless horizon in our conscious thought, but more fundamentally we discover ourselves in our lived reality as born from and obliged to this unsearchable horizon. Thomas Luckmann distinguishes between experiences of self-reference and self-transcendence, and between conscious experience and the concurrent horizon of the non-experienced. In all experience, humans have a subtle consciousness of the existence of things that are in fact or in principle beyond their experience of consciousness. The relation of our given experience to the vast horizon that exceeds it can be measured in terms of what Luckmann calls “small”, “medium”, and “great” transcendences.⁴ Small transcendence is experienced by each one in everyday praxis, insofar as the horizon of knowledge of a possible absence has a determining influence on an experience of presence “here and now.” So, I can travel far from my habitat and usual living conditions but then return to this habitat and come back to these familiar living conditions. Medium transcendences emerge with an interruption that exceeds what can be mastered in everyday life. For example, the encounter with other people never yields direct insight into their inwardness but only what is symbolically mediated by bodily-expressive linguistic acts. It is necessary to distinguish the great transcendences that are related to a structural absence and hiddenness from those small and medium ones. The turn away from everyday conscious life in sleep and dream leads to the boundary beyond which lies another reality than daily life. By this example, which recalls the Hindu distinction between waking, dreaming and deep sleep, Luckmann points to a plunge into another structurally elusive reality as a boundary of experience, a change of consciousness that may be typical for religious experience. Where this happens and the reemergence

 Cf. Luckmann 1991: 167– 182.

12

Bernhard Nitsche

from the other dimension is marked by compassion and solidarity, can we speak of a qualitatively new development of transcendence? Can such a qualitative change in consciousness and the epistemically altered view of reality linked with it be connected, for example, with the Buddhist change from blinded unseeingness to the seeing of suchness? Images of a cosmographic different place – a Pure Land or Heaven – yield to the phenomenon of a qualitatively different reality, which enables an epistemic change of consciousness. In Buddhist terms: Can such a change of consciousness presupposes a qualitative difference between saṃsaric and nirvāṇic existence, and thus a “soteriological difference” between saṃsara and nirvāṇa? The helpful distinction of Luckmann is nevertheless in need of supplementation. The question remains: Why is there a world at all, why are there spatially and temporally dimensioned events, process-like developments or conscious living? Why is there the gift of concrete existence and free thinking? All these questions can be bundled with Leibniz and Heidegger in the ontological question: “Why is something happening at all and not rather nothing?” Wittgenstein concludes: “Not how the world is, but that the world is – that is the mystical.”⁵ Even if all processes in the world could be reconstructed empirically, which appears problematic in view of the fact that subatomic processes cannot be predicted, the whole of reality shows itself to be a quantity that is always ahead of human thought and action as an “encompassing” factor. Heidegger’s talk of the event (Ereignis) in which the enigmas of the gift of existence and thought opens up can help us to reflect on “great transcendences” with the requisite refinement. The question of the meaning of being in “is”-statements overcomes the ontic level of categorically comprehensible being and every ontotheology which grasps being as logical foundation of existing entities. In this account of the eventuation of becoming no ground can any longer be discerned. Rather, the world of becoming is an unmasterable event and an unfathomable gift. Neither can one distinguish, in this happening of givenness, between the gift and its “whence,” a possible giver. Gift and horizon of the event of becoming fuse in one disclosure of meaning and discernment of meaning, which is given and given up to humans. What is meant by “Being” and “is” cannot be detached from concrete happening and the horizons of interpretation in which it is embedded. Heidegger’s interrogation of the “Es gibt” (“there is,” or literally “it gives”) leads him to that “Es” (“it”) that “gives” Being and thinking in the “event.” Thus the “it” that gives Being and thinking in the “event” is the discreet

 Wittgenstein 2004: 6. 44.

God or the Divine?

13

pointer to a whence of the event, which is transcendent to humans and eludes their control. Its presence can never be detached from the network of becoming but is disclosed only therein: Since Heidegger is attentive to the temporality of the happening of truth, the togetherness of concealment and unconcealment, he succeeds in reaching a determination of the meaning of Being, or in other words the truth of Being, in which the factor of time, which in the received understanding of Being remained concealed in what was more essential, is brought to speech in its own identity: Being as Event. […This] identity of Being […] brings beings into their essence in such a way that this essence remains a property of the event. The essence […] is not a constantly present, ever identical idea, holding true above and beyond time, but the unmasterably destined historical essence.⁶

How is the whole of reality, which encompasses human existence, to be determined? As in a journey across the wide sea, this immeasurable horizon recedes in the same degree as one supposes oneself to be reaching or penetrating it. Human questions are endless in their very structure, and the horizon is even more so. As Karl Rahner says: The mystery in its incomprehensibility is the self-evident. If transcendence […] is the simplest, most self-evident, most necessary condition of the possibility of all spiritual understanding and comprehension, then actually the […] mystery is the only self-evident thing. […] What is more familiar and self-evident to the mind that has come to itself, thematically or unthematically, than the silent questioning beyond everything already conquered and controlled? What makes us wise if not the humble and loving acceptance of being exceeded by this questioning? Man knows nothing in the last depth more precisely than that his knowledge, i. e. what is called that in everyday life, is only a small island in an infinite ocean of the unexplored, a floating island, which may be more familiar to us than this ocean, but is ultimate borne by it and only so can be a bearer, so that the existential question to the knower is whether he loves more the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of the infinite mystery.⁷

In any case, the horizon does not denote a thing-like, ontic backdrop. The horizon of the whole of existence is rather marked as a mystery. The truth that reveals itself in this horizon is not a truth of judgement, as it applies to the manageable and perspicuous sequences of finite reality that are investigated in empirical sciences. The horizon as that which encompasses everything can no longer be encompassed. That is why the truth of the whole of reality is no longer categorically grasped and judged, but testified to in existential statements. With Karl Rahner we can speak of the horizon as a mystery:  Pöggeler 1959: 625.  Rahner 1999: 27 f.

14

Bernhard Nitsche

The whither of transcendence cannot be disposed of, but is the infinite, mute disposal of us in the very moment when we begin to dispose of something.⁸ The concept ‘God’ is not a laying-hold of God, through which man takes charge of the mystery, but a letting oneself be seized by a mystery that is present but is always withdrawing.⁹

Can this being grasped by mystery be associated with the concern of shinjin (信 心) in Pure Land Buddhism? In this Buddhist school, “Buddha” is literally translated as the one who sees. Man is the one who does not see. This not seeing, however, inevitably appears to man as a seeing. It is on this basis that all the consequent forms of not seeing arise. Man considers non-being to be being, the transitory to be eternal, the non-self to be self. If a person recognizes himself as a mind trapped in saṃsāra, he becomes aware that he is trapped in absolute forlornness. Shinjin refers to the trusting mind, which expects to be transformed through being touched by the Buddha.¹⁰ But is the human sense of the term shinjin (信心) an active grasping or a passive being grasped? If the act of trust means actively letting oneself go and surrendering oneself into the buddha–nature, it realizes the non-duality between one’s own mind and the one mind (一心) that underlies everything.¹¹ In this coherent unity the spirit of trust is realized. At the same time, the question remains whether there can still be a distinction in this unity between the trusting spirit of man and the trust-enabling spirit of Buddha.

Religiosity as “Taste for the Infinite” A life-determining symbolic system can only be called religious if its connection with ultimate reality opens onto the unconditioned, a dimension that cannot be mastered by inner-worldly categories. René Descartes argued that the human mind cannot develop the idea of an infinite out of itself. The notion of the infinite is granted to the mind, as a gift that cannot be a delusion. Emmanuel Levinas points out that the idea of infinity is not a concept.¹² Rather, it directs thinking beyond all factual contents that can be conceptualized, beyond all totality, beyond all imaginable fulness and perfection.

 Rahner 2005: 193 ff.  Rahner 1999: 63.  See Hirota 2010: 207– 231.  Cf. Rumel 2018: 241– 261.  Levinas 1992: 28.

God or the Divine?

15

In this respect the idea of the infinite– in face of the network of questions indicated by Heidegger – presents an unmasterable breaking-in of transcendence, which is anarchic as there is no identifiable origin of being in the sense of a comprehensible cause. On the one hand, the idea of the unconditioned and infinite is a necessary guiding star of reason. On the other hand, the idea asks too much of any conception of it. So, Saskia Wendel emphasizes, “not only does the capacity to transcend ourselves and to refer to ‘great’ transcendences lie at the center of religiosity and religion but also the ‘capacity of the unconditioned’ (Kant) and faith in the existence of an absolutely unconditioned, an ‘all-determining reality’ (Bultmann). This unconditioned can be defined in different ways, either theistically or nontheistically. This ‘idea of the unconditioned’ corresponds to the Cartesian ‘idea of the infinite’. The term ‘unconditioned’, however, has the advantage of not being easily confused with Hegel’s false infinite (‘das Schlecht-Unendliche’).”¹³ Schleiermacher already understood religiosity as a subjective attitude within a sense of total dependence and of indebted existence. He thus connected human existence to a positive expression of metaphysical infinity. In his Speeches on Religion he proclaims that “Religion is a sense and a taste for the infinite.”¹⁴ Encounters with the worldly and finite imply a reference to the infinite. “To embrace each particular as part of the whole, everything limited as representation of the infinite, that is religion.”¹⁵ And Hegel concludes with an equally positive concept of the infinite as metaphysical presumption of existence: “To love God is to feel oneself in the whole of life limitless in the infinite.”¹⁶ However we judge these philosophical approaches, in each case the demand of human reason is linked with the idea of infinity, marked as unconditioned and unmasterable. For Thomas Rentsch, “insight into the unmasterable conditions of the meaning of our existence” opens a perspective on the vast horizon of the whole of reality and a non-objectifiable infinite. But at the same time “life in practical recognition of the transcendence of the world of others and myself is the presupposition of all rational common praxis.”¹⁷ Thus the great ideas – of freedom, infinity and ultimate reality – are existential assumptions in a practical conduct of life. Further reflection on the infinite produces three viewpoints. The first two bring up the whole of reality as a perfect maximum under the idea of subjectivity     

Wendel 2018: 89 – 90; cf. Wendel 2010: 49 – 57. Schleiermacher 2001: 212. Schleiermacher 2001: 214. Hegel 1970: 251. Rentsch 2010: 12.

16

Bernhard Nitsche

or under the idea of being. The third disrupts all attempts to image the maximum by radicalizing the idea of the infinite. First, the idea of freedom shows itself to be indispensable if human beings are to be understood as autonomous and self-responsible beings. Only the idea of freedom, lodged in the conscious human mind, can explain why human beings, although they are restricted by physical and bio-chemical, social and psychological dispositions, are not entirely subject to them. The formally unconditional spontaneity enables man to start something new, to multiply or vary the possibilities of life, or to develop systems of meaning that render the whole of reality meaningful. Freedom, in the sense of a formally unconditioned ability, allows us to develop the idea of an unconditioned subjectivity. Inasmuch as in the process of practical life the content that fills out freedom can only be freedom itself, freedom finds its fulfillment in willing the freedom of others and in releasing and letting be the freedom of others. This primary content of freedom is itself in need of orientation in one’s concrete living, that is, in face of the contingencies and ambivalences of human life. The guiding star of such orientation is the idea of a freedom that is not merely formally unconditioned, but is also materially filling every content and is thus fully achieved. In the event of the human realization of freedom, the idea of such a perfect freedom may occur to the human mind. It is the idea of pure unconditionedness and pure setting-free of the freedom of others. In affirmative willing of the other as a free other it is not merely unconditional spontaneity, but also an emblem of loving and compassionate acceptance. In this tradition the Divine can be thought under the leading idea of utmost subjectivity, which cannot be understood as being, but as “Lord of Being”¹⁸ and ground or spontaneous origin of being. Second, there is a tradition which understands the question of being as bearing on a primary oneness before a separation and judgement. This all-oneness is conceived as the ground of conscious life. This unifying ground of consciousness is sufficient condition of unity which enables the unity of the different aspects of human consciousness. This trans-numerical all-oneness is differentiated in itself and characterized by the fact that it differentiates everything else in and from

 Schelling, 1966: Das Letzte nun aber, was existiren kann, ist die Potenz, die […] reiner Actus ist, […] die seyende Potenz […]; wenn sie existirt, so kann sie nur a priori seyn, das Seyn zum prius haben; wir könnten sie deshalb auch das umgekehrte Seynkönnende nennen” (1, 155 f.). “Wenn Gott sein Prius im actus hat, so wird er seine Gottheit in der Potenz haben, darin daß er die potentia universalis, als diese das Ueberseyende, der Herr des Seyns ist” (1, 160).

God or the Divine?

17

itself, so that factual plurality and grounding unity cannot be separated from one another but play in one another. Third: Anselm of Canterbury first pointed in his Proslogion to the connection of the idea of the Divine with the idea of utmost perfection (Proslogion 2: credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit). Here the ideas of perfect subjectivity and comprehensive transnumeric all-oneness can be understood as conclusions of utmost perfection. However, Anselm later concluded from the idea of Deus semper maior that the Divine is not only greater than anything that can be thought but is so great that it cannot be thought at all (Proslogion 15: Domine non solum es quo maius cogitari nequit sed est quiddam maius quam cogitari possit).¹⁹ This ambition of a radicalization of transcendence and unknowability shattering from within all concepts of the idea of the infinite can draw on Plato’s insight that thinking of the Divine is a remembrance of what is beyond Being, epekeina tēs ousias, and also beyond thinking, as Plotinus makes explicit.²⁰ This permits one to speak of an ultra-transcendence that withdraws from thought, and that can no longer be intimated except through a negation of non-being and nonnon-being, as something utterly beyond nothingness and beyond being, as we see expressed for example in mystical speech as a darkness that is brighter than light. This incomprehensible and inconceivable can be displayed only in the sense of ultra-transcendent super-fulness, super-being, and pre-originality in its perfection, because it is greater and more perfect than all (necessarily finite and perspectival) imagination of perfect subjectivity, perfect being, or perfect fulness.

Approaching Transcendence via the Human Reference to Self, Society, and World The array of possibilities of religious interpretation of great transcendence can become accessible starting with basic structures of human nature and their interpretation in conscious life. My pivotal hypothesis is that the array of perspectives of human existence prefigures the ways we can relate to transcendence. Human existence is phenomenologically characterized by three dimensions, each of which generates a specific realm of experience for religious relations to transcendence – relatedness to the world, social reference, self-reference. Religious transcendence can be defined in terms of each of the three. We may iden-

 www.http://12koerbe.de/pan/proslog.htm#2; Abruf 2016.  Cf. Halfwassen 2006: 125 – 180, esp. 155 – 157.

18

Bernhard Nitsche

tify different forms of temporal presence of the divine: It may be natural-cosmographic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic. These three basic dimensions correspond in a certain respect to the personal pronounces I, You, and (He, She, or) It, and accordingly with the modalities of diaphanous, dialogical, und epiphanic connection. (a) World-reference: Human beings are embodied in the world. As corporeal or material beings, they are part of their cosmic and natural “environment.” As homo mundanus man knows himself inserted in a material world and nature that is given to him in an ontic manner and superordinate in an evolutionary way.²¹ Thus, experiences of nature play a major role in the modern world view, influenced by the sciences. This tendency is reinforced by a neo-ecological consciousness. The appearance and pervasion of a potential divine presence in impressive natural experiences and natural atmospheres is widely attested, and was a central theme of the Romantic movement. Wolfhart Pannenberg tells of a long walk of several hours through a snow-covered landscape, on his return from school in the winter of 1945: An extraordinary event occurred in which I found myself absorbed into the light of the setting sun and for one eternal moment dissolved in the light surrounding me. When I became aware again of my finite existence, I did not know what had happened but certainly knew that it was the most important event of my life; I spent many years afterwards to find out what it meant to me.²²

It is not only interpersonal experience or the call of conscience that make many people ask for the unconditioned. Often it is the “starry heavens” above them that raise the major questions of the whence and whither, the wherein and wherefore of life. When such diaphanous experiences of nature are understood in the horizon of the divine which is effective in nature, and superordinate to it, then the divine may be understood as ground or principle of cosmic reality. Then, each ray of light, each leaf in the wind and each intense experience of nature can become a sign (nutum) of the inconceivable (numen). That is why ultimate reality can appear diaphanously as a subtle or majestic experience of nature. As a cosmic reason for natural processes, ultimate reality is often figured as supreme It, as when Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas defines the di-

 Cf. Welsch: 2012.  Pannenberg 1988: 11– 18, here: 12.

God or the Divine?

19

vine ground as unmoved mover, first cause, or necessary being.²³ In other traditions and religious contexts the world is seen as the body of God.²⁴ Vedic hymns praise that deity which forms the ultimate origin “beyond heaven and beyond earth, beyond the gods, […] in which all gods are included,” a reality which creatures are unable to find (Ṛg Veda 10,82,5 ff.). It can only be described as the one origin of everything (Ṛg Veda 10,129,1 ff.): “Who knows for certain, who can proclaim it here, where it came from, where creation came from? The gods (came) only afterwards through the creation of this (world). Who then knows from what it has developed?”²⁵ This question about the origin was unfolded henotheistically, monotheistically or monistically.²⁶ (b) Social reference: Human beings are social beings. Thus, they are involved in interaction and communication, part of a world full of relationships with others. But they not entirely taken up in the material environment nor in the social world that surrounds them. It is through the body that they become mutually accessible as You and I, as Jacobi, Rosenzweig and Buber emphasized. They live from the beginning in and through relationships. This relationality of the human inevitably becomes more important in the religious realm. One has to distinguish the realm of personal encounter, and the functional order of social roles and tasks, and to conceive of the social dimension in a way that does justice to both. In many religious traditions the thought of a divine reality in an ethical and soteriological transcendence combines with the image of God as a supreme Thou. Such motives can be found in both biblical and Hindu traditions. The distinction between personal relationships and functional roles emerges in the divine realm, when the divine, on one hand, is seen as a potter or creator, or as a king and warlord, and, on the other hand, is addressed as savior and Redeemer. As soon as a human being imagines the whole of reality and refers to it, he imagines a counterpart over against him, the addressee of prayer and adoration in a dialogical manner. This happens even when the encompassing horizon is understood as Mother Nature. A dualism, making the horizon itself a final object that one can deal with and thus considering the horizon no longer as a horizon but as an entity in the horizon, must be overcome. In many religions calling on the supreme Thou is connected to the hope for salvation or release. As an example, we may cite the Vedic prayer: “Supreme Lord, ruling the spheres, hear, O wise God,

   

Cf. Bromand/Kreis 1998. Markschies 2016. Mehlig 1967: 68 f. Schmidt-Leukel 2014: 143 – 177.

20

Bernhard Nitsche

as you pass on your way. Free us from fetters of every sort. Loosen our bonds that we may live!”.²⁷ (c) Self-reference: Man experiences himself as agent in this task of self-determination and self-identification and he is conscious of this activity of his.²⁸ Thomas Nagel stresses that the first person perspective is indispensable: The statement ‘I am TN’ is true if and only if uttered by TN. […] They can’t be replaced by third-person analyses.²⁹

The historical and social varieties this self-awareness takes, in the “modes of subjectivization” studied by Michel Foucault,³⁰ are also relevant to a religious self-understanding. They are activated religiously, for example, when God is introduced as an auto-poietic and sovereign power of action. Then the “Thou” address or “He” predication implies a first-person perspective, as expressed in biblical “I am” statements, such as the epiphanic self-presentation of JHWH at Horeb (Ex 3,14) or the divine self-commitment to liberating exodus of Israel (Dtn 5,6). Another example in the context of Indian tradition is Bhagavadgītā: For those who see me everywhere and see all things in me, I am never lost, nor are they ever lost to me (Bhagavadgītā 6.30 – 31). Although I am unborn, the Lord of all living entities, and have an imperishable nature, yet I appear in this world by virtue of Yogamaya (māyā), my divine power. Whenever there is a decline in righteousness and an increase in unrighteousness, O Arjuna, at that time I manifest myself on earth. To protect the righteous, to annihilate the wicked, and to reestablish the principles of dharma I appear on this earth, age after age (Bhagavadgītā 6.6 – 8).

In concrete religions and their reflective traditions, we find mixed types of networking and more complex networked relations between human starting points and divine referents. That provides a wider context for the usual personal-impersonal alternative. Thus, our thought of transcendence may begin with a God conceived as supreme subject, and then as Creator addressed as supreme Thou, and move to the idea of a ground of nature that is experienced as operative in its release of beings

 Quoted according to Panikkar 1977: 150.  Cf. Rudder Baker 2007: 203 – 226: “We may hope for a naturalistic theory of the mechanisms that underwrite a first-person perspective. (Metzinger 2003b: 395) But on my view, the ‘I’ who is the genuine subject of experience is a person: an object in the world whose first-person perspective is irreducible and ineliminable.”  Nagel 1986: 58.  Foucault 1986: 40.

God or the Divine?

21

into their effective existence. Conversely, we might begin with an all-unity that differentiates everything in itself and on its own terms, and then discern that it functions as what grounds and opens up the dimensions of self-reference, social reference and world-reference. However, there is a debate in the theory of the subject on how to found the self-acquaintance of the self in its original unconditioned spontaneity and in its unity with all possible conscious ideas it has of itself, or all possible conscious volitions. But this field transcends the phenomenon of self-acts and calls for a grounding that logically antecedes conscious thinking. One has to distinguish from these three phenomenologically describable fundamental dimensions of being human the question of the unifying principle that explains why man is able to refer to the world as environing world, to other living beings and human beings as co-world, and to himself. On this level of grounding we may explore egological and non-egological approaches.³¹ What holds the three dimensions together may be either the idea of perfect freedom (cf. Krings 1964; 1973: 633 ff.) or the idea of a self-differentiating all-unity (Henrich). The conditions of unity are founded egologically in the free subjectivity of man himself.³² God emerges in this perspective as unhindered freedom and pure intelligence, an everlasting activity, eternally self-fulfilled as a subject of paramount love and joy, compassion and peace. In an alternative approach, the unity of the subject and the self-acquaintance of the “I” can be explained non-egologically by a metaphysical reduction. Dieter Henrich and others connect different aspects of human consciousness with a prior ground of consciousness, which is “present and operative”³³ in the activities of consciousness. It is defined a “trans-personal principle” and even as a neuter “it.”³⁴ From this perspective one may envisage an absolute mental consciousness, for example ātman, which does not appear. It is consciousness reality per se and blissful Being (sat, cit and ānanda). It is the ground of the mental consciousness and necessary ground of Being behind all appearances. In the dialogue with Hindu approaches it is still to be clarified whether the supreme and irreducible nirguṇa brahman is better imaged according to the idea of the all-unity which differentiates everything out of itself, or in terms of a transcategorical ‘beyond’ and a pre-categorical ‘before.’    

Nitsche 2018a: 7– 30, esp.: 15 – 19; Nitsche 2018b: 31– 88; Nitsche 2018c: 384– 405. Cf. Nitsche 2003: 209 – 239; Tetens 2016: 35; 37; 41, Anm.13. Henrich 1989: 106 – 170, here: 168. Henrich 1992: 637.

22

Bernhard Nitsche

When the ultimate condition of unity can be thought of both non-egologically as comprehensive all-Being, and egologically as the idea of perfect freedom and supreme subjectivity, then theistic and non-theistic apprehensions of the ultimate appear legitimate. We may say that they can be understood as not only mutually complementary, but mutually constitutive. Both, egological and non-egological lines of thought lead to an inconceivable ultimate Whence and Whither. This can be displayed only in the paradoxical complementarity of a complete emptiness of names and forms (śūnyatā) which may refer in a non-discriminating openness to an inexhaustible plenitude.³⁵ The idea of the unfathomable infinite and the ultra-transcendent Whence shatters imaging approaches. Thus, if śūnyatā is an indication for the ineffable, for an inaccessible emptiness and infinite interminability, one can say with Masao Abe: “śūnyatā is non-śūnyatā (aśūnyatā); therefore, it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyanta-śūnyatā).”³⁶

Further Questions Buddhist: How is the Unconditioned of Nirvāṇa to be Understood? According to Edward Conze, any concept of nirvāṇa as a transcendent reality standing over against the world is to be excluded from the tradition of the Middle Way. Such a concept is considered an illusion. All the more interesting is Anne MacDonald’s suggestion, in her outline of Madhyamaka, that Nāgārjuna relates the logic of negation of the catuṣkoṭi to all finite reality, but explicitly does not apply it to ultimate reality itself. The following question arises: Can there be a soteriologically pertinent difference between the reality of saṃsāra and the reality of nirvāṇa? Or does saṃsara rather merge into the sea of nirvāṇa like a drop of water?³⁷ According to Edward Conze and Helmuth Glasenapp, this corresponds to an inner-Buddhist controversy.³⁸

 Panikkar 1989; Panikkar 1993: 78; 155 f.  Masao Abe 1990: 5 – 25, here: 20 – 22. Stylistic adaption by B.N.  MacDonald 1998: 180 – 189, here: 189.  Glasenapp 1966: 141– 170, describes this difference in the following way: “For the small vehicle saṃsāra is entirely different from nirvāṇa. The only connection between the two is that human beings in slowly maturing to salvation (going through different modes of existence) gradually go from darkness through daybreak until daylight dawns in them. […] In Mahayana the dualism is sought to be annihilated. […] Even in the smallest being, the seed of Buddhahood lies hidden, the future beam of perfection is slumbering” (168). See Conze 1995: 180.

God or the Divine?

23

Related to this we can ask if the aspects, subsumed under the key concept of the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta), display functional equivalencies with the concept of unconditioned reality. The European tradition unites the unconditioned with the idea of the infinite or the absolute. Helmut von Glasenapp denotes the asaṃskṛtas as adharma, that is, in contrast to the conditioned dharma. This unconditioned dharma is neither subject to conditioned existence nor subjected to perishability. Moreover, according to his view, all Buddhist schools agree that “nirvāṇa is an asaṃskṛta”³⁹. Erich Frauwallner emphasizes a certain continuity in Hindu thinking, seeing Gautama Siddhārtha’s change from saṃsara to nirvāṇa as a transformation process analogous to fire.⁴⁰ In this perspective Conze sees nirvāṇa as unconditioned and absolute reality. It is “eternal, stable, everlasting, immoveable, neither subjected to age nor death, unborn; it means power, blessing and beatitude and is a place of refuge, a shelter, a place of impregnable security; it is truth and ultimate reality; it is good, the ultimate objective and the only fulfillment of our life; eternal, secret and inconceivable peace.”⁴¹ I would like to emphasize the possible ambiguity of interpretations based on Steven Collins’s major study.⁴² His account of “nirvāṇa” opposes the eternalism and annihilationism into which many western scholars fall: When nirvāṇa is said to be vibhava it should be understood not as absolute nonexistence… nirvāṇa has ‘existence’, atthita, from root as, to be – but as the opposite of conditioned existence.

Therefore, nirvāṇa is “apart from” or “separate from” the chain of dependent origination. This sense is the one to be seen in the use of vibhava as an equivalent of nirvāṇa: it is ‘apart from rebirth-existence’.⁴³

 Glasenapp 1966: 142.  Frauwallner 1953: 226 f.: “There is, monks, an unborn – unbecome – unmade – unfabricated. If there were not that unborn – unbecome – unmade – unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born – become – made – fabricated would be discerned.”  Cf. Conze 1995: 36.  Collins 2006.  Collins 2006: 204 f.

24

Bernhard Nitsche

In Theravada “nirvāṇa is not merely the destruction of passion, hatred and delusion, but exists separately (pātiyyekkam).”⁴⁴ The central argument for such an unconditioned and existing nirvāṇa is: If nirvāṇa did not exist, or were merely the destruction of passion, etc., it could not be the object of the knowledge which arises in the Path, beginning from the very first stage of the Change-of-Lineage, and so the Path would be futile.⁴⁵

This argument presupposes that since the Path exists, the goal of the Path must exist as well. In contrast, the Abhidhammāvatāra has the opponent assert that nirvāṇa is “just a concept” (pannatti-mattam).⁴⁶ Collins resumes the possibilities in a non-discriminating understanding. He claims that premodern Pali texts […] can be seen to regard future Buddhas as simultaneously distant and near – distant in a non-repetitive time, in a remote future, and near as present again and again and culminating in complete and absolute felicity.⁴⁷

All-encompassing Unity and Oneness in Buddhism? Both Śaṅkara and Hegel criticized the “false infinite” as an infinitesimal chain (X + 1). In their opinion, infinity or perfection will never be reached like this. So, the question arises of whether it is possible to visualize such an all-encompassing instance with the help of the concept of dependent arising (pratītya samutpāda). Does the pearl necklace or Indra’s net describe a chain that might be called infinite in the sense of perfection? Or is it rather a chain that perpetuates finite cause-and-effect relationships, and that is formally interminable, but as a mathematical chain is, without beginning or end but never generating a positive concept of infinity and plenitude? Or is it possible to think an all-encompassing unity in different ways? How can this infinitesimal chain of reciprocally interreflecting jewels enable unity, when the inexhaustible interpenetrations are not ends in themselves, but in endless deferral again and again denying the mind an ultimate point to focus on? Traditionally, the discontinuity of passing impressions and moments that results from the teaching of anatta is explained through the concept of pratītya-samutpāda. On the one hand, the principle can describe an infinitesimal chain as

   

Collins Collins Collins Collins

2006: 180. 2006: 181. 2006: 184. 2006: 394. 423.

God or the Divine?

25

the co-arising of finite co-conditions. Therefore, the term “interdependent coorigination” is common. Lambert Schmithausen criticizes this notion of co-origination because of its metaphoric connectedness with creation and emphasizes the karmic context of the early Buddhist tradition, which is different also from the later development: The idea of a mutual dependence, inter-connectedness or interrelatedness, here and now, of all things and beings does not seem to be expressed in the canonical texts of early Buddhism. They only teach that […] all things and events, except nirvāṇa, arise in dependence on specific (complexes of) causes and conditions.⁴⁸

The position of mutual interrelatedness was developed later in Chinese Buddhism. Beginning with the buddha-nature as primary truth, there can also be an infinite co-arising of infinite and finite co–conditions. According to Dennis Hirota, the following pertains to true existence: “‘Emptiness is form’ expresses the affirmation of things that are rightly perceived to exist only interrelated with all other things.”⁴⁹ Thereby the problem of continuity is focussed on the interpretation of the chain of pratītya-samutpāda. Traditionally this network meant to reveal the reasons and conditions of reincarnation. Provided that any differentiation of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is empty (śūnya), the differentiation between “conditioned” or “unconditioned,” between “existent” and “non-existent” or “same” and “different” seems negated. But how can the change from deluded to awakened existence or the continuity of karmic impulses and the continuity of birth be understood in Buddhism if the difference of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is empty? How can the tradition of the Jātakas be understood? According to these, Buddha lived a series of myriad existences (traditionally for about 3 x 1050 aeons). The eternal buddha-nature serves to guarantee continuity within the change of biographies and the qualitative difference between deluded and awakened existence. Can the buddha-nature, as Dōgen describes it in the “Sūtra of Mountains and Rivers”, denote a basic unity of existence? Dōgen emphasizes that water has to be seen as itself and that in it the buddha-nature appears, as well as in

 Schmithausen 1997: 1– 74, here: 13 f.  Hirota/Ueda 1989: 64: “Thus, ‘Form is emptiness’ is taken as a denial of the existence of permanent, substantial things as we ordinarily perceive them, and ‘Emptiness is form’ expresses the affirmation of things that are rightly perceived to exist only interrelated with all other things. The first ‘form’ is said to express the perspective of false discrimination, while the second expresses true wisdom.”

26

Bernhard Nitsche

all reality. Is it possible, in the light of the instruction to “transcend the differentiation of opposites, discover reality in its entirety and achieve detachment”⁵⁰ to infer that the buddha-nature is “present in the mountains, spirits, trees, earth, stones, fences and walls”?⁵¹ To put the question differently: Can the “buddha-nature,” in Dōgen’s sense, be interpreted as a dynamic trans-immanence, which at once both eludes our grasp and is universally immanent? śūnyatā transcends the very duality of time and timelessness, multiplicity and oneness; śūnyatā and aśūnyatā therefore it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyanta-śūnyatā). That is why: Nikon is not a notion, that would contradict the fundamental impermanence of all things, for it is not to be taken as some crypto-eternalism. Rather, there is a quality of each ‘event’ from one moment of Being-time to the next moment of Being-time, and this quality is characterized by a unity of present, past and future in one focus of awareness, and at the same time it establishes ‘event’, that is to say, difference.⁵²

Hinduism: Advaita and Monism Since Paul Hacker at the latest, we are accustomed to think of Śaṅkara as representing a monistic-illusionistic direction of Vedānta.⁵³ If monism is conceived as strict unity with the divine, as is the case with Śaṅkara, it becomes difficult to do justice to the real givenness of the world and its autonomy. One might start instead with the cosmic whole and progress to a deification of nature, as in Spinoza and Einstein. In the first case, according to which God is everything (theopantism), there is a tendency to diminish the world and finally to let it perish in the deity, so that one can speak of an acosmism of this divinely oriented philosophy of reason, an idealism separated from the concrete world. In the second case, everything or that All is identical with God (= pantheism) and the divine is structured cosmos-wise. But the deifying exaltation of nature

 Dōgen 1977: 32– 39, here: 39.  Dōgen 1983: 167– 174, here: 168.  Michael von Brück 2019: 11 and here 16: “According to Fatsang, the “suddenness” of awakening in Ch’an means that the transcendental unity and the individual phenomena are not separated, or in other words duality is not different from the highest goal of unity. The Many are in the One, and the One is in the Many. One does not annihilate the other, but both are united in a higher form of dynamic unity.”  Hacker 1949: 7.

God or the Divine?

27

can also minimize the divine in favor of nature in such a way that pantheism becomes ideological materialism and atheism. The monistic interpretation of brahman is widely known. Therefore, I take the lesser known interpretative direction of Anantanand Rambachan to indicate a possible alternative. He himself will expose the chances for the ChristianHindu dialogue in his contribution. Whoever tries to answer the question whether Advaita Vedānta, which rejects any dualism in God as well as between God and the world, must necessarily be a strict monism, will first have to deal with the fact that for Śaṅkara the Upaniṣads are the binding source of liberating knowledge and the conclusion of the Vedas. According to Rambachan: It is extremely important to emphasize that the words of the text do not reveal the intrinsic nature of brahman. This transcends all direct definitions and explanations. The content of liberating knowledge is the identity between the self (ātman) and the limitless brahman and brahman as the single ontological reality, non-different from the essential nature of everything. This is not the same as knowing the constitutive nature of brahman.⁵⁴

Therefore, all terms and categories are insufficient to characterize brahman in its essence. This applies even to familiar formulations like the sat-cid-ānanda, because all concepts and categories can only be applied meaningfully to finite objects: The nature of brahman as ultimate mystery is best illustrated by Śaṅkara’s unequivocal argument for the limits of commonly used terms. Although the term sat (being/existence/ timeless), for example, is widely used in contemporary Advaita discourse to characterize brahman, Śaṅkara contends that brahman transcends the categories of being and nonbeing, existence and nonexistence. Such terms are only properly applicable to objects in time and space.⁵⁵

Already Paul Deussen pointed out that brahman withdraws in the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, inasmuch as it indicates that dimension which the human will, striving after the divine, aims at as the holy, in prayer. In this withdrawal brahman is not to be understood as the detached or the absolute, but as dynamic. In particular, the characterizations of theism and monism do not apply to this apóphasis, in which brahman is to be understood as supra-personal rather than a-personal, because exceeding all personality.⁵⁶ As the ultimate transpersonal

 Rambachan 2006: 64.  Rambachan 2006: 64.  Deussen 1883: 127.

28

Bernhard Nitsche

mystery in the dynamics of prayer, it is at once the true essence of all reality and thus the true essence of both the spiritual life of people and of the world. To answer the question of monism, we must first assess the understanding of advaita, and then examine the relationship between brahman and world, finally turning to the essential equality between nirguṇa brahman, saguṇa brahman and ātman. To unfold this and to put the problem in concrete terms, let me discuss Śaṅkara in outline, without entering into exegetical detail. Within the Christian-Hindu dialogue, the determination of identity and difference with the Christian tradition crystalizes in the question whether the non-dualism (advaita) between divine and human realities allows one to discern differentiations. The point is to distinguish aspects without separating them. Discerning differentiations and distinctions is comparatively unproblematic for Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and especially for Dvaita Vedānta traditions. The problem remains significant in dialogue with Advaita Vedānta as well as with Radakrishnan’s Neo-Hindu synthesis. Śaṅkara understands his approach as advaita-vāda or as abheda-darśana. When he speaks of dvaitavādapratiṣedha, the aim is to banish divided duality. In principle, he wants brahman to be nirguṇa, thus without proliferation (prapañca), in the sense of the multiplication of erroneous concepts, ideas, and ideologies which obscure the true nature of reality. The “phenomenal world” does not exist as separate from brahman. Yet the brahman reality is clearly differentiated from the perspective of saṃsāra with its separations and divisions. Advaita is defined not only as non-dualism but as naming the identical essence of human and divine consciousness. Paul Hacker says: Dvaita is usually translated as dualism, but in Śaṅkara-Vedānta it is usually not ‘dualism’ but ‘the condition that there is another’. With the term ‘dualism’, the attention is not drawn to two realities, but to the second reality, the world. Thus, the word is often used synonymously with prapañca (the world which faces ātman as ‘the second reality’).⁵⁷

Tilmann Vetter, building critically on Hacker’s and de Smet’s thesis, recommends that advaita be translated ex negativo as ‘without plurality’. In any case, the declared goal of Śaṅkara in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya is to stop the expansion of name (noetic) and shape (noematic) (nāmarūpaprapañcapravilāpanena).⁵⁸ The

 Hacker 1978: 69 – 109, here 76. I thank Fabian Völker for this and the following two references.  “As one who is ill, is well again after the illness has disappeared (rogārtasyeva roganivṛttau svasthatā), so the self, if it is marked by suffering, is well again after the expansion of plurality has ceased (tathā duḥkhātmakasyātmano dvaitaprapañcopaśame svasthatā); thus, the aim is the

God or the Divine?

29

“shape-content-complexes” (or nāmarūpe as objective and subjective modus operandi of prapañca) have to be seen in their conjunction with brahman as the true essence of all that exists. In its over-abundance as the very essence of all things, brahman cannot be defined either in terms of a dualism or a monism between brahman and the world: For instance, an ocean consists of water, waves, foam, bubbles, etc. which appear and disappear, but are a part and parcel of the ocean itself – real in the true sense of the word. Similarly, the entire dual universe, corresponding to the waves etc. on the water, is absolutely real, while the supreme brahman stands for the ocean water […].

Śaṅkara answers as follows: All this is wrong, […]. You cannot establish brahman, the one without a second, by the general rule, and then make an exception in one part of It; for It cannot have any part, simply because It is the one without a second. […] with regard to brahman, the Reality, there cannot be any option about Its being either dual or monistic, for the Self is not a matter depending on a person’s choice. Besides there is a contradiction involved in the same thing being both one and many.⁵⁹

How, therefore, can the relationship between the one brahman and the many of the world be described in more detail if it cannot be determined by the categories of dualism and monism?

Hinduism: The World as Proceeding from Brahman Contrary to traditions that regard the world as a spawn of māyā, Śaṅkara holds that the world emerges from brahman and corresponds in its essence to brahman. So, it is the unlimited and liberated sport (līlā) that without limitation and without effort brings the world out of itself. The world is thus the self-expression of brahman’s omniscience and infinity.⁶⁰ Like other Upaniṣads, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6. 2. 3) stresses the desire of brahman for self-multiplication and birth. Brahman thought to itself: “Let me become many. Let me propagate myself.” This desire is not incompatible with the superabundance of being,

state [of the self] of being plurality-less (advaitabhāvaḥ prayojanam). But as the expansion that is inherent to plurality is generated by unknowing (dvaitaprapañcasya cāvidyākṛtatvāt), it is stopped through knowledge (vidyayā tadupaśamaḥ syāt).” Māṇḍūkyakārikābhāṣya 1979, 36.  Śaṅkara 1997, 5, 1, 1.  Rambachan 2006: 93 – 97.

30

Bernhard Nitsche

which expresses itself in creation, because bliss is the origin, the reinforcement and the end of all being (Taittirīya Upaniṣad 3. 6. 1). If māyā stands for the unreal and the non-existent, then the question remains how, the existing can emerge from the non-existent and the unreal (Chandogya Upaniṣad 6. 2. 1– 2). Anyone who does not want to see Advaita Vedānta as an acosmic world government and the world as illusion cannot dissolve the inner positive connection between brahman and world: Śaṅkara, however, never describes the world as the creation of māyā (māyā-prakṛtika) but consistently as the creation of brahman (brahmaprakṛtika). This is his main argument against the Sāṅkhya tradition that traces the origin of the world to insentient matter (jaḍaprakṛti).⁶¹

Śaṅkara not only rejects a creation from māyā, but also a material monism or a creation from nothing, because everything is an emergence from the divine. Therefore, one must address brahman as creator, innovator and finisher of the world. This is also emphasized by Kṛṣṇa in a passage of the Bhagavadgītā, when he presents brahman as both immanent and transcendent, free of all finiteness and limitations of the world and yet at the same time involved in the process of the world: Shining by the functions of the senses, yet freed from all the senses, unattached yet maintaining all, free from the qualities yet experiencing the qualities; outside and inside beings, those that are moving and not moving, because of its subtlety, this is not comprehended. This is far away and also near, undivided yet remaining as if divided in all beings. This is to be known as the sustainer of beings, their devourer and creator (Bhagavadgītā 13:15 – 17).⁶²

According to Rambachan: “Non-dual brahman alone exists” from itself; “brahman is the sole cause for the world; brahman does not undergo a change of nature to produce the world. World is non-different in essential nature from brahman.” And this means: First, brahman is the intelligent or efficient cause (nimittakārana) for the creation of the world. Second, […] brahman is also the material cause (upādānakārana) of the universe.

 Rambachan 2006: 80 and here 73: “Śaṅkara traces the origin of the world to brahman alone. ‘That omniscient and omnipotent source must be brahman from which occur the birth, continuance, and dissolution of this universe that is manifested through name and form, that is associated with diverse agents and experiences, that provides the support for actions and results, having well-regulated space, time and causation, and that defies all thoughts about the real nature its creation (BSBh 1. 1. 2, 14).”  Rambachan 2006: 83.

God or the Divine?

31

Like a spider projecting a web from itself, but unlike a bird building its nest, brahman brings forth the world without the aid of anything extraneous.⁶³

This indicates that the world is brought forth or born from within the Deity, a process obviously distinguished from a purposeful, active and formative creative activity. I would like to examine three of the six positions Vetter takes in the determination of being (Sein); these positions are relevant for the relation between brahman and the world. At first, in the highest sense of the word, brahman can be seen as being because it is the origin and foundation of the world’s being. Fifth, being and nonbeing might be seen as terms which are only important for the worldly dimension, but not for brahman as brahman. In this way, brahman could be the apophatic principle of everything which opens up the difference between being and nonbeing. Sixth, the supreme super-being of brahman that enables awareness for the difference between being and non-being is untenable, for it would entail that brahman is both a super-being and the transcendental condition of discerning the difference between being and non-being – and for discerning the non-difference between the divine and human self. Vetter points out that the nature of the divine self is reflected in the human spirit, so that there is an asymmetric distinction and foundation and a sameness in essence.⁶⁴ As an entity that has existed and will always exist without any loss of nature, brahman is not subject to temporal limitation (kālapariccheda). Since it constitutes the essential nature of everything that exists, brahman is free from the limitation of being one object (vastupariccheda), separate and distinguishable from every other object. It is infinite (ananta) in all senses of the term.⁶⁵

On the Relationship Between Ātman and Brahman as Saguṇa and Nirguṇa It is in the context of denying differences and distinctions of all kinds in the nature of brahman that the use of the term nirguṇa (lit., without qualities) must be understood. It emphasizes that brahman cannot be thought of in the manner of limited objects, and that brahmans nature is unique. Nirguṇa particularly denies the distinction of substance and attribute in brahman. This does not mean that one should regard brahman as a substance with no attributes. It means that brahman transcends the categories of both substance and attribute, as well as the distinction obtaining between them. Most importantly, there is

 Rambachan 2006: 70. Cf. Deussen 1883: 160.170.  Vetter 1979: 13 f.  Rambachan 2006: 88 f.

32

Bernhard Nitsche

nothing inherent in the idea of nirguṇa that rules out the possibility of brahman’s creatorship and the world originating from brahman.⁶⁶

The inner connection between brahman and the world is discussed by Śaṅkara in his commentary on Brahmasūtra (1. 1. 2). It means that the positivity of the finite world is also an expression of the essential positivity of brahman: The origin of a world possessing the attributes stated above cannot possibly proceed from anything else but a Lord possessing the stated qualities.⁶⁷ This positively expresses that the world is logical self-explication, emanative self-multiplication and creative self-expression of brahman. If nirguṇa brahman is therefore understood ex negativo beyond all categories by the ideas of the infinite, unlimited and unavailable, which conversely correspond to an unassailable super-abundance, then brahman is not only the reason of all reality, but brahman constitutes the essential nature of everything that exists. This indistinctness of brahman in its own nature, which gives brahman a unique status, does not mean, however, that brahman cannot and should not be distinguished from finite, limited, mortal reality. Paul Deussen states that brahman is to be found in the form of the ātman within one’s own self. This corresponds to the insight that brahman originally refers to the upsurging will of man in the dynamics of prayer, which aims at the sacred and divine. In the inner and conscious orientation towards the sacred, man gains a share in the sacred. In the continuation of this origin the ātman is the inner presence of the divine in man, undivided from brahman, even if it is distinguished from brahman in its matter and its concept. Paul Deussen therefore distinguishes for man and his self between the psychic and empirically comprehensible personal and living self or the individual soul (jīvātman) and the higher or highest self (paramātman). Here the paramātman is understood as the underlying transcendental condition, which “rests in the bosom of the deity, yes, is identical with it.”⁶⁸ While the “resting in the bosom of the deity” suggests a functional difference, the emphasis on strict identity rejects any distinction between brahman and paramātman. The terms are synonyms. This raises the question of why a linguistic distinction is made between brahman and paramātman. On the other hand, a clear distinction must be made between jīvātman and paramātman if jīvātman describes the finite self in its psychological and historical chains. In this way a radical theomonism is excluded.

 Rambachan 2006: 88 f.  Rambachan 2006: 94.  Deussen 1883: 128.

God or the Divine?

33

In the Christian-Hindu conversation we ask to what extent there can be not only a conceptual, but possibly also a factual distinction between paramātman and brahman, without there being a difference of essence between the two with regard to their divine nature. According to Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3. 7. 3 – 23, ātman is the inner guide (antaryāmin): This self (ātman) of yours who is present within but is different from the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body is the earth, and who controls the waters from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal […].⁶⁹

The insight that there can be no second of the same kind is of decisive importance for the interpretation of the relationship between nirguṇa brahman and saguṇa brahman. They are two perspectives on the one being, seen first as subject in its relation to the world and then in its apophatic greater being as infinite. Both sides belong to the one brahman and indicate that categories and terms are necessary although no category and no term is sufficient to describe brahman as ultimate and in its infinite super-abundance. Many interpreters of Advaita Vedānta represent the ontological difference between nirguṇa brahman and saguṇa brahman by seeing nirguṇa brahman either as the higher brahman and the higher truth or as the inner and esoteric (actual) deity. In contrast, saguṇa brahman is then understood as an inauthentic speech of God, in which the brahman is interpreted with qualities of lower brahman (disguised by māyā) and as exoteric, world-acting and personal brahman. Paul Deussen and Ramakrishna Puligandla are characteristic of this approach.⁷⁰ The latter presents the ontological difference as a valuation of higher and lower brahman: Brahman so conceived of is God (Ishvara), as understood in all theistic traditions, Western and non-Western alike. It is obvious that such a conception belongs to the lower, conventional, relative, conditioned, practical standpoint; whereas the inconceivable brahman devoid of form, name, qualities, and relations, belongs to the higher, absolute standpoint. Saguṇa brahman is God (Ishvara) understood as the cause, creator, sustainer, destroyer and judge of the world. It is saguṇa brahman that people worship in different forms and names, such as Rama, Krishna, Siva, Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, and so on. It is God as saguṇa brahman that is endowed with such qualities as love, kindness, and mercy […]. But since form, name, qualities, and relations can only belong in the realm of appearances (phenom-

 Translation quoted according to Olivelle 1998: 87.  Deussen distinguishes between higher and lower truth as well as between esoteric and exoteric brahman.

34

Bernhard Nitsche

ena), saguṇa brahman (God) is only an appearance, although the highest among appearances, and not reality.⁷¹

Here being is attributed to the higher or inner brahman, whereas only appearance is granted to the lower and outer brahman. Split off from the reality of brahman, saguṇa brahman must be the result of māyā. This is expressed in concepts, who clearly distinguishes between brahman and the creator God, associated with ignorance, and sees māyā as the reason why the appearances of brahman as God (īśvara) and the soul (jīva) are illusory. Does this not introduce a crack of division into brahman, which fundamentally contradicts the whole basic understanding of brahman in Advaita Vedānta as non-dual super-abundance? So Anantanand Rambachan declares: The need to differentiate between a lower and a higher brahman betrays this significant Advaita insight about the limits of language in relation to brahman. Nirguṇa brahman, it is argued, transcends the distinction between substance and quality and is higher, whereas saguṇa brahman possesses attributes and is lower. The point, however, is that if the unity of brahman’s nature precludes distinctions of all kinds, including, as already seen, the distinction of substance and quality, the act of creating the world does not cause distinctions in brahman. The essential nature of brahman is the same before and after the world comes into existence. In relation to creation, we must rightly speak of brahman as creator, lord, support, and as omniscient and omnipotent. These are indeed relational definitions of brahman.⁷²

These observations may prompt a more intensive dialogue between Christian and advaitic forms of thinking about what systematic implications the semantic differentiation between nirguṇa brahman, saguṇa brahman and ātman may have.

Hinduism: Theism between Iconology and Idolatry I have so far exposed an understanding of theism which makes God understandable in a symbolic anthropomorphism “under the idea of highest subjectivity and perfect freedom.” This Western-Christian concept of theism cannot do justice to Hindu theism and its embodiments. Christians distinguish between iconology and idolatry. The icon – like Jesus – refers away from itself to the alterity of God, the Father. Idolatry worships God as a tangible cult image (a golden calf), which becomes magically effective (overriding human freedom and the laws of  Puligandla 2002: 89.  Rambachan 2006: 90.

God or the Divine?

35

nature). The icon, in contrast, permits us to enter more deeply into the mystery of God in a free response. Obviously, the Christian-Hindu dialogue requires the exploration of different models of transimmanence. In principle, with Noel Sheth, it can be said from a Christian perspective: God is present metaphysically in all souls and is also immanent in the whole of creation. And so, in a very true sense, creation is not two (dvaita) or different (bheda), but one (advaita) with God or non-different (abheda) from God, and yet God transcends the whole of creation and so is different (bheda) from creation.⁷³

The non-dual nature of brahman is also interpreted to mean that brahman is free from distinctions (bheda) of all kinds. In order to formulate a commonality between a finite and mortal reality and the infinite and immortal brahman, which does not negate the difference and at the same time emphasizes the undivided, common destiny of bliss, can the relation between the spiritual dynamics of human existence and its supporting ground and ultimate horizon suffice to satisfy the demand of Advaita Vedānta for non-duality? Here from a Christian perspective an extremely fruitful dialogue could result. The Christian tradition knows two models for this unity: the pneumatological model of empowerment and asymptotic rapprochement and the Christological model of undivided and unmixed unity in the tangential touch of the different dimensions of reality of substantiating transcendence and substantiated immanence. Model 1 – the pneumatological empowerment-model: In traditional theology there exists the concept of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Then God himself is the inner foundation for the dynamic of the world and of man. In this regard, pneumatology can be understood as the continuation and intensification of the relation of creation under the aspect of grace. Man and the world’s liberation within creation is determined here by a more intense and dynamic presence of the divine within human reality. A common dualism found in the normal understanding of theism can be overcome if the creation of the world is understood as a positing of divine love within a comprehensive logic of love and freedom. In a Christian sense of creatio ex amore, the concept of a continuous creation (creatio continua) is more important than the concept of creation out of no-“thing” or no primordial materia (creatio ex nihilo).  Cf. Sheth in this volume p. 349.

36

Bernhard Nitsche

Raimon Panikkar expresses the ontological condition of the finite existence of the human being and the lack of its cause through an experience of divine transcendence related to ātman (ādhyātmic): the ontological structure of our desirability has appeared as a kind of connectedness with the actual goal of this desirability. It can desire brahman, not only because brahman calls and makes itself desirable, but also because that desire, that deepest point where desire transcends the boundaries of cognitive science and psychology, has already made contact, and we can certainly add: Connection with Brahman. […] This desire cannot be described, it can only be experienced, or better, suffered.⁷⁴

In this respect, I experience within myself that I am not the cause of myself, but rather the source of a greater reality that reveals itself as my actual “I” opening in depth.⁷⁵ In eschatological perfection this model finds its fulfillment in a unity opened and made possible in Christ, which expresses a non-duality and inner solidarity in the highest unity of relationship, which must be thought beyond monism and dualism. Model 2 – the Christological synthesis-model: Divine and human realities cannot be separated and are not mutually sequestered. In the Council of Chalcedon’s famous four adverbs, two were formulated to safeguard the oneness of Christ: without division (adiairétōs/indivise) and without separation (achoristōs/inseparabiliter), and the other two safeguard the distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ: without confusion (asygchútōs/inconfuse) and without change (atreptōs/immutabiliter). According to Christian and Hindu ideas, divine reality embraces and encompasses all finite reality. So, Paulus emphasizes on the Areopagus that people

 Panikkar 1981: 181.  Panikkar, 2004: 67– 74; 78 – 82: “I experienced the ‘inner energy,’ the ‘grace,’ the ‘power’ that was my most innermost self, and which made me do things that are otherwise inexplicable (though psychology can always intervene by offering two-dimensional explanations). I was discovering Christ” (82). “I am fully conscious that everything I have and am I have received from the Father, from the Font, I also feel, at one and the same time, that everything is grace, that everything has been given to me, that the initiative itself is a grace that the ‘Father of lights’ (James 1: 17) grants. If I am, at the same time, the fruit of grace, if the Origin of my acting and being is not my I, what I discover in myself is my radical contingency. lt is not I who sustains myself, who possesses the reason for my own being, for I am contingent. “I can do everything in him who makes me strong”. […] In this experience of my weakness I discover that the ground of my being is much more solid, much stronger than it would be if it were rooted in myself. I cannot sustain myself by myself alone; it is that which supports me that sustains me: Abba, Pater!” (103).

God or the Divine?

37

should seek God because he is not far from any of them: “For in him we live, we move and we are, as some of your poets have said: we are of his kind” (Acts 17: 28). And as a kind of counterpart the Īśā Upaniṣad says: “Everything that moves in this changing world is entwined by God.”

Bibliography Primary Literature Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya, Śaṅkara. Translation in: Mādhavānanda, Swāmī: The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. With the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Swāmī Mādhavānanda. With an Introduction by Mahāmahopādhyāya Prof. S. Kuppuswāmi Śāstrī, Vidyā-vācaspati, Darśana-kalānidhi, Kulapati. Kalkutta: Advaita Ashrama 1997. Māṇḍūkyakārikābhāṣya, Śaṅkara. Translation in: Vetter, Tilmann: Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Śaṅkaras. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, Bd. 6]. Wien 1979.

Secondary Literature Bromand/Kreis 2011. Joachim Bromand, Guido Kreis (Eds.), Gottesbeweise von Anselm bis Gödel. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp 2011. Collins 2006. Steven Collins, Nirvāṇa and Other Buddhist Felicities. Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006. Conze 1995. Edward Conze, Der Buddhismus. Wesen und Entwicklung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1995. Deussen 1883. Paul Deussen, Das System des Vedānta. Leipzig: Brockhaus 1883. Dōgen 1977. Dōgen, “Lernen durch Körper und Geist”. In: Dōgen, Die Schatzkammer der Erkenntnis des wahren Dharma I. Zürich: Theseus 1977, 32 – 39. Dōgen 1983. Id., “Die Sutren der Berge und Flüsse”. In: Dōgen, Die Schatzkammer der Erkenntnis des wahren Dharma II. Zürich: Theseus 1983, 167 – 174. Einstein 1964. Albert Einstein, In: J. A. Franquiz, Albert Einstein’s Philosophy of Religion. Journal for Scientific Study of Religion 4/1 (1964): 64 – 70. Einstein 2005. Id., Mein Weltbild. Zürich: Europa Verlag 2005. Forrest 2010. Peter Forrest, The Identity of Indiscernibles. In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/, Abruf 2022). Foucault 1986. Michel Foucault, Sexualität und Wahrheit. II: Gebrauch der Lüste. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1986. Frauwallner 1953. Erich Frauwallner, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie I. Salzburg: Müller 1953. Glasenapp 1966. Helmuth von Glasenapp, Der Buddhismus. Eine atheistische Religion. Mit einer Auswahl buddhistischer Texte, zusammengestellt von Heinz Bechert. München: Szczesny 1966.

38

Bernhard Nitsche

Hacker 1949. Paul Hacker, Upadeśasāhasrī. Unterweisung in der All-Einheit-Lehre der Inder von Meister Śaṅkara. [Religionsgeschichtliche Texte 2]. Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid Verlag 1949. Hacker 1978. Id., Eigentümlichkeiten der Lehre und Terminologie Śaṅkaras. In: Paul Hacker. Kleine Schriften. Lambert Schmithausen (Ed.). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner (1978) 69 – 109. Halfwassen 2006. Jens Halfwassen, Aufstieg zum Einen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 2006. Hammarskjöld 1963. Dag Hammarskjöld, Zeichen am Weg. Übertr. und eingeleitet von Anton Graf Knyphausen. München: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt 1963. Hegel 1970.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Theorie Werksausgabe. Bd 1. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1970. Henrich 1989. Dieter Henrich, “Die Anfänge der Theorie des Subjekts”. In: Zwischenbetrachtungen. Im Prozeß der Aufklärung (FS Habermas). Axel Honneth et al. (Eds.). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1989, 106 – 170. Henrich 1992. Id., Der Grund im Bewußtsein. Untersuchungen zu Hölderlins Denken (1794 – 1795). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1992. Hirota 2010. Dennis Hirota, “Shinran in the Light of Heidegger”. In: Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Japanese Philosophy Abroad. James W. Heisig, Rein Raud (Eds.). Nagoya: Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture 2010, 207 – 231. Hirota/Ueda 1988. Id., Yoshifumu Ueda, Shinran. An Introduction to His Thought. Kyoto: Hongwanji International Center 1988. Hobbes 2014. Thomas Hobbes, Grundzüge der Philosophie. Ed. Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin: Hofenberg 2014. Krings 1964. Hermann Krings, Transzendentale Logik. München: Kösel 1964. Krings 1973. Id., “Gott.” In: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 3. München: Kösel 1973, 614 – 641. Levinas 1992. Emmanuel Levinas, Schwierige Freiheit. Versuch über das Judentum. Frankfurt a. M.: Jüdischer Verlag 1992. Luckmann 1991. Thomas Luckmann, Die unsichtbare Religion. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1991. MacDonald 1998. Anne MacDonald, “Madhyamaka”. In: Buddhismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Buddhism Past and Present). Volume I. Klaus Glashoff, Lambert Schmithausen (Eds.). Hamburg: University of Hamburg 1989, 180 – 189. Markschies 2016. Christoph Markschies, Gottes Körper. Jüdische, Christliche und Pagane Gottesvorstellung in der Antike. München: C. H. Beck 2016. Mehlig 1967. Johannes Mehlig (Ed.), Weisheit des alten Indien Bd. 1: Vorbuddhistische und nicht buddhistische Texte. München: C. H. Beck 1967. Nagel 1986. Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press 1986. Nietzsche 1980. Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. In: KSA 4, Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden. Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (Eds.). München: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag 1980. Nitsche 2003. Id., Endlichkeit und Freiheit. Studien zu einer transzendentalen Theologie im Kontext der Spätmoderne. [Religion in der Moderne 8]. Würzburg: Echter 2003. Nitsche 2018a. Id., “Einführung” In: Dimensionen des Menschseins – Wege der Transzendenz? Bernhard Nitsche, Florian Baab (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöningh 2018, 7 – 27. Nitsche 2018b. Id., “Formen des menschlichen Transzendenzbezuges (zweiter Teil): Phänomene und Reflexionen.” In: Dimensionen des Menschseins – Wege der

God or the Divine?

39

Transzendenz? Bernhard Nitsche, Florian Baab (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöningh 2018, 31 – 88. Nitsche 2018c. Id., “Lerngewinne”. In: Dimensionen des Menschseins – Wege der Transzendenz? Bernhard Nitsche, Florian Baab (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöningh 2018, 384 – 405. Olivelle 1998. Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads. Annotated Text and Translation. New York: Oxford University Press 1998. Panikkar 1977. Raimon Panikkar, The Vedic Experience: Mantramañjarī. An Anthology of the Vedas for Modern Man and Contemporary Celebration (English and Sanskrit Edition). Berkeley: University of California Press 1977. Panikkar 1981. Id., The unknown Christ of Hinduism. Towards an Ecumenical Christophany (Revised and Enlarged Edition). London: DLT 1981; Bangalore: ATC 1982. Panikkar 1989. Id., The Silence of God. The Answer of Buddha. New Xork: Maryknoll 1989. Panikkar 1993. Id., Trinität. Über das Zentrum menschlicher Erfahrung. München: Kösel 1993. Panikkar 2004. Id., Christophany. The Fullness of Man. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books 2004. Pannenberg 1988. Wolfhart Pannenberg, An “Autobiographical Sketch”. In: The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Carl Braaten, Philip Clayton (Eds.). Minneapolis: Wipf and Stock 1988, 11 – 18. Plessner 1975 (1928). Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie (1928). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 1975. Puligandla 2002. Ramakrishna Puligandla, That Thou Art: The Wisdom of the Upanishads. Freemont: Asian Humanities Press 2002. Rahner 1999. Karl Rahner, “Grundkurs des Glaubens”. In: KRSW 26. Grundkurs des Glaubens. Studien zum Begriff des Christentums. Bearbeitet von Nikolaus Schwerdtfeger und Albert Raffelt. Freiburg: Herder 1999. Rahner 2005. Id., “Über den Begriff des Geheimnisses” (1960). In: KRSW 12. Menschsein und Menschwerdung Gottes Studien zur Grundlegung der Dogmatik, zur Christologie, Theologischen Anthropologie und Eschatologie bearbeitet von Herbert Vorgrimler. Freiburg: Herder. Rambachan 2006. Anantanand Rambachan: The Advaita Worldview. God, World, and Humanity. Albany: State University of New York Press 2006. Rentsch 2010. Thomas Rentsch, Transzendenz und Negativität. Religionsphilosophische und ästhetische Studien. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 2010. Rudder Baker 2007. Lynne Rudder Baker, “Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective”. In: How Successful is Naturalism? Georg Gasser (Ed.). Frankfurt: Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society 2007, 203 – 226. Rumel 2018. Daniel Rumel, “Der eine Geist und die zwei Tore. Die Frage des Transzendenzdenkens im Dàshéng Qǐxìn Lùn”. In: Dimensionen des Menschseins – Wege der Transzendenz? Bernhard Nitsche, Florian Baab (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöningh 2018, 241 – 261. Schelling 1966. Friedrich W. J. Schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung 2 Bde. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1966. Schleiermacher 2001. Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, Über die Religion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern (1799). In: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Bd. I/2:

40

Bernhard Nitsche

Schriften aus der Berliner Zeit 1769 – 1799. Günter Meckenstock (Ed.). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2001. Schmithausen 1997. Lambert Schmithausen, The Early Buddhist Tradition and Ecological Ethics. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 4 (1997): 1 – 74. Schmidt-Leukel 2014. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, “Gott im Hinduismus”. In: Gott und Götter in den Weltreligionen. Christentum, Judentum, Islam, Hinduismus, Konfuzianismus, Buddhismus. Markus Mühling (Ed.). Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht 2014. Tetens 2016. Holm Tetens, Gott denken. Ein Versuch über rationale Theologie. Stuttgart: Reclam 2016. Vetter 1979. Tilmann Vetter, Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Śaṅkaras. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, Bd. 6]. Wien 1979. Weber-Brosamer/Back 2005. Bernhard Weber-Brosamer, Dieter M. Back, Die Philosophie der Leere. Nāgārjunas Mūlamadhyamakakārikās. 2. Auflage. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2005. Welsch 2012. Wolfgang Welsch: Homo mundanus. Jenseits der anthropischen Denkform der Moderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft 2012. Wendel 2010. Saskia Wendel, Religionsphilosophie. Stuttgart: Reclam 2010. Wendel 2018. Id., “Zugänge zu Transzendenz oder Möglichkeitsbedingungen für das Aufkommen von Religion? Anmerkungen zu den anthropologischen Grundlagen des Religiösen”. In: Dimensionen des Menschseins – Wege der Transzendenz? Bernhard Nitsche, Florian Baab (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöningh 2018, 89 – 98. Wittgenstein 2004. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Werkausgabe I. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2004.

Florian Baab

Transcendence in Difference to Creation: A Christian Essential as a Problem of Modern Philosophical Theorizing Many have attempted to thinking together Christianity and All-Unity, but not always with great success. It seems as if, from a Christian point of view, it is not that easy to simply get rid of all those inconvenient differences between the Creator and His creation, between transcendence and immanence, between heaven above and earth below. Reference to these differences persists in Christian discourse, and is often marked by painfully consciousness of a tension between divine transcendence and divine creation, a tension that takes an acerbated form in these words from Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death: That a sparrow can live is comprehensible; it does not know that it exists before God. But to know that one exists before God, and then not instantly go mad or sink into nothingness!¹

Kierkegaard here ascribes to what he calls a “fantasized religious person” the paroxysm of an outlook which is in fact constitutional for Christian existence: Every human being is a part of God’s creation and sees himself at the same time as opposed to his divine creator. We belong within the unity of being, yet when we consider our finitude over against divine infinity we may feel crushed, as if we are of no account, or unworthy to exist. Of course, such a drastic vision leaves out something essential in a Christian perspective, namely that every human being is wanted and loved by God, an object of divine care. “God so loved the world…” (John 3. 16). Yet the terrifying opposition of the divine infinite and the puniness of finitude should not be done away with in a monochrome insistence on God’s unconditional love, which has been common within theology only since the later 20th century. In the aftermath of World War I theologians of “crisis” talked of “the shaking of the foundations” (Paul Tillich) and of God as the totally other (Karl Barth, under Kierkegaard’s influence), but by the 1960’s a roly-poly God of love had swept the boards and both Tillich and Barth radiated this benevolent vision. However, we should never forget that soteriology is only possible within the presumption of difference – Christian faith is faith in salvation, in a transcendent, eschatological fulfillment of human existence in a life free from sin, finitude and mortality  Kierkegaard 1983: 32. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-005

42

Florian Baab

and united with God. The possibility of such a salvation only holds within a concept of difference between God and man, which cannot be eliminated without weighty consequences: If there is no difference any longer, salvation becomes a minor point, a side effect of religion, which may be achievable here and now, and Christianity turns into something very different from what it has always been. As we all know, the difference between God and his creation is easily identifiable in the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. In contrast to some ancient Middle Eastern cosmologies, the creation narrative of Genesis 1 leaves no doubt that the God who in a sovereign fiat brings his good and ordered creation into existence can never be confounded with his creation. When he makes a Covenant with Israel, visiting his people and caring for them, he always maintains what we may call a critical distance from them. The Hebrew scriptures are punctuated with reminders of the inscrutable majesty of God: “from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Thou turnest man back to the dust, and sayest, ‘Turn back, O children of men!’” (Ps. 90: 2– 3). The Qur’ān, too, names Allah first as “the Merciful, the Compassionate” but immediately adds “King of the Day of Judgement.” The Incarnation brings God as close as possible to his creatures, yet Jesus stresses the irreducible divine transcendence at many points, as in the phrase “who art in heaven” in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:9). The Bible clearly attests an undeniable difference between the divine Creator and his creation, which cannot be disposed of as a minor fact. Accepting this difference, so often and so emphatically proclaimed, one has still to answer the question: what kind of difference? Systematic theology has dealt with a wide variety of answers to that, varying from a radical gulf that allows no common ground between God and creatures, to the Thomist “analogy of being” that Barth denounced as diluting divine otherness and transcendence, to mystical apprehensions such as that of Meister Eckhart that carry panentheism to the point of inviting the suspicion of pantheism. Rather than pursue these traditions, I shall focus here on the way the modern world has negotiated the tensions between transcendence and immanence. In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has argued that the concept of a real and definite distinction between the natural and the supernatural, between immanence and transcendence, has been enforced not earlier than after the beginning of the modern age. Taylor contrasts the “porous self” of the middle ages, that lives in a world which is open for acts of the Divine, with the “buffered self” of modernity, that has lost all this elemental contact with transcendence.² So

 Taylor 2007: 41.

Transcendence in Difference to Creation

43

only since then do we have, according to Taylor, not just a difference, but a real dualism between the region of the divine and the world we live in, and we also have the concept of a neutral “nature” which can or cannot “be in interaction with something further or beyond”. Since then Christian theologans have grown accustomed to thinking in categories of transcendence and immanence that are part of “a crucial bit of modern theorizing, which in turn corresponds to a constitutive dimension of modern experience”.³ The passage from Kierkegaard quoted above is, from that perspective, a fine example for modern thinking in categories of a duality between God and his creation that amounts to radical estrangement. The difference between divine and created has become so extreme as to drive the tormented individual mad. Most philosophers after Kierkegaard come to a further conclusion: If God is that far away, if His existence is not relevant for us as human beings, we may as well ignore him. In current discussions in philosophy of religion we notice that the difference between the divine Creator and his creation rarely arouses much interest. To the contrary, since the beginning of this century, we note a measurable growth of interest in concepts such as monism, pantheism, panentheism and all-unity. In these last years, it has been especially the concept panentheism that has attracted many theologians and philosophers of religion. Arthur Peacocke sees the concept of everything being part of God as an answer to the “pressing need for a reconsideration in depth of the perennial issue of the dialectic involved in affirming both God’s transcendence over and God’s immanence in the world”;⁴ Philip Clayton even talks about a “panentheistic turn in modern theology”,⁵ as he sees panentheism as a way “to think together more fully the scientific and the theological understandings of events in the natural world”.⁶ But this debate is not only confined to the English discussion; especially during the last decade, we have also had a noticeable amount of publications on this topic in German theology.⁷ I would like to cite an example from my own university: Klaus Müller, chair of philosophy in the Faculty of Catholic Theology, Münster, has been focussing in his later works on his thesis that Christian belief is based upon a “Monistischer Tiefenstrom”. It is not easy to translate that a “Tiefenstrom” is a deep ocean current, so Müller’s thesis is that Christianity, at its deepest level, is structurally monistic, although it appears dualistic and even pluralistic on the sur    

Ibid., 14. Peacocke 2004: xxii. Clayton 1999. Clayton 1999: 264. Just to name three of the many publications: Hengstermann 2010; Göcke 2012; Stammer 2016.

44

Florian Baab

face. In his opinion, theology will soon be awakened “from dogmatic slumber” in the matter of monism, realizing, that a “cosmotheistic-monistical option” is one of the “most important fundamental questions” it has to give an answer to.⁸ Another example of this turn to the question of monism is provided by Ronald Dworkin, a non-theistic author, whose book Religion without God has been a bestseller in English-speaking countries as well as in Germany. Dworkin’s plea for a God-free religion is not a pamphlet against religion in general, like those penned by the protagonists of “New Atheism”, but rather an invitation to dialogue between theists and atheists. In his book, Dworkin contrasts the “Sistine God”, named after Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel, with the monistic worldviews of Spinoza, Einstein and even Paul Tillich. The latter are, according to Dworkin, exemplify a life-stance which makes dispensable “the obscure idea of a personal God”, so as a consequence “it would be much clearer and more accurate to call them religious atheists”.⁹ If we were all able to follow them, there would be, as Dworkin sees it, no more problems with differences between theism and atheism, which in his opinion are in fact an “esoterical kind of scientific disagreement with no moral or political implications”.¹⁰ Reading these books, one could almost get the impression that many theological and philosophical thinkers since the beginning of modernity have forgotten one very important thing about Christianity – that a close unity between the created world and its ever-present Creator, who is closer to us than we are to ourselves, as St. Augustine stressed, has been constitutional for Christian existence. (Who would like to be a dualist, anyway?) All these thinkers have one very simple problem in common: The questions they deal with are in fact not constitutional for Christian existence. The question of a choice between monism and dualism, between unity and plurality, between creation as opposed to or as part of God, is itself a modern philosophical question, which first appears in the 17th century in the time of Descartes and Spinoza. I do not want to appreciate the genuine truth or non-truth of any of these theories – from an ontological perspective, there may of course be arguments for and against them; but from a perspective of intellectual history, we have to admit that nobody in pre-modern times has asked these questions in the way we do now. The “porous self” described by Taylor that lives in a pre-modern environment, is open for a permanent contact between its sphere and the sphere of the divine. The pre-modern subject does not question God’s existence, does not have to ask if its life-stance

 Müller 2005: 83.  Dworkin 2013: 43.  Ibid., 147.

Transcendence in Difference to Creation

45

is better described as monism, dualism or panentheism, and would not even understand the question. In contrast, Peacocke, Clayton, Müller and Dworkin do ask these questions. Why? Following Taylor, we could say: Because they have to be seen as sons of modernity, as “buffered selves” living in a world without divine impacts. A strict duality between transcendence and creation, such as Kierkegaard expressed, is one possibility of dealing with this circumstance. Today’s monists and panentheists draw just the opposite conclusion: Confronted with the possibility of a separation between transcendence and creation they try to force them back together into one. But none of these attempts can ever lead back to the pre-reflexive calm of Taylor’s “porous self”; in fact, they stay what they are: reflective efforts to unify what has been separated a long time ago. As Michael von Brück aptly remarks, the concept of “unity” (meaning the specifically modern concept of unity) is itself a dualistic concept, because it already presupposes disunity as its opposite.¹¹ As an aside, I would like to mention the likelihood that the monism we observe within philosophy of religion may reflect a certain “monistic turn” of philosophy and public interest in general. In philosophy of mind, for example, a materialistic monism has become the most common answer for the mindbody-problem, though the explanations why mind is a product of matter vary from one theorist to the nextr. Critics of religion such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens also tend to argue on the basis of a universal monism – one principle, commonly Darwinism, is invoked to explain everything in the world, including religion. It seems to be a fundamental disposition of modern thinking (despite the counter-thrusts of postmodernism) to seek a single grand principle as an explanation for everything. One must be permitted to ask if it is really a good idea to follow that urge in the case of philosophy of religion. In my opinion God is not so small that he can be neatly fitted into our limited explanatory frameworks. If Taylor is right to claim that the opposition of divinity and nature is an essential fact of modern existence, what are we supposed to do? In the case of Christian theology I would like to make three points: First: In western countries, we have to accept the fact, that Christian belief is not and will no longer be part of a naïve and simple hearted life-stance. Some contemporaries may continue to accept nature as creation and God as its creator in a traditional matter, but others will remain agnostic, and many may not see anything behind nature. This, incidentally, puts in question a concept which still can be found in most Christian systematic theologies of the 20th century –

 Cf. the contribution of Michael von Brück, in this book pp. 149 – 161.

46

Florian Baab

the homo naturaliter religiosus, or, as Karl Rahner puts it, the “primordial direction of man to the absolute mystery as a perpetual basis of humanity”.¹² This notion is valid within Christian faith and probably also in interreligious dialogue, where people see themselves directed to this absolute mystery; but it has become meaningless for those who do not even understand the questions we ask any more.¹³ Secondly, we have to ask ourselves, how the concept of salvation, which is in different ways part of every world religion, can continue to be upheld in theological theorizing. Christian theology has a difficult task to fsce in this regard. On one hand, it has to maintain the difference between nature and the divine as providing the basic framework of Christian faith in salvation; on the other, it has to negotiate with the sharper modern duality of nature and the divine, which finally makes salvation impossible again. A model like panentheism recommends itself here, as helping the daughters and sons of modernity to think God and nature as closely relatied again. It may be a sufficient instrument to stop our desperation because God is that far away.¹⁴ The dialogue with other religious traditions that have quite different understandings of unity and salvation will be another very helpful instrument to support Christians dealing with this problem, a problem which may also be present in those traditions in other ways. But nevertheless, thirdly, against the tendency within theology to iron out rationally the duality between transcendence and immanence, as in many discussions of why and how religion and science are compatible, we need to step back to the fundamental mystery of the togetherness of God and creation as envisioned in Scripture. Both critics of religion and rationalizing theologians represeent the “buffered self” of modernity trying to answer the question of its relationship to the divine, which is not part of its everyday life any longer. In my opinion, Taylor’s diagnosis leads to the conclusion that Christian theology should no longer see this game of self-justification as a major task, nor pursue the question of 20th century theological anthropology: “What kind of relationship is there between God and man?” It may be hoped that Christian theology in the future will become a more mediating discipline, asking the question:

 “Die ursprüngliche Verwiesenheit […] auf das absolute Geheimnis [als] dauerndes Existential des Menschen”. Rahner 2008: 55.  When Bernhard Nitsche speaks of the “dynamic of transcending in the sense of a formal interminability that goes beyond all classes of objects”, that makes sense within Christian theology, but not all contemporaries in Western countries will understand what he means.  Bernhard Nitsche’s insight that the different basic dimensions of human existence are valid in connection with the human interpretation of the ultimate horizon of existence can be invoked to give religion a foundational role in modern anthropology.

Transcendence in Difference to Creation

47

“In which way can we moderate in a sensible and reasonable way between the different expressions of Christian and religious faith within the frame of modernity?”¹⁵ Christianity is a religion that is based on the fundamental difference between God and creation, which cannot be ignored or dissolved. This difference has been experienced as a gap since the beginning of modernity – a gap which is being felt all the more at a time when the concept of unity is very popular in every sphere of human knowledge. I am sure that Christian theologians can learn quite a lot from the hallowed monistic traditions in Buddhism and Hinduism, but we need not pretend that monism was our own fundamental life stance. A Christian cannot avoid facing the difference between Creator and creation, transcendence and immanence, the divine and the human, and so if Christians talk about unity and nonduality, it is this prior condition of difference that prompts them to do so.

Bibliography Clayton 1999. Philip Clayton, The Panentheistic Turn in Christian Theology. Dialog 38 (1999): 289 – 293. Clayton 2004. Id., “Panentheism Today: A Constructive Systematic Evaluation”. In: In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being. Philip Clayton, Arthur Peacocke (Eds.). Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 2004, 249 – 264. Dworkin 2013. Ronald Dworkin, Religion Without God. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2013. Göcke 2012. Benedikt Paul Göcke, Alles in Gott? Zur Aktualität des Panentheismus Karl Christian Friedrich Krauses. Regensburg: Pustet 2012. Hengstermann 2010. Christian Hengstermann, “Platonismus und Panentheismus bei Ralph Cudworth”. In: Persönlich und alles zugleich: Theorien der All-Einheit und christliche Gottrede. Frank Meier-Hamidi, Klaus Müller (Eds.). Regensburg: Pustet 2010, 192 – 211. Kierkegaard 1983. Sören Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Howard Vincent Hong, Edna Hatlestad Hong (Eds.). Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983. Müller 2005. Klaus Müller, “Über den monistischen Tiefenstrom der christlichen Gottrede”. In: Dogma und Denkform: Strittiges in der Grundlegung von Offenbarungstheologie und Gottesfrage. Klaus Müller, Magnus Striet (Eds.). Regensburg: Pustet 2005, 47 – 84. Peacocke 2004. Arthur Peacocke, Introduction: “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being”. In: In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being. Philip Clayton, Arthur Peacocke (Eds.). Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 2004, xviii–xxii. Rahner 2008. Karl Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens. Freiburg i. Br.: Herder 2008.

 In my opinion, Bernhard Nitsche is asking both questions at once. If so, we may attempt to articulate the interests behind his approach in a more focussed way.

48

Florian Baab

Stammer 2016. Dennis Stammer, “‘Pan-en-theismus’ als dialektische Denkfigur des personalen Gottesbegriffs bei Simon L. Frank”. In: Die Frage nach dem Unbedingten: Gott als genuines Thema der Philosophie. Felix Resch (Ed.). Dresden: Text & Dialog 2016, 269 – 289. Taylor 2007. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2007.

I Buddhism

Robert M. Gimello

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned: A Buddhist Vision of “Transimmanence” In a few tentative articles published in the 1930s, and in an extensive, fully wrought argument presented in the 1946 publication of his Surnaturel: études historiques,¹ the great Catholic theologian Henri de Lubac helped rescue both the patristic tradition and the genuine Thomist tradition from the occlusion they suffered at the hands of such epigone of Aquinas as Denys the Carthusian (15th century), Cajetan (16th century), Suárez (16th‒17th century), and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (19th‒20th century). This he did by reviving the doctrine of “desiderium naturale visionis dei” and by exploring at great depth its various implications. Mankind, de Lubac argued, was created “in grace” and was thus endowed ab origine with a natural desire to see and be united with God. Of course, full satisfaction of that desire (sanctification, beatitude, theosis) requires, de Lubac acknowledged, grace of a kind and in a measure beyond that conferred by creation alone, but he insisted that human beings, from the moment of their creation, were never possessed of, or constituted by, a “natura pura,” an ungraced nature, to which grace and revelation had to be “added.” An important but not often enough recognized implication of de Lubac’s argument is the license it gives to comparative theology as a project that Christian theologians can ‒ indeed, should ‒ undertake. If it is true that all persons are disposed by nature to seek God, and if therefore the urge to find God, whether or not he is acknowledged as such, is a fundamental part of what it means to

 Surnaturel: Études historiques. Théologie, no. 8 (Paris: Aubier, 1946). This work has never been translated into English in its entirety but a translation of its “Conclusion,” by David Coffey, was published in Philosophy and Theology, 11:2 (1999): 368‒380. Also, one of de Lubac’s later works, Augustisme et théologie modern (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1965), follows closely the first part of Surnaturel and was translated into English, by Rosemary Sheed. It was published as Augustinianism and Modern Theology (London: G. Chapman and New York: Herder & Herder, 1967). Further treatments of the central theme of Surnaturel, i. e., the relation of nature to grace, are to be found in several of de Lubac’s later works. Note particularly his Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1965), which was translated into English by Rosemary Sheed and published as The Mystery of the Supernatural (London: G. Chapman, 1967); a new edition was published in New York in 1998 by Crossroad Publishing. There is also Petite catéchese sur nature et grace (Paris: Fayard, 1980), which was translated into English by Brother Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. and published as A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1984). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-006

52

Robert M. Gimello

be human, then it is reasonable to assume that we may find in the various other religions created by men indications of that natural proclivity toward the divine. It is likely, in other words, that the beliefs, values, and practices of the world’s other religions, different from each other and from Christianity though they may be, are all products of the instinctive human desire and disposition to find God. (And in this connection we must note that de Lubac was not only a Catholic theologian but was also an astute and learnèd scholar of Buddhism.²) I begin my remarks by noting all this because I think we may discern in Professor Bernhard Nitsche’s project a resonance of de Lubac’s vision (mediated perhaps by the influence of de Lubac’s younger contemporary, Raimon Panikkar, an influence in concert with the influence of Heidegger, that Professor Nitsche has publicly acknowledged³). In his statement of the principal theme of the conference from which this volume derives Professor Nitsche clearly announced his conviction that all human beings have a fundamental need for the unconditioned, an inherent proclivity or natural orientation toward an infinite, perfect, and therefore transcendent reality. Whereas De Lubac spoke of a natural desire for God, Nitsche, choosing a category that can accommodate non-theistic religions as well as theisms, has spoken of a desire for “the unconditioned” or “the transcendent.” This need or inclination, he has further suggested, is wedded to an inborn capacity to conceive of, or at least dimly to descry, its object. All human beings, Professor Nitsche maintains, can, in one way or another, sense the unconditioned, and are drawn to it even while recognizing that it is, by definition, ultimately ineffable and transcendent of all limitations of the finite human condition. In this connection, he even cites St. Anselm’s claim (vide the ontological argument) that it is in the nature or logic of thinking itself to require that there be such an unconditioned. He might just as well have invoked Aquinas’ dictum, “To understand God is the end of every intellectual substance” (Quod intelligere deum est finis omnis intellectualis substantiae ‒ Summa Contra Gentiles II, 25). And with the inborn proclivity toward an unconditioned, and a capacity to conceive of it and to

 See the following (1) Aspects de Bouddhisme (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1951); Eng. trans. by George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954). (2) La Rencontre du Bouddhisme et de l’Occident (Paris: Aubier, 1952), reprinted as vol. 22 of Cardinal Henri de Lubac: Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Cerf, 2000). For valuable reflections on this book and its significance from a perspective more than fifty years after its publication, see Paul Magnin, ed., L’Intelligence de La Rencontre du Bouddhisme: Actes du colloque du 11 octobre 2000. la Fondation Singer-Polignac, Études Lubaciennes II (Paris: Cerf, 2001). (3) Aspects du Bouddhisme: Amida (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1954).  See, inter alia, Nitsche 2005; also Nitsche 2008.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

53

assert its necessity, Professor Nitsche further suggests, there often comes also a sense of gratitude in which apprehension of the unconditioned, and the aspiration to attain it, are understood to be absolutely gratuitous and are therefore to be appreciated as an inestimable gift of grace. This orientation toward and thirst for the unconditioned, together with a sense of gratitude for its presence or for the possibility of attaining it, is what Professor Nitsche believes defines us as human beings. In fact, he holds just this to be the very root of all religion regardless of whether, in any particular religion, the unconditioned is conceived theistically or non-theistically. On this basis he argues that religions are best understood as systems of surplus meaning, i. e., of belief, practice, and value directed toward what Thomas Luckmann calls “great transcendence,” by which is meant the pursuit, or the achievement of access to, the unconditioned understood as a reality that is infinite, not of human creation, ultimately mysterious, and characterized by such gratitude worthy features as silence, happiness, and peace. He further asserts that the unconditioned for which humans have a fundamental need and toward which they are by nature attracted, whether it be defined theistically or non-theistically, personally or impersonally, must be approached from two complementary perspectives: First, from the perspective of concern with the conditions of the possibility of transcendence it must be noted that the principal such enabling condition is freedom, i. e. the capacity in principle to overcome, or to be free of bondage to, the physical, psychological, cognitive, and social limitations of the human condition. This capacity for freedom is what allows us to imagine or conceive of an unconditioned. Second, from the perspective of recognition of the fact that, by definition, the unconditioned or transcendent eludes all efforts at verbal or conceptual definition it must be admitted that all efforts to capture it in word or concept can only be tentative and that it is by nature anarchic, disruptive, unsettling. On the basis of these general convictions Professor Nitsche then asks a couple of focussed questions that bear specifically on the particular religion with which I am here most concerned, namely, Buddhism: ‒ Where may a sense of the unconditioned be found in Buddhism? ‒ Does Buddhism also admit of, or encourage, a conception of the unconditioned as a benefaction to which the appropriate response is gratitude? ‒ Is the Buddhist unconditioned simply an objective presence, or is it rather an unconditioned subjectivity (a God-like reality, a divine personhood) possessed of the sort of agency and intentionality commonly ascribed to persons? Or is it somehow both? ‒ Is there in Buddhism an analogue to the Chalcedonian Christological notion of a transcendent immanence, or an immanent transcendence, such that the

54

Robert M. Gimello

two are one and yet distinct? As Professor Nitsche says, employing explicitly Chalcedonian as well as Heideggerian terminology, “Kann die in der europäischen Tradition geltend gemachte Differenz im Ereignis von ungetrennter, aber auch unvermischter religiöser Trans-Immanenz auch buddhistisch bzw. hinduistisch Bedeutung haben?” (“Could the European tradition of the difference in the event of indivisive but also unconfused religious trans-immanence be also claimed for Buddhism or Hinduism?”) The last of these questions ‒ really the chief focus of Professor Nitsche’s concern ‒ warrants special attention. The Christological pronouncement of the Council of Chalcedon of AD 451 reads as follows: Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως / in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter); the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostaseis; not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.

Here we have the classic claim, foundational to Christianity and forged out of Greek philosophical as well as New and Old Testament scriptural materials, that the incarnate Logos, God in the second person of the Trinity made man, is both transcendent and immanent ‒ transcendent of all the worldly conditions that comprise finite human life and yet also mysteriously and graciously fully engaged in all those conditions (save sin). Of the Council’s famous four adverbs, two were formulated to safeguard the oneness of Christ, the claim that his two natures (physes, naturae), divine and human, exist in one person (hypostaseis, prosopon) without division (ἀδιαιρέτως/indivise) and without separation (ἀχωρίστως/inseparabiliter). The other two ‒ without confusion (ἀσυγχύτως/ inconfuse) and without change (ἀτρέπτως/immutabiliter) ‒ were intended to show that the theandric person who is Christ, single person though he surely is, is nevertheless possessed of two natures and that those two natures are not

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

55

merely blended, nor is either of them altered or diminished by their coinherence in the single person. Professor Nitsche chooses one term from each pair of Chalcedonian terms to show that the unconditioned with which he is concerned, the unconditioned he hopes or expects to find in Buddhism, should be both transcendent and immanent and should be thus in such a way that its transcendence, its utter alterity, is not compromised by its immanence, nor is its immanence, its presence in the world, diminished by its transcendence. These questions that Professor Nitsche has posed press themselves urgently upon anyone who undertakes to compare Buddhism with other religions because there is much in Buddhism that may at first seem, and has often been interpreted to be, inimical to any notion of an unconditioned, inimical even more perhaps to any notion of an unconditioned that demands or elicits gratitude on the part of those who sense it. Central to Buddhist thought, after all, is the doctrine of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda, yuánqǐ 緣起) and such corollaries thereof as the doctrines of impermanence (anityatā, wúcháng 無常), no-self (anātman, wúwǒ 無我), emptiness (śūnyatā, kōng 空), and unsatisfactoriness or suffering (duḥkha, kǔ 苦). These doctrines would seem to suggest that for Buddhists the sum total of reality, including whatever is deemed maximally real, is simply conditionality itself, the complex and endlessly changing web of fleeting and fleetingly interrelated events, no one of which, nor any amalgam of such, is possessed of even the slightest independent identity. Nowhere within, nor anywhere apart from, this ever-changing web of flickering, insubstantial phenomena does there seem to be anything that might qualify as an unconditioned. Buddhists generally deny the existence of an inner redoubt or distant domain entirely detached from the defilements of suffering, craving, and ignorance. Far more often than not they reject the notion of a personal or impersonal entity that transcends conditionality by virtue of existing permanently “of itself” rather than in transient dependence upon other equally transient things. As Buddhists often say, the world consists mostly of conditioned (saṃskṛta, yǒuwéi 有為, i. e., “confected,” or “composite”) things or events (dharma) and all conditioned dharmas, each in particular and the totality of them all together, are said to be like a “fault of vision” (timira, yì 翳), a “magical illusion” (māyā, huàn 幻), a “dream” (supina / svapna, mèng 夢), an “echo” (pratiśrukta, xiǎng 響), a “shadow” (pratibhāsa, yǐng 影), “foam” (budbuda, pào 泡), a “lightning flash” (suvidyu, diànguāng 電 光), a “mirage” (marīci, yàn 焰,), etc.⁴ Such a world is said to be illusory or mirage-like in an especially strong sense. It is utterly without substrate or foundation and is defined as a network of particular, merely apparitional things and

 See Orsborn 2018.

56

Robert M. Gimello

events. Having only other particular apparitional things and events on which to depend, it lacks the support of any deeper order of substantial reality. And as sentient beings exist within this mirage or illusion, this web of phantom ephemera, the suffering they experience because of their compulsive craving and ignorance, although it is part of the illusion, is nevertheless quite “real” to those who suffer. “Awakening” (bodhi, pútí 菩提), the ultimate goal of Buddhism sometimes called “enlightenment” but better understood as liberation (vimokṣa, jiětuō 解 脫), is said to consist not in a transit beyond or beneath this realm of illusion into some other higher or deeper dimension that is somehow more real. It is not a flight from the realm of mutable insubstantiality into a higher or deeper realm of immutable substantiality. Rather, the ultimate end of Buddhist faith and practice is usually held to be just the realization of the world’s character precisely as illusion. This discovery may seem dire and deflationary, a mere disillusionment rather than a fulfillment, but it is held actually to be a kind of release, the attainment of freedom from the enslaving compulsion to find in the world more than is actually there, to see the world as anything other than illusion, or to mistake it for the sort of illusion that may be dissolved to reveal something more real. What Buddhists regard as their ultimate goal is not a flight from an imperfect world of suffering, craving, and ignorance into a perfect world without such afflictions. Rather they aspire to a condition of disenthrallment or blissful detachment from the world. What that condition is like, of course, is ineffable. Even words like “bliss” fail to do it full justice, which is why the Buddha is said never to have tried to describe or define it in positive, constructive terms. So, Buddhists insist on the ineffability of this ultimate liberation, but they also recognize that such insistence can be dangerously disorienting. It can tempt one to ontologize the promised freedom of nirvāṇa or bodhi by imaging it to be another world entirely. That, however, is held to be a serious mistake for, rather than extinguish the craving that cause suffering, it simply supplies craving with a new and especially seductive object of attachment. And yet, despite all this, Buddhists do employ a term that may be, and commonly is, translated as “unconditioned” (Sanskrit: asaṃskṛta, Pāli: asankhata, Chinese: wúwéi 無爲, Tibetan: ’du mi byed). The word literally means “uncompounded,” “unconfected,” “non-composite.” (A comparativist might be tempted to translate the term as “non-factum,” as in “genitum non factum.”) But what is this Buddhist unconditioned, and how can anything so labelled not stand in contradiction of all else that Buddhism seems to aver? In Buddhism’s scholastic discourse there are only a few “things” (i. e., dharmas or factors of interdependence) that are said to be asaṃskṛta. Foremost among them, and the one first stipulated in Buddhist literature, is just nirodha (miè 滅) or nirvāṇa (nièpán 涅 槃), the utter cessation of suffering and all of the concomitants of suffering, at-

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

57

tainment of which, of course, is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. Certain later traditions speak in finer analysis of three kinds of asaṃskṛta-dharma ‒ (1) cessation that is the result of meditative analysis (pratisaṃkhyānirodha, zémiè 擇滅), e. g., the cessation of the false view that there is such a thing as a permanent self, which is an annihilation of error occasioned by meditative discernment of the truth of selflessness; (2) cessation that is not the result of meditative analysis (apratisaṃkhyānirodha, fēizémiè 非擇滅), e. g., the cessation of thirst brought about by a drink of water; and (3) space (ākāśa, xūkōng 虛空), defined simply as the boundless vacuity which material things (rūpa, sè 色) require as a condition or locus of their existence. But note that all three of these terms, like the generic term “asaṃskṛta” itself, are privatives. They are words expressing negation or absence, and the “unconditioned” dharmas they label are like all other conditioned dharmas insofar as they are absences rather than presences, instances of “non-arising” or “non-production” (anutpattikadharma, wúshēng fǎ 無生法), as Buddhist sometimes say, rather than instances of “coming into being.” They are, in other words, nullities rather than potencies, vacuities rather than plena, and so forth. Note too that as negativities these unconditioned dharmas, these modes of the peculiarly Buddhist “unconditioned,” seem incapable of eliciting anything like the “gratitude” that the immanent presence of the transcendent summons in theistic traditions. Theists are moved to gratitude, a principal mode of their faith, in response to such things as God’s sacrificial self-emptying (kenōsis) in the form of incarnation and even death, or God’s munificent dissemination of his grace in the sacraments, or God’s generosity in making a covenant with his chosen people, or God’s gift of his speech to his prophet, etc. However, it simply makes no sense to speak of gratitude toward nirvāṇa. One might confess to feeling grateful for the cessation of suffering or the possibility thereof ‒ but grateful to what or to whom? To be sure, a Buddhist might respond immediately by saying that he or she is grateful to the Buddha or his teaching (the dharma), or his community (the saṃgha, sēngjiā 僧伽), or to “all three of these precious jewels” (triratna, sānbǎo 三寶). Indeed, the Pure Land Buddhist tradition is based on this very foundation of unreservedly humble and grateful trust in the saving efficacy of the vow to save all sentient beings, a vow made and fulfilled by the transcendent Buddha Amitābha (Āmítuó 阿彌陀, Japanese: Amida). This is why de Lubac found Pure Land Buddhism so fascinating and so well suited to comparison with Christianity.⁵ But, one might ask, to whom or to what was the Buddha (Amitābha, Śākyamuni, or any other Buddha) himself grateful for

 de Lubac 1955.

58

Robert M. Gimello

the cessation of suffering and transcendence of ignorance that he attained? Surely it is not enough to say (and in the end even the Pure Land tradition does not say) simply that the Buddha was grateful to previous Buddhas, for that would lead to the absurdity of an infinite regress ‒ not “turtles all the way down,” perhaps, but the equally unsatisfying assumption of “Buddhas all the way back.” Notwithstanding the historical importance of Pure Land Buddhism or the frequent popular displays of devotional piety focussed on particular Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the mainstream of the Buddhist tradition holds all things, even Buddhas and buddhahood, to be empty, defining the unconditioned only as an absence or a cessation. Such is the view that most Buddhist thinkers have judged to be orthodox. And yet (again, “and yet”) we do find passages in even the earliest strata of the Buddhist canon that seem to challenge or undermine purported orthodoxy on such matters by attributing to such a negatively defined unconditioned as the Buddhist asaṃskṛta (Pāli: asaṅkhata) an uncannily positive efficacy: There is, O monks, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unconditioned. If there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no escape from the born, the become, the made, the conditioned would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unconditioned, escape from the born, the become, the made, the conditioned is discerned.⁶

This passage from the Udāna (VIII.3), a collection of purportedly ecstatic or inspired utterances of the Buddha,⁷ is famous and arresting because it stands in seeming contradiction of so much of the rest of Buddhism. It seems to speak of the unconditioned not only as a cessation or a nullity but also as a positivity, a potent positive reality or order of reality utterly unlike (ganz andere, totaliter aliter ‒ vide Rudoph Otto) the conditioned order and is yet able to effect, or at least enable, the transcendence of the conditioned. What are we to make of such passages in Buddhist scripture that seem to hover or vacillate between affirmation and negation? On the one hand, the passage uses positive or subjunctive locutions like “There is…” and “if there is not…” On the other hand, we are told, so to speak, that what “IS” is a “NOT

 atthi bhikkhave, ajātaṃ abhūtaṃ akataṃ asaṅkhataṃ. No ce taṃ bhikkhave, abhavissā ajātaṃ abūtaṃ akataṃ asaṅkhataṃ, nayidha jātassa bhūtassa katassa saṅkhatassa nissaraṇaṃ paññāyetha. yasmā ca kho bhikkhave, atthi ajātaṃ abhūtaṃ akataṃ asaṅkhataṃ, tasmā jātassa bhūtassa katassa saṅkhatassa nissaraṇaṃ paññāyatīi.  The Udāna is a scripture belong to the Khuddaka Nikāya (Collection of Shorter Discourses) of the Buddhist canon preserved in the Pāli language. The passage quoted in found in the Udāna’s “Third Discourse about Nirvāṇa” (Tatiyanibbāna suttaṁ).

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

59

this, NOT that.” The affirmative purport of the passage, its use of the phrase “there is,” seems to be a retreat from the more frequent Buddhist insistence that there are no exceptions to the rule of universal conditionality. However, that retreat must be judged to be, at best, hesitant or reluctant because the “exception” to the rule of universal conditionality that it seems to admit, and to insist is necessary, is labelled with a series of negations ‒ “UN-such and such,” “NON-this or that,” etc.). It is an event, in other words, of cessation (nirvāṇa) or non-occurrence (anutpāda), likened to the boundless absence of space (ākāśa), etc. How to explain the fact that the standard Buddhist definition of the sum and summit of the real as just conditionality (pratītyasamutpāda) itself is sometimes undercut by such assertions of an unconditioned reality that seems to lie wholly beyond the world of conditionality, thus affording gratuitous (giftlike?) release from confinement in and by conditionality? And how, further, to make sense of the fact that this alternative to conditionality, which is asserted to be necessary, can be labelled only with negations? These puzzles, I would suggest, are themselves evidence of the tension in Buddhism with which we are here concerned, the tension between the felt need to recognize the utter emptiness of things and the persistent suspicion that underlying that emptiness, and making it something more than mere nothingness, is some “non-thing” so different from the emptiness of the conditioned world that it cannot be captured in positive descriptions? Such questions were, of course, asked by Buddhist thinkers themselves. The answers they most often gave were usually by way of a swerve from ontology to either logic and epistemology or to hermeneutics. An example of the former is Buddhism’s development of a theory of negation. Given the prevalence of negative locutions in Buddhist discourse, and in the interest of showing that, notwithstanding its penchant for negation, Buddhism is not a kind of nihilism, Buddhist thinkers examined with great care the very concept of negation (pratiṣedha) itself. In this effort they came eventually to distinguish between two kinds or degrees of negation. The weaker sort they called paryudāsa-pratiṣedha (exclusionary, implicative, or nominallybound negation), i. e. negation that implies a countervailing affirmation (e. g., to say “this table is not red” is to imply that it must be some other color, like blue). But they also recognized a stronger kind of negation that they called prasajya-pratiṣedha (prohibitive, non-implicative, or propositionally-bound negation), i. e., negation tout court, implying no affirmative alternative (e. g., to say “this table is not an amphibious biped” is not to imply that it might be any other sort of animal). In the parlance of modern logic, the latter and stronger sort of negation would be expressed by saying, “It is not the case that …”). Important strains of Buddhist doctrinal discourse (e. g. the Madhyamaka tradition

60

Robert M. Gimello

of Nāgārjuna and his disciples⁸) favor the stronger kind of negation. Thus, when Buddhists of this tradition speak of nirvāṇa or some such ultimate category, they usually do not say that it “is this” or “is that.” Sometimes they will say that it “is not this” or “is not that.” However, when they are intent on the most definitive possible exposition many will resort either to silence (the acknowledgement that definitive exposition is ultimately impossible) or to the well-known four-fold negation. In the latter case they will say something like, “it is not the case that nirvāṇa ‘is x,’ nor is it the case that it ‘is not-x,’ neither is it the case that it ‘is both x and not x,’ nor is it the case that it ‘is neither x nor not x’.” It is significant, however, that not all strains of Buddhism are so strict as the Madhyamaka in holding to the primacy of proposition-bound (prasajya) negation. The Udāna passage given above is a case in point. It makes use of the weaker sort of negation, juxtaposing the affirmative verb “is” with a number of nouns in the form of term-bound (paryudāsa) negations. Such vacillation between affirmation, weak negation, and strong negation is yet another indication of the sort of tension within Buddhism that we are concerned here to examine.⁹

 The Madhyamaka (“middle way”) tradition and its founder Nāgārjuna are famous for having held emptiness (śūnyatā) to be Buddhism’s ultimate teaching and to have practiced the art of negative (prasaṅgika, reductio ad absurdum) dialectic in which discourse is employed to refute false views but never to propound views that might be deemed true, for ultimate truth, they believed, is simply not linguistically expressible.  This Buddhist distinction between the two types of negation seems to bear some similarity to the distinction between different kinds of negation found in Neo-Platonic philosophy (e. g., in Plotinus, Proclus, et al.), and in Christian theology influenced thereby (e. g., in Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, et al.). It was Proclus, among pagan Neo-Platonists, who most thoroughly analyzed negation, identifying three kinds or levels of its intensity. First is stéresis, (literally: “absence” or “privation”), which is any claim that something “lacks” a certain property or “falls short of” a certain state. Next is aphaeresis which, for Proclus, is the kind of negation that implies a countervailing affirmation. Finally, there is apóphasis, the strongest kind of negation, which implies no countervailing affirmation and which may even negate negation itself. This last, in effect, denies the pertinence to the ultimately real or the divine of any kind of discourse or imaging, whether it be positive or negative. Modern philosophers sometimes call this last sort of negation “second-order negation.” (Note that the use of “aphaeresis” by Aristotle differs from its use in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and other traditions. Aristotle uses it to mean what we call “abstraction” [Boethius translated “aphairesis” into Latin as “abstractio”], i.e., the removal from a particular thing of those features of the thing that give it its particularity [e.g., size, shape, color, number, etc.]. This sense of the term is related to its use in mathematics as meaning “subtraction.” Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (a 6th-century Syrian monk whose actual identity is not known) essentially follows Proclus in speaking of three kinds of negation and insisting that apóphasis, the highest of the three (a kind of “super-negation”), is beyond affirmation (thesis or katáphasis), beyond negation-as-privation (stéresis), and beyond negation-as-the-mere-opposite-of-affirmation (aphaíresis). He also assigns to apóphasis a soteriological function insofar as he holds it to be an

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

61

In the alternative move from ontology to hermeneutics a number of Buddhist traditions invoke distinctions between different kinds of truth, different modes of discourse, different senses of scripture (the latter analogous to the different sensa of Christian scriptural exegesis¹⁰), or different stages in the gradual unfolding of the Buddha’s pedagogy. There are some doctrines, Buddhist thinkers asserted, that are possessed of only conventional, transactional, or spiritually pragmatic truth (saṃvṛti-satya, súdì 俗諦). These doctrines are not to be taken as literally or definitively true. Rather they are pragmatically true, useful fictions (upāya, fāngbiàn 方便, “expedient devices”) that can serve to advance one further along the path until one is ready to see them as mere metaphors and to realize the recalcitrant “ultimate truth” (paramārtha-satya, zhēndì 眞諦) that defies all discourse but has anagogical potency. Provisional or conventional truths are amenable to affirmative exposition (katáphasis, biǎoquán 表詮), whereas ultimate truth may be conveyed only by negation (apóphasis, zhēquán 遮詮), or by the extreme of apóphasis, namely silence. Allied to this distinction between two kinds of truth is a distinction between two kinds of scriptural meaning. Some scriptures or scriptural formulations are said to convey provisional, oblique, tropological, or analogical meaning (neyārtha, bùliǎoyì 不了義). They are true, to a limited extent or in an expedient sense, but they are in need of further interpretation and are ultimately dispensable once they have served their communicative or pedagogical purpose. Other scriptural locutions, however, are held to convey definitive meaning (nītārtha, liǎoyì 了義). They are explicitly and definitively true and do not require further interpretation. To be sure, such distinctions did not settle all doctrinal disputes or resolve all doubts. Rather they only set the stage for continuing debate about which scriptures were provisional in meaning and which definitive, which doctrines were expediencies that merely intimated the truth by exploiting conventional categories as metaphors and which were literally, definitively, and explicitly true. Often such debates were given hagiographical or historical frames according to which the “ascent” ‒ “conversion” (epistrophé, literally: “return”), a movement of “uplift” (anagogia), i.e., ecstasy or subsumption into God. He also links it to the higher sort of “knowing” which is so completely unlike ordinary knowing (gnosis) that he calls it “unknowing” (agnosía). For more on this subject, see Mortley 1986, especially chapters 5, 6, and 12.  The definitive study of which is Henri de Lubac’s four-volume masterpiece, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture (Paris: Aubier, 1959 – 64). English translations of the first three of these four volumes have been published by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and T & T Clark (Edinburgh), who plan soon to publish also the final fourth volume. The “four senses of scripture” are the literal or historical sense and the three kinds of spiritual sense, namely the allegorical, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical ‒ all neatly summed up in the famous Latin formula, “Lettera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.”

62

Robert M. Gimello

Buddha revealed his truths gradually through sequential “turnings of the wheel of the dharma,” each “turning” or stage of the Buddha’s teaching career coming closer to the final expression of ultimate truth. In East Asia this notion of staged progression toward the revelation of ultimate truth gave rise to systems of doctrinal classification (pànjiào 判教) by which the doctrinal diversity of Buddhism was sorted out teleologically, i. e., as tending gradually toward a final and complete expression of a consummate teaching (yuánjiào 圓教). No topic drew more heavily upon such distinctions and categories (levels of truth, senses of scripture, turnings of the doctrinal wheel, schemes of doctrinal classification) than the topic with which we are here most concerned, viz., the topic of whether or not Buddhism ever admits of an eternal, transcendent unconditioned that stands apart from, yet can salvifically engage, the realm of conditionality. And one must bear in mind the fact that this disputed topic has often generated, and continues even today to sustain, strenuous sectarian polemic. Among the controversies that have long roiled the Buddhist tradition (each one of which deserves discussion more extensive than can be undertaken here) are the following: ‒ Arguments between advocates of emptiness as the paramount teaching of the Buddha and those who find in the doctrine of emptiness only a propaedeutic, a gateway to the higher truth of inherent buddha-nature; ‒ Disputes between those for whom emptiness is only “emptiness of self-nature” (svabhāva-śūnyatā) ‒ the Rangtongpa (rang stong pa) of Tibet ‒ and those for whom it is emptiness only of everything “other than” buddha-nature ‒ the Shentongpa (gzhan stong pa); ‒ Debates between those for whom the mind is intrinsically and inviolately pure, its apparent impurity being only adventitious, superficial, and in need only of a cleansing of its surface, and those for whom the mind is inveterately defiled or at best a conduit of defilement in need, not of mere “dusting” or “polishing,” but of the most radical reconstitution or metanoia; Confrontations between adherents of different kinds of contemplation. On the one hand there are those for whom the highest meditative achievement is a state of utter stasis or equipoise of mind and body (śamatha, zhǐ 止), a supremely serene yet also intense non-discursive union (samādhi, sānmèi 三昧 / dìng 定) with the ultimate. On the other hand, there are those for whom the highest contemplative attainment is just the culmination of a relentless process of eliminative analysis (vipaśyanā, guān 觀), the ruthless shedding, one after another, of all false views. Derived from this confrontation is the dispute between those adherents of Chán or Zen (禪) Buddhism who espouse a kind of quietism that is labelled “silent illumination” (mòjiào chán 默照禪, Japanese: mokushō),

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

63

wherein one’s inherent buddhahood is allowed naturally to shine forth, and those who practice the demanding cognitive asceticism of “scrutinizing of the word” (kànhuà 看話, Japanese: kanna) by which the utter emptiness of all things is sharply confronted in engagement with paradoxical or confuting utterances (gōng’àn 公案, Japanese: kōan). ‒ Contentions between those who maintain that liberation can be attained only by the power of one’s own efforts (zìlì 自力, Japanese: jiriki), for example by study, contemplative cultivation, or moral discipline, and those who reject such a claim, seeing it as foolishly prideful, and insisting rather that liberation is the result only of the conferred power of a transcendent other (tālì 他力, Japanese: tariki) in whom one must have faith; ‒ Disagreements between those who see awakening as a “sudden and immediate” (dùn 頓) apprehension of a truth that is radically discontinuous with worldly experience and those who rely on various kinds of mediation linking the mundane with the supramundane, in pursuit of a “gradually” (jiàn 漸) attained liberation; ‒ Controversies between those who see sensuality and materiality only as obstacles or snares and those ‒ e. g., adherents of Tantric, Vajrayāna, or Esoteric Buddhism (mìjiào 密教, Japanese: mikkyō) ‒ for whom the senses, material things, vocalizations, bodily movements, and visual images may be consecrated and thereby infused with power (adhiṣṭhāna, jiāchí 加持, Japanese: kaji), not unlike the sacramental grace of Christianity, so as to function as guarantors or accelerants of the progress toward liberation. And these are only a few of the many controversies within Buddhism traceable to the persistent tension between Buddhism’s characteristic tendency to deny the existence of a transcendent unconditioned and the recurrent Buddhist suspicion or confession that there must nevertheless be such an unconditioned by which we transcend conditionality and that it must somehow also be immanent if it is to be of any avail. Against the background of this persistent tension let us return to Nitsche’s principal question. We have, in a sense, already partly answered it. We have seen that there is indeed in Buddhism a notion of the unconditioned. However, we have also seen that the Buddhist notion of an unconditioned is a focus of continuing controversy within the tradition. It seems not to sit easily amidst the many other Buddhist teaching that seem to insist that conditionality, rather than the unconditioned, is the paramount truth. Also we have not addressed the second part of Nitsche’s question. That is to say, we have not yet determined whether or not the Buddhist unconditioned can be said to be not only transcendent but also, in some sense, immanent. To pursue this second question I would

64

Robert M. Gimello

draw attention to an example of what might be called Buddhist “trinitarianism.” I refer not the famous trikāya or “three bodies of the Buddha” theory,¹¹ but to something else entirely. The eighth‒early ninth century Chinese Buddhist Monk Chéngguān (澄觀), whom tradition regards as the “fourth patriarch” of the Huáyán (華嚴, Japanese: “Kegon”; Korean: “Hwaŏm”) tradition of Buddhism,¹² noted a peculiar feature of that enormous sacred text. The chief protagonist of the Sūtra is the Tathāgata Vairocana (Pílúzhēnà rúlái 毘盧遮那如來), the supreme Buddha, the source and essential identity of all Buddhas. This ontologically primordial Buddha, from whom all other Buddhas and their respective worlds are said to emanate, is understood to stand in relation to Śākyamuni, the Buddha of our world and our aeon, in something like the relationship that, for example, Meister Eckhart and other Christian thinkers saw between “Deitas” or “Gottheit” and Deus or Gott. But Vairocana, central figure though he is, remains silent throughout this very long scripture over which he presides and this, Chéngguān thought, was significant in ways that demanded explanation. The oddity that Chénguān addressed is that all speech in this Sūtra, unlike all other scriptures, is uttered not by the Buddha himself, whose impassible silence and stillness signify his utter transcendence, but by members of the Buddha’s retinue ‒ most especially by the two great bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī (Wénshū 文 殊) and Samantabhadra (Pǔxián 普賢). These two deities, together with the Buddha Vairocana, Chéngguān called the “Three Noble or Holy Ones” and he wrote a meditation on the relations among them, a text entitled Contemplations of the Perfect Interfusion (Perichōrēsis / Circumincession?) of the Three Noble Ones (Sānshèng yuánróng guānmén 三聖圓融觀門). This short text is seen as a distillation

 For a concise summary of the “three bodies” teaching of Mahāyāna Buddhism, see the entry “Trikāya” in Buswell and Lopez 2014: 923.  This is the tradition based on the Huáyán or Avataṃsaka Sūtra (“The Flower Ornament Scripture” or “The Scripture of Floreate Splendor”). This is a lengthy composite sūtra, an amalgamation of several originally independent scriptures. It survives only partly in the original Sanskrit but is preserved in its entirety in one Tibetan and two Chinese translations. Although revered throughout the Mahāyāna Buddhist world, it exerted its greatest influence in East Asia. For a concise but thorough summation of its contents and a discussion of its composition, see Hamar 2015: 115 – 128. A complete English translation of the second Chinese version of the scripture has been published by Thomas Cleary – Cleary 1993. This is a generally reliable translation. It will give the reader a sense of the general purport of the text, as well as an impression of its breadth and majesty, but, as it is intended for a general readership, it is careless of technicalities and entirely innocent of the sort of commentary and annotation that a scripture of this profundity needs and deserves. For a brief and general introduction to the Huáyán “School,” the tradition of East Asian Buddhism based on this scripture, see the entry “Huayan Buddhism” in Eliade 1987: Vol. 6, 485 – 490.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

65

of the vast and prodigiously prolix Avataṃsaka Sūtra into a relatively few words. And by concisely wedding the Sūtra’s profound vision of the one-and-yet-multiple nature of reality to a trio of celestial persons and their vivid iconography, it renders that vision liturgically and contemplatively practicable.

Figure 1: The Huáyán Trinity (gilded wooden statuettes of the kind used for personal devotion). Center (seated on lotus throne): Vairocana; Left (mounted on an elephant): Samantabhadra. Right (mounted on a lion): Mañjuśrī. Note that the primal Buddha Vairocana is shown in monk’s garb and meditation posture symbolizing his serene detachment from the world, whereas Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī, as bodhisattvas, are presented in the secular raiment of princes (crowns, royal robes, jewelry), wielding instruments and mounted on noble beasts that symbolize their engaged and exalted worldly status as powerful agents of compassion.

Chéngguān argued that these noble (ārya, shèng 聖) beings are three and yet also one and that in their three-ness each embodies particular qualities that are associated especially with that individual figure but are also mysteriously shared with the other two and, ultimately, with all other sentient beings as well. One might even say that Chéngguān treated the three “holy ones” as both an “immanent” (“ontological”) and an “economic” trinity and that he was particularly interested in the communicatio idiomatum (the communication of properties) among the three persons such that the qualities of each are shared with the other two, and with all beings, without diminishing the particularity of each.¹³  The insistence on a comprehensive unity that entails no cancellation or diminishment of par-

66

Robert M. Gimello

About the Buddha Vairocana Chéngguān has little to say in this essay because he acknowledges at the outset that Vairocana, in the “path” (mārga, dào 道) discourse or soteriology of Buddhism, is of the order of “fruition” (phala, guǒ 果). That is to say, he embodies or comprises in his person that to which the path ultimately leads, a condition which “utterly transcends language and thought” (chāoyánxiǎng 超言想) and which is therefore the proper subject only of either apóphasis or pregnant silence. The bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, however, are beings of the order of “cause” (hetu, yīn 因). They, so to speak, embody aspects of the path that leads to or “causes” the fruition of awakening and, as such, they are susceptible to katáphasis. Their characters and actions may be legitimately described in concept, word, and image. So, as the path, unlike the goal, is amenable to discourse and conceptualization, Chéngguān has much to say about Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, the former understood to be the embodiment of wisdom or insight (prajñā, zhì 智/ bōrě 般若), the latter understood to be the embodiment of compassionate conduct (karuṇā, cí 慈). He proceeds to compare them, one with the other, according to a series of paired Buddhist categories. The contrasts he draws between the two bodhisattvas, according to two such pairs of categories, and especially what he says about Samantabhadra, the paragon of skilful compassion, bear directly on our present topic.¹⁴ The first pair of categories is that of “faith and the object of faith”: Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra may be distinguished from each other according to the distinction between faith and the object of faith: That is to say, Samantabhadra manifests the dharmadh an (“the realm of truth”) as the object of faith, the germ or matrix of buddhahood (tathāgatagarbha) “entangled” [in the afflictions of saṃsāra (“the repeating cycle of painful life and death”)]. Therefore is it said in the Liqubore (The Scripture of Definitive Insight = Adhyardhaśatikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, i. e., The Sūtra of the Perfection of Insight in 500 Lines), that “all sentient beings are germs or matrices of buddhahood for they are instinct with the essential nature of Samantabhadra.”¹⁵

ticularity is a hallmark of all Huáyān doctrine, which holds that every person or thing, mundane or supramundane, is essentially implicated in every other person and thing, and that this mutual implication is such that each particular is “identical or coincident with” (jíshì 即是), “incorporated into” (rù 入), and “encompassing of” (shè 攝) both each and every other thing and the whole of all things, without the particularity of any one thing or person being lost in the “amalgamation,” “interfusion,” or “co-inherence” (yuánróng 圓融).  For a complete translation and interpretation of this text, from which the following passages are taken, see Gimello 1997.  以能信所信相對: 謂普賢表所信之法界，即在纏如來藏。故《理趣般若》 云：『一切眾生 皆如來藏。普賢菩薩自體遍故』。

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

67

The second pair of categories in terms of which the two bodhisattvas are compared is that of principle and insight. The two holy ones may be distinguished from each other according to the distinction between principle and insight: Samantabhadra manifests the realm/essence of truth (dharmadhātu), which is the object of realization. This is the germ/matrix of buddhahood (tathāgatagarbha) disentangled [from saṃsāra’s store of afflictions]. For, [as is said in the Flower Ornament Sūtra], “… The youth Sudhana enters Samantabhadra’s body” … “He attains a body wherein past, present, and future are utterly identical” … “A single strand of [Samantabhadra’s] hair is of boundless breadth, equivalent to the dharma-nature (dharmatā) itself” … “The body of Samantabhadra is as vast as space…” Moreover, to meet Samantabhadra is just to attain the perfection of insight, and from this is it clear that insight arises from principle.¹⁶

A few words on the term “lǐ” 理 are in order here. Conventionally but inadequately translated as “principle,” the “lǐ” of a thing is understood in the philosophical usage of Buddhism and in other traditions of Chinese thought to be the inherent structure of a thing, its sustaining constitution, its constitutive truth ‒ or, if western analogies may be permitted, its “nature” (φύσις), its quidditas, its essence (in the Aristotelian sense of “τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι,” the “what-is-has-been-ness” of the thing). The Chinese word does not, in this context, translate any Sanskrit word but it does bear some relationship to concepts expressed in Sanskrit by terms like jāti-lakṣana (zhēnxiàng 真相 = “true nature,” “genuine character”). Especially when used of an array of things, or of the totality of things, “lǐ” is distantly analogous in meaning to the “λόγος” of the Stoics. In Chéngguān’s usage here it is the epistemological object (ālambana, 緣 yuán) of “insight” or “wisdom” and the object of “realization” (abhisamaya / abhisambuddha, 證 zhèng). As such “lǐ” has been understood in some strains of East Asian Buddhist thought to be a constructive enunciation of the principle of emptiness (śūnyatā, kōng 空), i. e., the principle of insubstantiality or the absence from all things and beings of self-existence (svabhāva, zìxìng 自性), which absence is paradoxically said to “constitute” what things and beings most essentially are. Other strains treat the word as the label of a kind of presence, the inherence of buddhahood, or the seed thereof, in all sentient beings (all epistemological subjects) and the presence of suchness (tathatā, zhēnrú真如)¹⁷ or truth (dharmatā, fǎxìng 法性) in

 以理智相對: 普賢表所證法界。即出纏如來藏。『善財童子入其身故』。又云，『得究竟三 世平等身故』。『一毛廣大即無邊者稱法性』故。『普賢身相如虛空』故。又，見普賢即得智 波羅蜜者明依於理而發智故。  This curious term is a combination of the adverb “tatha,” (meaning “thus,” “as,” “such,” or “so”) with the nominalizing suffix “tā.” That suffix, like the English suffixes “-ness” or “-ity,”

68

Robert M. Gimello

all things (all epistemological objects). In the characteristic discourse of Chéngguān’s Huáyán tradition a creative tension is maintained between apóphasis and katáphasis such that the doctrine of emptiness and the doctrine of inherent buddha-nature or dharma-nature are understood to be two means by which to apprehend the same ultimately ineffable truth, the former seen as propaedeutic to the latter, the latter seen as culminative. Note that in the second of the passages cited above Chéngguān does not say that insight le truth” or “discloses” principle. Rather, reversing the conventional understanding of the relationship between insight and truth, he says that it is truth or principle that generates insight. Fruition, he is telling us, is what the doctr presence of suchness (aruition, what endows the elements of the path with their causal efficacy. An inherent yet inchoate buddhahood, in other words, is somehow the anticipatory foundation of the very path that leads to it. As was explained in another text that Chéngguān knew well, The Mahāyāna Awakening of Faith (Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn 大乘起信論),¹⁸ “incipient awakening” (shǐjué 始覺) is caused or made possible by “original awakening” (běnjué 本 覺), the proleptic (“always-already”?) presence of awakening that abides in the deepest depths of sentience. If the fruition or goal of the Buddhist religious life is the unconditioned then, Chéngguān maintains, it is an agential, or at least an inherently operative and consequential, unconditioned ‒ an unconditioned that somehow actively indwells conditionality. Its impassable yet also agential character is well captured in its triune personification as Vairocana, Mañjuśrī, and Samantabhadra.

turns the adverb into an abstract noun. Tathatā (suchness, thusness) is generally regarded the cataphatic counterpart to the apophatic term “emptiness” (śūnyatā). It signals, with a kind of positive but barely articulate verbal gesture, the ultimate ineffability of things as they truly are in their emptiness, in the face of which one can only speak of their “as-they-are-ness.”  The Awakening of Faith is a treatise attributed fictitiously to the Indian sage Aśvaghoṣa but actually anonymously composed, of both Indian and Chinese conceptual materials, in 6th-century China. It is regarded as a classic of the Chinese Buddhist tradition that earned its high status by virtue of its effort to synthesize several traditions of thought commonly seen as incompatible with one another, namely the tradition of emptiness, the Tathāgatagarbha tradition of inherent buddhahood, and the tradition which holds that all things are figments of the mind, this last known as Yogācāra or the Vijñaptimātratā (wéishí 唯識 = “representation-only”) tradition. This treatise too, in its own way, exemplifies the Buddhist struggle to find a way of reconciling the conviction of the emptiness and conditionality of all things with the sense that amidst or underlying empty conditionality there is an immanent and salvifically efficacious transcendent that resides in the tainted yet also pure mind. Interestingly, this text has attracted keen interest on the part of Christian thinkers ever since the West discovered it in the late 19th century.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

69

This is a crucial point, but I would draw attention now to something even more crucial to our topic, viz., the Chinese terms translated in the two passages from Chéngguān as “entangled” (zàichán 在纏) and “disentangled” (chūchán 出 纏), which render respectively the Sanskrit words “avinirmukta” and “vinirmukta,” (literally: “not separated from…” and “separated from…”). These terms depict buddhahood as something that is paradoxically both near and far, an essential ingredient of our condition as ordinary suffering sentient beings and yet also something that stands apart from and allows escape from that condition. They derive from a Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture entitled Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda Sūtra (The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā), a principal source of what is known as the Tathāgatagarbha¹⁹ tradition, i. e., the tradition of thought based on the view that every sentient being harbors in the core of his or her sentience a germinal buddhahood, an inviolably pure radiance of mind that is unaccountably hidden beneath the mental grime that comprises the outwardly afflicted mind of ignorance and craving. A key passage in the Śrīmālā Sūtra is its discussion of the third of the Buddha’s four noble truths, i. e., the truth of cessation (nirodha), in which a sharp distinction is drawn between the misinterpretation of ces-

 The term “tathāgatagarbha” is composed of two words. The first, “tathāgata,” itself a compound, is an epithet of the Buddha; its etymology is not really known but has traditionally been taken to be either “tatha + gata,” meaning “thus gone” or “tatha-āgata,” meaning “thus come.” It is therefore usually translated into English as either “Thus Gone One” or “Thus Come One.” The translation of this component of the compound as 如來 (rúlái) indicates that East Asians understood the term in the latter sense. The second component is the word “garbha,” which means “seed,” “germ,” “embryo,” “essence” or, alternatively, “matrix,” or “womb.” Sanskrit grammar distinguishes among several different kinds of compound words. Depending on which kind of compound “tathāgatagarbha” is determined to be, and which sense of the component “garbha” is thought to be in play, the compound may thus mean “embryo of a Buddha,” (i. e., the germ of buddhahood inherent in a sentient being), or “womb of buddha” (a sentient being who contains an embryonic buddhahood), or a being whose core is buddhahood, or (less likely) one who was born from the womb of a buddha. The translation of “garbha” as 藏 (zàng = “storage place” or cáng = “to store” or “to conceal”) indicates that in East Asia “tathāgatagarbha” was most commonly understood to mean “container of a buddha or of buddhahood.” It has also been plausibly suggested that the full compound is rooted in the tradition of Buddhist relic worship in which relics of buddhas were ensconced in the inner chambers (also “garbha”) of stūpas (reliquary mounds, monuments, or tabernacles). In this connection also the word “garbha” is shown to be closely related to the term “dhātu” which, in its primal sense as “relic” and its derivative sense as “essence,” also figures in the discourse of relic or stūpa worship. Indeed, the stūpa is sometimes called a “dhātugarbha,” from which we get (via Sinhalese) a once common English term for a stūpa, namely, “dagoba.” Note too that “dhātu” as “essence” also appears in the compound “dharmadhātu,” which appears in the texts discussed in this essay. For more extensive treatments of this term, see Zimmermann 2002; also Radich 2015.

70

Robert M. Gimello

sation as mere annihilation of things (dharmas), and its correct interpretation, in which it is understood to mean just the cessation of suffering and the concomitants of suffering. What is called cessation of suffering is beginningless, uncreate, unarisen, endless, indestructible, permanently abiding, inherently pure, and free of all afflictions. This, O Lord – fully endowed with the innumerable and inconceivable qualities of buddhahood that are inalienable, inseparable, and indifferentiable [from wisdom] – this we call the dharmakāya (truth-body of the Buddha.) And when, O Lord, this dharmakāya, is not disengaged from the cache of defilements, then it is called the embryo/matrix of buddhahood (tathāgatagarbha).²⁰

Note here the implied redefinition of the key Buddhist term “nirodha,” the name of the third of the Buddha’s four noble truths and thus the synonym of “nirvāṇa.” A word that originally named an event of final nullification or a condition of absence, specifically the end or absence of suffering and rebirth, has become instead the name of a timeless presence, an inherent and inexhaustible capacity. The tathāgatagarbha, then, is held to be the germ of awakening, the capacity inherent in all sentience eventually (or, according to some traditions, suddenly) to slough off adventitious impurities and attain release. It is as though the release from suffering that this capacity enables or guarantees, is, so to speak, the very telos of the tathāgatagarbha.

 所言苦滅者，無始，無作，無起，無盡，離盡，常住，自性清，淨離一切煩惱藏。世尊。 過於恒沙，不離，不脫不異[知慧]，不思議佛法成就，說如來法身。 世尊。如是如來法身不離煩惱藏名如來藏。 yo ’yam, Śāriputra, tathāgatnirdiṣṭo dharmakāyaḥ, so ’yam avinirbhāgadharmā, avinirmuktajñānaguṇo, yaduta, gaṅgānadī-vālikā-vyatikrāntais tathāgatdharmiḥ ayam eva ca bhagavaṃs tathāgatadharmakāyo ‘vinirmuktakleśakośas tathāgatagarbhaḥ sūcyate This passage is taken from Guṇabhadra’s mid-5th-century Chinese translation of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda Sūtra (Shèngmán shīzǐhǒu yīshèng dàfāngbiàn fāngguǎng jīng 勝鬘師子吼一乘大方 便方廣經 – The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā, T 353:12.221c7– 11). For an English translation of the ŚT 353: Sūtra, based on the Tibetan and all three Chinese versions of the text, see Wayman and Wayman 1974. No Sanskrit text of this scripture survives but some passages from it, including this one, have been quoted and preserved in other extant Sanskrit texts. The Sanskrit given here is from the Ratnagotravibhāga (alias Uttaratantra) – about which more is said below. See Nakamura 1961: 3, lines 15 – 17 and 21, lines 19 – 20. Note that Nakamura gives both the romanized Sanskrit of the treatise and, on facing pages, an edited version of Ratnamati’s early 5th-century Chinese translation (Taishō 1611). See also Takasaki 1966: 144– 145 and 168. One may also profitably consult the most recently published version of the Ratnagotravibhāga which includes the original Sanskrit in Devanāgarī script along with the ancient Ratnamati Chinese translation and a translation by the editor into modern Chinese. See Huáng 2017.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

71

It is important to note that in these two passages from Chéngguān’s text three related topics have been raised: the topic of tathāgatagarbha (embryo/matrix of Buddha), the topic of dharmadhātu (domain/essence of truth), and, implicitly, the topic of dharmakāya (the truth or absolute body of a Buddha). All three of these topics are related to the person of Samantabhadra (and also, of course, to the persons of Mañjuśrī and Vairocana insofar as the whole thrust of Chéngguān’s treatise is to assert that the three noble ones are as much one as they are three). Chéngguān tells us, remember, that Samantabhadra “manifests” (we might justifiably say that he “embodies”) the dharmadhātu, the domain and essence of truth, and that he does so in two ways: He embodies the dharmadhātu insofar as the dharmadhātu is the object of faith. He also embodies the dharmadhātu insofar as the dharmadhātu is the object of insight. Moreover, the dharmadhātu that he is said to embody in these two ways is, in both ways, also the tathāgatagarbha, the germ of buddhahood ensconced in each and every sentient being. However, as the object of faith, the embodied dharmadhātu is said to be the “entangled” tathāgatagarbha ‒ i. e., the buddha-nature enmeshed in the kleśas (fánnǎo 煩惱), the afflictions of saṃsāra. This we may characterize as a decidedly immanent tathāgatagarbha, whereas the embodied dharmadhātu seen as the object of insight is said to be the “disentangled” tathāgatagarbha ‒ i. e., a tathāgatagarbha that I would dare to call, if not “transcendent,” then at least “trans-immanent.” What is the background to Chéngguān’s claim that Samantabhadra embodies or personifies the tathāgatagarbha? We have already seen something of his indebtedness to tathāgatagarbha texts like the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra and the Ratnagotravibhāga, but there is a deeper and more complex history, an older heritage of thought, concerning these questions, one with which Chéngguān, and many of his learnèd Chinese contemporaries seem to have been quite familiar. Let me offer just a few of its highlights. First ‒ apropos of the concept of dharmadhātu: This concept, though associated especially with the Mahāyāna, has roots even in the Pāli Canon (the earliest stratum of Buddhist scripture), in passages designed to assert the objectivity of the Buddha’s teaching, its objective validity obtaining independently of him. So, in the Nidāna-vagga (“Book of Causes”) of the Samyutta Nikāya (“Grouped Discourses”) we find a passage that speaks of “the stable element” (ṭhita ’va sā dhātu), i. e., the stable condition of things that “always obtains regardless of whether or not buddhas arise in the world” (uppādā vā tathāgatānam

72

Robert M. Gimello

anuppādā vā tathāgatānaṃ). It is called “the stableness of things (dhammaṭṭhitatā), the fixed course of things (dhammaniyāmatā).”²¹ The often quoted Śālistambha Sūtra (Dàshèng yuánshēng dàoyú jīng 大乘緣 生稻喻經, Discourse on the Simile of the Young Rice Plant),²² a short and early (or Proto‐)Mahāyāna scripture famous for its classical definition of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination), echoes and expands this characterization of the objective condition of things, the ultimate condition of all things that will come to be called the dharmadhātu (domain or essence of truth), by giving it eleven names, all referring to the way in which things always are as they are by virtue of their proper nature, regardless of the arising or non-arising of Buddhas: dharmatā, 法性 (fǎxìng) = the nature of things dharmasthititā, 法住 (fǎzhù) = the stability of things dharmaniyāmatā, 法位 (fǎwèi) = the fixed course of things pratītyasamutpādānulomatā, 順於緣生 (shùn yú yuánshēng) = the conformity of all things to the principle dependent origination tathatā, 真如 (zhēnrú) = suchness avitathatā, 不顛倒如 (bùdiāndǎo rú) = unperverted suchness ananyatathatā, 不異真如 (bùyì zhēnrú) = pure suchness bhūtatā, 實不異 (shí bùyì) = reality) satyatā, 實 (shí) = truth aviparītatā, 不顛倒 (bù diāndǎo) = freedom from perverted views aviparyastatā, 不錯謬 (bù cuòmiù) = freedom from falsehood²³

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, another Tathāgatagarbha scripture and one which does actually employ the compound “dharmadhātu,” describes the dharmdhātu in very similar language.²⁴ One cannot help but notice here that the tradition that insists on the emptiness, insubstantiality, and transience of all things, on the lack of any abiding and inherent self-nature (svabhāva, zìxìng 自性), here resorts to such locutions

 Nidānasaṃyutta, Nidānavagga: Samyutta Nikāya 2,12(1).20 (10). See Bodhi 2000: 551.  For an amply annotated translation and study of this scripture, see Schoening 1995; also Reat 1993. The original Sanskrit of the sūtra has not survived although certain passages in Sanskrit, including those quoted here, have been preserved in various other sources. The Schoening and Reat translations are based chiefly on Tibetan renditions of the text. There are, however, five surviving Chinese translations (nos. 708 – 712 in the Taishō edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon). The one from which I have taken the Chinese terminology given here is that made in the 8th century by Amoghavajra (Taishō 710).  Schoening 1995: vol.1, 62 & vol. 2, 702; Reat 1993: 33.  See Suzuki 1930: 275, et passim.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

73

as “inherent nature,” “stability,” “fixity,” etc. and prefers the cataphatic “suchness” (tathatā) to its apophatic counterpart “emptiness” (śūnyatā). Buddhist texts often seek to conceal this apparent contradiction, to render it anodyne or explain it away by repeating claims that the “true inherent nature” of things is just that they lack any inherent nature and that the true “stability” of things is just that they lack all stability, but such equivocation does not really relieve the tension between Buddhism’s avowed resistance to an ontologized unconditioned and the recurrent need to admit of such a thing. Rather it only highlights and exacerbates that tension. Note too that the Śālistambha Sūtra also says, famously: To see pratītyasamutpāda is to see the dharma; to see the dharma is to see the Buddha.²⁵

In other words, to see dependent origination is to see the truth and to see the truth is to see the Buddha. This, of course, reopens a question that might seem to have been settled, namely, the question of the relation between a Buddha and the dharmadhātu, the domain of ultimate reality. The implication seems to be that a Buddha is not simply the discoverer and teacher of the truth but is somehow its very embodiment? But how can this be? The seeing of the objective truth of things, the truth of pratītyasamutpāda, is, on the one hand, adamantly said to be independent of the arising or not arising of Buddhas. But here, in the very same text, we are told that to see that objective and independent truth is in fact also to see the Buddha. Is this not also in some obscure way contradictory? Here we see an early Buddhist anticipation of the very topic immediately at hand ‒ the question of whether the ultimate, the transcendent unconditioned, is personal or impersonal. In Buddhist terms this is the question of the relationship between the dharmadhātu (the realm or essence of truth) and the dharmakāya (the Buddha in his truth-body or ultimate identity). On this issue the Chinese Buddhist traditions, especially the Huáyán tradition (for example, Chéngguān in the passages cited above), often invoke the Ratnagotravibhāga (Jiūjìng yīshèng băoxìng lùn 究竟一乘寶性論, The Analysis of the Germ of the [Three] Jewells [i. e., A Discourse on Essential Nature of Buddhas]), where we find it said that “the dharmakāya is to be understood as two-fold (dharmakāyo dvidhā jñeya, fǎshēn yǒu èr zhǒng 法身有二種). First, the dharmakāya is to be understood as the body of the perfectly pure dharmadhātu (dharmadhātu sunirmalaḥ, qīngjìng  yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaṃ paśyati sa dharmaṃ paśyati, yo dharmaṃ paśyati sa buddhaṃ paśyati 若見緣生即見法。若見法即見佛 (ruò jiàn yuánshēng jí jiàn fǎ. ruò jiàn fǎ jí jiàn fó) Schoening 1995: vol. 1, 60 – 62 & 220; Reat 1993: 27.

74

Robert M. Gimello

zhēn fǎjiè shēn 清淨真法界身), which is both (1) the object of non-discriminative knowledge (avikalpajñānagocara, wúfēnbié zhì jìngjiè 無分別智境界), and (2) that which the Buddhas realize through introspection (tathāgatānam pratyātmādhigamadharma, zì nèishēn fǎjiè néng zhèng yīngzhī 自內身法界能證應 知). Second, the dharmakāya is to be understood as “the natural outflow (tanniṣyanda, yī bǐ xíqì liú 依彼習氣流) of the perfectly pure dharmadhātu,” namely, “the teachings of both the profound [truth] and the various [worldly truths] (gāmbhīryavaicitryanaya-deśanādharma, yǐ shēnqiǎn yì shuō 以深淺義說) that are “the cause of the attainment” (tatpraptihetu, dé bǐ yīn 得彼因) [of the perfectly pure dharmadhātu].²⁶ Compare this, by the way, with the line in Asaṅga’s Compendium of Mahāyāna (Mahāyānasaṃgraha, Shè dàshèng lùn 攝大乘論), from Xuánzàng’s (玄奘) Chinese translation of the no-longer extant Sanskrit, on the topic of how the defiled ālayavijñāna (store consciousness), the deepest level of consciousness, can be purified. Asaṅga, speaking of the “pure-mind” (jìngxīn 凈心) or “supramundane mind” (chūshì xīn 出世心), says that it … is born of impregnation by the seed of the hearing [of the Buddha’s word], which flows from the most pure dharmadhātu. ²⁷

The Ratnagotravibhāga further notes that the dharmadhātu is two-fold in yet another way insofar as it is both (1) yāvadbhāvikatā (jìn suǒyǒu xìng 盡所有性) ‒ i. e., the full range of all existents, and also (2) athāvatbhāvikatā (rú suǒyǒu xìng 如所有性) ‒ the state of things as they are.²⁸ Thus, the dharmadhātu, seen as “the full range of all existents,” is held to be the domain of conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya, shìsú dì 世俗諦). It is also held to be the object of tatpṛṣthalabdha-jñāna (hòudé zhì 後得智), i. e., the practical, worldly knowledge (jñāna, zhì 智) that is said to be “acquired after” (pṛsthalabdha) the attainment of

 Takasaki 1996: 284– 285; Nakamura 1961: 137– 138; Huáng 2017: 188 – 189.  *suviśuddha-dharmadhātuniṣyanda-śrutavāsana-bīja, cóng zuì qīngjìng fǎjiè děng liú zhèng wén xūn xí zhǒngzi suǒ sheng 從最清淨法界等流正聞熏習種子所生 Taishō 1597, Vol. 31, p. 333c 8 – 10. See Lamotte 1973: 65 – 66. Note that this translation, by a great Catholic scholar of Buddhism, was originally published in 1938 as Bibliothèque du Muséon 7.  Takasaki 1996: 173 – 176; Nakamura 1961: 27– 30; Huáng 2017: 68. Ratnamati’s Chinese translation renders yathāvad-bhāvikatā and yāvad-bhāvikatā, respectively, as 如實修行 (rúshí xiūxíng) and 編修行 (biān xiūxíng), but this makes no sense in context and must be the result of a misreading or a textual corruption. In Chinese translations of other texts in which these two terms appear they are given as we have given them above.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

75

non-discriminating insight and that allows the bodhisattva, the transcended being, to, as it were, “return to the world” so as to undertake effective compassionate action on behalf of sentient beings. By contrast, the dharmadhātu as “the state of things as they are” is the suchness (tathatā, zhēnrú 真如) and emptiness (śūnyatā, kōng 空) ‒ the true, insubstantial substance ‒ of things. And this is held to be the domain of ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya, dìyīyì dì 第一義諦 / zhēndì 眞諦), not conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya, súdì 俗諦). It is the object of non-discriminating knowledge (avikalpa-jñāna, wúfēnbié zhì 無分別智), the very knowledge that liberates the bodhisattva, as distinct from the practical wisdom that enables the liberated bodhisattva to enact his compassion and save others. What these passages suggest is that the dharmakāya (the “truth-body” of a Buddha), in its relation to the dharmadhātu (the “essential element” or “domain” of truth), has both an impersonal and a personal dimension. In its impersonal, immutable, and therefore quite impassable (απαθες?) dimension it is simply the way things ultimately or truly are in and of themselves, regardless of who does or does not perceive them as such. In its relationship to persons, which is also its gnoseological dimension, it is what the awakened being is awakened to. It is the object of the awakened being’s “supramundane” (lokôttara, chūshìjiān 出世間), “released” (vinirmukta, jiětuō 解脫),” “non-discriminating” (nirvikalpa, wúfēnbié 無分別) knowledge. It is also the object of the already awakened being’s multifarious, discriminate, and salvifically efficacious mundane (lokiya, shìjiān 世間) knowledge. But there is still more to the matter than this, for these passages also indicate that the dharmadhātu as the domain of the real, i. e., the essence of things as they objectively are ‒ immutable and impassable though it may seem to be ‒ is not static or inert. Rather it has generative or causative potency. Although it does not itself change, it does somehow foster or enable, in sentient beings, change of the kind that brings about their liberation. This is what is meant when the texts say that the dharmakāya, absolute buddhahood, is “the natural outflow” (tanniṣyanda, yī bǐ xíqì liú 依彼習氣流) of the dharmadhātu, when they say that the transformative “hearing of the Buddha’s revelatory word flows from the most pure dharmadhātu” (suviśuddhadharmadhātu-niṣyanda, cóng zuì qīngjìng fǎjiè děngliú 從最清淨法界等流), and when they say that those same teachings born of the dharmadhātu are “the cause of the awakened being’s attainment of the dharmadhātu” (tatpraptihetu, dé bǐ yīn 得彼因). This amounts to saying that the truth of things, the way things truly are, naturally generates liberating gnosis, or that gnosis is just the cognitive resonance of ultimate truth. To be sure, the concepts of “natural outflow” or salvific “causation” are hardly perspicuous. Just how it is that objective truth naturally engenders sub-

76

Robert M. Gimello

jective liberation is not immediately clear. The very mystery of the process may account for Mahāyāna Buddhism’s resort to personification, its tendency to find enhypostatic resonances in the anhypostatic truths of the dharmakāya and tathāgatagarbha. Thus, in the imaginaire of Mahāyāna Buddhism, dharmakāya and tathāgatagarbha are both personified ‒ the one as Vairocana, the other as Samantabhadra. However, it would be a mistake to interpret these personifications as merely metaphorical. In the spirituality of Mahāyāna, in its contemplative, devotional, iconographic, and liturgical practices, these supernal beings, who are said to embody ultimate and soteriologically effective truths, are held to be real personal presences, powerful agents whom one may encounter, commune with, revere, worship, entreat, rely upon, etc. It is as though the Mahāyāna recognition of a transcendent that is also immanent ‒ distant from the order of suffering, ignorance, and desire and yet compassionately implicated therein ‒ led inexorably to the conception of such “trans-immanence” as somehow personal ‒ this despite the many strains of Buddhism that, as noted above, adduce the claim that ultimate truth obtains irrespective of any persons who may or may not attain it. Is it too much to suggest that this may be understood as Buddhism’s reluctant, not fully conscious intimation of the unconditional transcendent as a divine presence, a tacit recognition that it is necessary and an expression of a kind of unacknowledged yearning for it? Why else would Buddhism, so firmly grounded in its insight into the impermanence, selflessness, and emptiness of all things ‒ so adamant in its resistance to ontology and to the positing of transcendent entities ‒ nevertheless be repeatedly, albeit usually reluctantly, drawn to such ontologically affirmative categories as dharmadhātu, tathāgatagarbha, buddha-nature, etc., as well as to such personal embodiments thereof as the Buddha Vairocana and the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra? And might it be too much for a Christian admirer of Buddhism to suggest that here we find, in the guise of Buddhist aporias, the subtle activity of the Holy Spirit or the covert efficacy of the universal Logos? Could it be that Buddhism’s recurrent discovery of contradictions deep within itself, manifest in never fully resolved doctrinal controversies, serves as a kind of “Logos spermatikos”? Of course, Buddhists themselves are not likely to endorse or welcome such suggestions, but when Christians entertain them I believe they can forge a valuable bond of sympathy with Buddhism, a sympathy that is compatible with adherence to Christian truth.²⁹ Such suggestions, arising from the perception of ten-

 That such generous sympathy is possible and desirable has in fact been demonstrated by some modern Catholic thinkers, theologians for whom it has entailed no compromise of their

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

77

sions within Buddhism ‒ i. e. from the perspective of study of intra-Buddhist critique and polemic rather than from the perspective of extrinsic critique and polemic ‒ may allow Christian theologians to find in Buddhism something analogous, for example, to the struggles of the Fathers of the Church to understand how it is that Christ can be both fully human and fully divine, how it is that having “emptied himself” (ἐκένωσεν) of his divinity the Father “highly exalted” (ὑπερύψωσεν) him as perichoretically divine, and how it is that sinners can “become God” by virtue of God’s sacrifice in becoming man. When Mahāyāna Buddhists speak, as they often do, of “buddhas” (fó 佛) and “sattvas” (zhòngshēng 眾 生), i. e., noble beings (ārya, shèng 聖) and common beings (pṛthagjana, fánfū 凡 夫), as different (yì 異) and yet also the same (tóng 同), as consolidated (yuánróng 圓融) and yet separate (bié 別), when they speak of the mind of a sentient being as a slough of corruption and yet also a preserve of radiant and inviolate purity, when they describe sensuality and materiality as enthrallment but claim also that they are capable of consecration and empowerment, and so on, are they not saying, in effect, that the unconditioned transcendence of buddhahood and the imperfect, suffering condition of unawakened sentient beings are “unconfused” (ἀσυγχύτως) and yet inseparable (ἀχωρίστως)? This of course is a far cry from the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, which speaks of the human immanence of the divine transcendent as unique to the second person of the Trinity, and not as something common to all sentient beings. However, I would suggest that we may still detect in these Buddhist paradoxes and controversies a kind of inchoate appreciation of the need for such presence in the otherwise empty world. In any case, I can offer, by way of unsatisfactory conclusion, nothing more than these few open and sympathetic questions and hypotheses, all of them stimulated by Nitsche’s very insightful and necessary questions.

Bibliography Bodhi 2000. Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2000.

commitment to the distinctive and definitive truth of Christ. This has been noted, for example, by John Milbank in his discussion of de Lubac (Milbank 2005: 6: “This same sympathy for marginal Christian or non-Christian thinkers whom he felt might be more profoundly near the heart of Christian truth than more ‘orthodox’ ones, de Lubac applied to thinkers of the past – to Origen himself, to Pico, to Proudhon, and to Buddhist philosophers.”) De Lubac’s critical respect for Buddhism is a model for all theologians of religions.

78

Robert M. Gimello

Buswell and Lopez 2014. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Eds.), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2014. Cleary 1993. Thomas Cleary, The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Boston and London: Shambala 1993. Eliade 1987. Mircea Eliade (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan/Free Press 1987. Gimello 1997. Robert M. Gimello, “Chéngguān’s 澄觀 Meditations on the Three Holy Ones (Sānshèng guànmén 三聖觀門)”. In: Kegongaku ronshū: Kamata Shigeo hakase koki ki’nen 鎌田茂雄博士古希記念 [Essays in Huáyán Studies in Celebration of the Seventieth Birthday of Dr. Kamata Shigeo]. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan 大蔵出版 (1997) 131 – 213. Hamar 2015. Imre Hamar, “Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra”. In: Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Volume I: Literature and Languages. Leiden: E. J. Brill 2015. Huáng 2017. Huáng Bǎoshēng 黄宝生, Fàn-Hàn duìkān Jiūjìng yīshéng băoxìng lùn 梵汉对勘 究竟一乘宝性论. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press 2017. Lamotte 1973. Étienne Lamotte, La Somme du grand véhicule d’Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṃgraha). [Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 8]. Louvain: Éditions Peeters 1973. Coffey 1999. David Coffey, Some Resources for Students of La nouvelle théologie. Philosophy and Theology 11/2 (1999): 367 – 402. de Lubac 1946. Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Études historiques. [Théologie 8]. Paris: Aubier 1946 de Lubac 1951. Id., Aspects du bouddhisme. Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1951. de Lubac 1952. Id., La Rencontre du Bouddhisme et de l’Occident. Paris: Aubier 1952. de Lubac 1954. Id., Aspects of Buddhism. Tr. by George Lamb. Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1951. de Lubac 1954. Id., Aspects du bouddhisme: Amida. Paris: Éditions de Seuil 1954. de Lubac 1959 – 64. Id., Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture. Paris: Aubier 1959 – 64. de Lubac 1965. Id., Le mystère du surnature. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne 1965. de Lubac 1965..Id., Augustisme et théologie modern. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne 1965. de Lubac 1967. Id., Augustinianism and Modern Theology. Tr. by Rosemary Sheed. London: G. Chapman and New York: Herder & Herder, 1967. de Lubac 1967. Id., The Mystery of the Supernatural. Tr. by Rosemary Sheed. London: G. Chapman 1967. de Lubac 1980. Id., Petite catéchese sur nature et grace. Paris: Fayard 1980. de Lubac 1984. Id., A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace. Tr. by Brother Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. San Francisco: Ignatius 1984. Magnin 2001. Paul Magnin (Ed.), L’Intelligence de La Rencontre du Bouddhisme: Actes du colloque du 11 octobre 2000 à la Fondation Singer-Polignac. [Études Lubaciennes 2]. Paris: Cerf 2001. Milbank 2005. John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural. Grand Rapids, Michigan & Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans 2005. Mortley 1986. Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence II: The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek. [Theophania 31]. Bonn: Hanstein 1986. Nakamura 1961. Nakamura Zuiry 中村瑞隆, The RatnagotravibhāgaMahāyānottaratantra-Çāstra (Sanskrit with Chinese). Tokyo: Sankiba (Sanskrit 山喜房佛書林 1961.

The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned

79

Nitsche 2005. Bernhard Nitsche (Ed.), Gottesdenken in interreligiöser Perspektive: Raimon Panikkars Trinitätstheologie in der Diskussion. Frankfurt a. M./Paderborn: Lembeck/Bonifatius 2005. Nitsche 2008. Id., “Homeomorphic Equivalents as Chances of Religious Understanding”. In: Raimon Panikkar: His Legacy and Vision. Milena Carrar Pavan and Kala Acharya (Eds.). Mumbai: Somaiya Publications (2008) 167 – 180. Orsborn 2018. Matthew Orsborn, Something for Nothing: Cognitive Metaphors for Emptiness in the *Upadeśa (Dàzhìdùlùn 大智度論). Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 31 (2018): 171 – 222. Radich 2015. Michael Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. [Hamburg Buddhist Studies 5]. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press 2015. Reat 1993 Noble Ross Reat, The Śālistamba Sūtra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1993. Schoening 1995. Jeffrey D. Schoening, The Śālistamba Sūtra and Its Indian Commentaries, 2 vols. [Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 35/1 – 2]. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien 1995. Suzuki 1930. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1930. Takasaki 1996. Jikidō Takasaki, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente 1966. Wayman and Wayman 1974. Alex and Hideko Wayman, The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā: A Buddhist Scripture on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory. New York: Columbia University Press 1974. Zimmermann 2002. Michael Zimmermann, A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Earliest Exposition of the Buddha-Nature Teaching in India. [Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica VI]. Tokyo: The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University 2002.

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

Effort and Grace in Relationship with the Transcendent in Buddhism Introduction In this paper, I study not so much the nature of the Transcendent in and of itself (of course as understood by Buddhists) but rather the means of reaching the Transcendent in some schools of living Buddhism. The great German mystic Nicholas of Cusa wrote of the coming together of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) in God. However, I think this coming together of opposites is also true of our relationship with God or the Transcendent, for instance, by bringing together effort and grace. Different approaches regard effort and grace as well as colour to be the concept of the Transcendent or some aspects of It. Even though Western scholars and Eastern Buddhist scholars use the term “grace” in reference to Pure Land Buddhism, which gives importance to otherpower (Japanese tariki 他力), I am aware that the use of the word “grace” in Buddhism may be controversial.

Reaching Nibbāna in Theravāda Although Theravāda does not accept the existence of a God or Supreme Being, like every religion, it has some Absolute or Sacred which, in Theravāda, is the State of Liberation or Nibbāna. It is described negatively, i. e., what it is not, e. g., there is no craving, suffering, etc.; and positively, for instance, it is a state of peace, permanent bliss, the supreme state. However, in the ultimate analysis, it is indescribable. The theory of dependent co-production (paṭiccasmuppāda), speaks of twelve conditions. When one has managed to get rid of these conditions, one reaches the Unconditioned, i. e., Nibbāna. Hence, Nibbāna is Transcendent. As the Buddha declared in the Udāna: Were there not, O monks, this unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, created.

On his deathbed the Buddha advised attadīpā viharatha: be islands (lamps) unto yourselves; be a refuge to yourselves (attasaraṇā), do not take refuge in others https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-007

82

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

(aññasaraṇā). In Theravāda one has to make quite a lot of effort to reach Nibbāna. The Pāli Scriptures use words like padhāna, viriya, vāyāma and ussāha ‒ all refer to effort. A person needs to resort to a good deal of resolute effort (ātāpi) to cultivate various requisites on the way to Nibbāna. The term saddhā (‘faith’ or, rather, confidence) has completely different connotations compared to the understanding of faith in theistic religions like Christianity, and paññā (wisdom) is much higher. In lists of virtues required for Nibbāna, saddhā is a preliminary virtue: in fact, it is not one of the limbs of the eight-fold path and at times may prove to be an obstacle to attain liberation. On the other hand, paññā is the highest virtue, the grand finale: in fact, an Arahant has paññā, but is assadho (without faith). However, the effort should be balanced: neither insufficient nor excessive. There are three grades among those who attain liberation in Theravāda: the Arahant (Worthy Person), the Paccekabuddha (Separately or Individually or Privately Enlightened One) and the Buddha (Enlightened One). All three involve a long process of rigorous striving.

Traces of Devotion in Theravāda? In the Ti-saraṇa (Three Refuges), taking refuge in the Buddha, in particular, has been interpreted by some as a tangent from the path of effort alone. Some try to refute this charge by mentioning that when Gopaka-Moggallāna asks whether Gotama has designated anyone who would take his place as refuge, after his passing away, Ānanda replies in the negative. However, this does not refute the statement that the Buddha was a refuge while he was living. To this, Buddhaghosa responds, taking refuge (saraṇāgamana) consists of the arising of thought brought about by conducting oneself in accordance with the Triad, having the Triad as the goal characterized by the destruction of defilements […].

He says there are two types of saraṇa: the first is transcendental (lokuttara), which aims at attaining Nibbāna; and the second is worldly (lokiya) which is directed towards the qualities of the Buddha (but not to the Buddha), the Dhamma and the Saṅgha. So thus far, he does not understand “refuge” as personal devotion to the person of the Buddha. However, in his list of four kinds of refuge, he includes adoration (paṇipāta). So one can see here some influence from the devotional tradition.

Effort and Grace in Relationship with the Transcendent in Buddhism

83

In the Milandapañho, a non-canonical but orthodox text, Nāgasena is asked whether a morally bad person could attain salvation if that person believed in the Buddha just before death. Nāgasena’s reply is that even a very heavy stone would float if placed on a ship. In such passages there seems to be some tinge of faith, in addition to effort. Still, in spite of all the extraordinary qualities that the Buddha had, orthodox Theravāda regarded him as a human being. However, the Pāli commentaries and some later texts tend to look on the Buddha as a superhuman being. For instance, as a Bodhisatta he descended from the Tusita heaven into his mother’s womb, although she had not had sexual intercourse. Ten months later he emerged from her womb not only unblemished, but also stretching out his arms and legs. Buddhaghosa says that the bodies of Buddhas never decompose. In spite of the reference to the Buddha’s wrinkled aging skin in the Jarāsutta, Buddhaghosa explains that there was just a single wrinkle, the width of a hair, between his shoulders, and which was seen only by Ānanda.

Reaching Nirvāṇa in Mahāyāna According to Mahāyāna, Nirvāṇa, as the Theravādins point out, is a state in which there is no rebirth, a state of eternal bliss. However, since Mahāyāna believes that there is only One Reality, Nirvāṇa consists in one’s realizing that one was, is, and always will be identical with this one Reality, which is called by different names, such as Body of Essence (Dharmakāya), etc. Mahāyāna claims that the Śrāvakas, their term for the Theravādins, accomplish only some of the way along the path to Nirvāṇa. They realize only the nonsubstantiality of the individual series of existence (pudgalanairātmya), but do not realize the non-substantiality of all things in the universe (dharmanairātmya), other than the Absolute Reality. In contrast, Mahāyānists are capable of acquiring both realizations.

The Bodhisattva Path (bodhisattvamārga) On the bodhisattva-path (bodhisattvamārga), in general, bodhisattvas have to go through ten stages (bhūmis), specializing in one virtue or perfection (pāramitā) in each stage. This may go on for aeons. The bodhisattva may also slip down to a lower stage and then struggle again to advance further. Only after entering into the eighth stage, is it smooth sailing. However, the ideal is to delay one’s salvation in order to help others attain salvation. This delay is done through

84

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

the bodhisattva‘s wisdom (prajñā). So the bodhisattvamārga is an arduous one, involving long and difficult terrain, i. e., it implies a great deal of effort. Among other things, the bodhisattva spends long hours in meditation (dhyāna). Early Buddhism in India adopted the meditational techniques of Yoga. Some techniques of meditation were brought to China from India, e. g., breath-control and visualization. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra consists mainly of a dialogue between the Buddha and the bodhisattva Mahāmati. Their questions and answers display irrational or illogical aspects. This may have been the precursor of the Chinese gōng’àn or Japanese kōan. With regard to attaining enlightenment, the Buddha answers, in this same sūtra, that sometimes it takes place immediately, sometimes gradually. The two meditation schools of China and Japan have their origin pre-shadowed in this statement. The Indian Bodhidharma was the founder of the meditation school in China (Chán), which in Japan was called Zen. The Chinese Línjì sub-division and the corresponding Japanese Rinzai sub-division advocate sudden illumination; while the Chinese Cáodòng sub-division and the corresponding Japanese Sōtō sub-division believe in gradual illumination. Their respective techniques in China as well as in Japan need a lot of effort. On the other hand, the Japanese Ōbaku Zen School integrated into its Zen practice also the Nembutsu (the chanting of a “bow to the Buddha Amitābha”, a Pure Land method). In doing so, it brought together effort and grace. Similarly, the synthetic Tiāntái (Chinese) and Tendai (Japanese) schools brought together aspects of meditation, i. e., effort, and faith, i. e., grace.

The Path of Faith (śraddhāmārga) Unlike in Theravāda, faith is an all-important virtue, the rescuer from the flood of rebirths, the signpost to the secure city (of the Pure Land). Through faith in the celestial bodhisattvas, especially Avolokiteśvara, and in the heavenly Buddhas, especially Amītābha, who is also called Amitāyus, one is reborn in a Buddha paradise, the best one being Sukhāvati, the buddha-field (Buddhakṣetra) or Pure Land of the Buddha Amitābha (or Amitāyus). In the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra Avolokiteśvara is glorified as the saviour, refuge and recourse. The shorter Sukhāvativyūhasūtra asserts that beings are not born in the Pure Land of Amitāyus because of their good works. Whoever hears his name and keeps it in one’s mind for one day or more will be born in Sukhāvati. In the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva prays,

Effort and Grace in Relationship with the Transcendent in Buddhism

85

I worship the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas…. Of all danger the greatest is that which comes from my sins…pardon them.

In India, devotion, especially to the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and the Buddha Amitābha, was shared by different Mahāyāna schools, but the development into an independent devotional school took place outside India. Huìyuǎn founded the Pure Land (Jìngtǔ) School in China; the Pure Land School was systematized by Tánluán, and Shàndǎo held that even a sinful person can be born in the Pure Land by thinking of Amitābha. Also other traditions assimilated certain aspects of Pure Land Buddhism into their schools as an auxiliary help. The Chinese Tiāntái (Japanese Tendai) and the Sānlùn school (Japanese Sanron) adopted certain aspects of the Pure Land cult as an auxiliary help in the practice of their own traditions. Thus they blended effort and grace. In Japan, Hōnen emphasized other-power (tariki) over self-power (jiriki). He advised people to embrace the path of the Pure Land (Jōdo-mon), by frequent repetitions of Namu Amida Butsu (shortened form: Nembutsu), corresponding to the Sanskrit Namo Amitābhāya Buddhāya. He did not however exclude good works. So while he emphasizes grace, he also includes a certain amount of effort. Shinran emphasized tariki much more than Hōnen. He encouraged uttering Amida’s name only once, unlike Hōnen. In fact, even the single recitation is itself a gift from Amida. Since faith is not so much our effort but a gift, Shinran made his paradoxical statement: “If even a good person can be born in the Pure Land, much more so an evil person.” We are here reminded of Luther’s famous pecca fortiter, sed crede fortius (sin boldly but believe more boldly). Birth in a Buddhakṣetra is not yet the state of Nirvāṇa, but it is easier to reach Nirvāṇa from there. The Pure Land School has the greatest number of followers in Japan.

Concluding Reflections I have already pointed out that, for Theravāda, Nibbāna is Transcendent. It is impersonal, not personal. In the Trikāya (Three Bodies) doctrine of Mahāyāna it is obviously the Dharmakāya (the Body of Essence) that is the absolutely Transcendent Being; in fact, it is the only Reality. It is immeasurable and illimitable, free from all marks (including the 32 Mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇas, etc.) and, therefore indescribable. As in the case of the Hindu Kevalādvaita Vedānta, this Transcendent Being could be considered as personal, if we take the definition of person in

86

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

St. Thomas Aquinas. On the other hand, as in the case of Kevalādvaita, it could be thought of as psychologically impersonal because there is no other reality to relate to. However, it seems to me that here the Dharmakāya or the Ādibuddha is personal psychologically as well, since, because It cannot help others directly, It takes on the (unreal) forms of Celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas, who, as a group, form the Saṃbhogakāya (Body of Enjoyment), the unreal manifestation of the Dharmakāya and the second level in the Trikāya doctrine, and these Buddhas and bodhisattvas are the ones with whom people relate in a very personal way, with deep devotion. It should be noted, however, that the celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas do not, in turn, relate in any psychological way with the Dharmakāya, which is their basis. The third level of the Trikāya is the Nirmāṇakāya (Produced Body), the unreal manifestation of the Saṃbhogakāya. In this third level form, the Buddhas appear as human beings to help Śrāvakas (Theravādins), pratyekabuddhas and bodhisattvas who have not yet reached any of the ten stages (bhūmis). They render this service through their teaching but not by grace, to help them on the spiritual path. There is a sort of personal reaching out to people by the Nirmāṇakāya, but it has no psychological relationship with the other two bodies. Some scholars, like Winston King, try to ferret out grace in different aspects of Theravāda. In my opinion he goes too far. On the other hand, I do think that other-power, which refers not just to another ordinary being, but a much higher being than we are, can give grace, particularly because what the Buddhas and bodhisattvas give is not merited by our own works. Of course they are not the Supreme Being, but they are the preeminent manifestations of the Supreme Dharmakāya, who may be said to give us grace indirectly, while the Buddhas and bodhisattvas do so directly. They not only grant a speedy birth in a buddha-field, but they also forgive sins and remove the fruits of our karman. Our faith in them and their grace to us constitute a personal relationship, which can also prompt us to be grateful also to the Dharmakāya, who takes on the Saṃbhogakāya form of the celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas to come to our aid. This does not mean, however, that the use of the term “grace” here is exactly the same as in devotional Hinduism or in Christianity.

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality In their book “Introducing Buddhism”, published in 2006, Charles Prebish and Damien Keown write about the doctrine of “dependent origination” in early Buddhism: The important corollary of this teaching is that there (…) are no entities or metaphysical realities – such as God or a soul (ātman) – that transcend the causal nexus. (…) Early sources indicate that the Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree when he fully realized the profound truth of dependent origination, namely that all phenomena are conditioned (saṃskṛta) and arise and cease in a determinate series.¹

It is not unusual to find such a view in contemporary publications on Buddhism. Nevertheless, it is in flat contradiction to significant parts of the Buddhist canonical and post-canonical commentarial tradition. The basic principle of the doctrine of “dependent origination” is that everything which has a conditioned arising is also subject to decay.² Gautama, before he became a Buddha, was looking for the “deathless” (amṛta, Pāli: amata), that is, for something which is not subject to decay and hence not subject to dependent origination. This search or striving is called “the noble search” (ariyapariyesanā).³ If – as Prebish and Keown suggest – the Buddha’s enlightenment would have consisted in the insight that there is no unconditioned and therefore no deathless reality, the Buddha’s striving would have resulted in the insight that his “noble search” had been in vain. But this is just the opposite of what early Buddhism joyfully proclaims.

I According to the canonical records, the Buddha, after his enlightenment, addressed his five former fellow ascetics with the words: “Listen, Bhikkhus, the

 Prebish/Keown 2006: 49.  See Rhys Davids/Oldenberg, Mahāvagga (1: 23, 5), 146: “Whatsoever is subject to the condition of origination is subject also to the condition of cessation.”  Ñāṇamoli/Bodhi, Majjhimanikāya (26), 264. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-008

88

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Deathless has been attained.”⁴ In his own description of the enlightenment experience, the Buddha, according to the canonical records, taught: … being myself subject to death, seeking the deathless supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna, I attained the deathless supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna.⁵

This is also in line with one of the Buddha’s “inspired utterances” (udāna), which appears twice in the Pāli-canon: There is, monks, a not-born (ajātaṁ), a not-brought-to-being (abhūtaṁ), a not-made (akataṁ), a not-conditioned (asaṇkhataṁ). If, monks, there were no not-born, not-brought-tobeing, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned. But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-tobeing, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.⁶

This passage does not only emphasise that “there is” a non-conditioned or unconditioned reality, a reality which is exempt from the law of dependent origination. It also affirms with unambiguous precision that without the existence of such an unconditioned reality any salvation/liberation from saṃsāra would be inconceivable, i. e. impossible. We would be totally encapsulated by the transitory world of dependent origination or conditioned existence. The unconditioned reality⁷ to which this udāna refers, is nirvāṇa: the deathless reality which the Buddha had experienced in his enlightenment. Contrary to Prebish and Keown, major normative tracts of the Buddhist tradition like the Milindapañha ⁸ and Buddhagosa’s Visuddhimagga ⁹ have taken dependent origination not as a teaching that would deny the existence of an unconditioned reality, but as an argument which proves the unconditioned nature of the ultimate. In order to be truly “deathless”, nirvāṇa has to be unconditioned, because everything that underlies the mechanism of dependent origination is also liable to decay. If there is a reality which is free from decay, it

 Ibid.  Ibid. 260.  Ireland, Udāna 8:3 and Itivuttaka 43, 103, 180. Keown and Prebish have clearly a problem of coming to terms with passages like these, see: Prebish/Keown 2006: 52.  While the Theravāda tradition recognizes only one “unconditioned reality” (asaṅkhata dhamma), i.e. nibbāna, the Sarvāstivāda school added “space” (ākāśa) as another unconditioned element plus two further aspects of nirvāṇa. The Yogācāra school added three further “unconditioned realities” which are all related to nirvāṇa.  Trenckner, Milindapañha (4: 7),13 – 17.  Ñāṇamoli, Visuddhimagga (16), 67– 74.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

89

therefore must be free from conditioned origination. It has to be unconditioned (asaṃskṛta, Pāli: asaṅkhata), and this is what nirvāṇa is claimed to be.¹⁰ Moreover, as both, the Milindapañha and the Visuddhimagga argue, the characterization of nirvāṇa as an “unconditioned” reality entails that nirvāṇa cannot be regarded as being just a mental state, that is, the state of an enlightened person. If nirvāṇa were merely a mental state, it would be conditioned: It would originate as the result of the successful completion of the Noble Eightfold Path. However, as such a conditioned mental state, it were no longer the un-become and un-conditioned reality which alone can be free from death and decay. To quote the Visuddhimagga: Nibbāṇa “is not arousable by the path; it is only reachable, not arousable, by the path; that is why it is uncreated. It is because it is uncreated that it is free from ageing and death. It is because of the absence of its creation and of its ageing and death that it is permanent.”¹¹

Enlightenment, therefore, needs to be distinguished from nirvāṇa. Enlightenment (= “awakening”; bodhi) is the mental state of experiencing this independent and unconditioned reality of nirvāṇa. As a classical formula of the PāliCanon expresses it: enlightenment is the “plunging into the deathless” (amataṃ vigayha).¹² But nirvāṇa itself exists whether someone plunges into it or not. It is not conditioned by someone’s attainment of enlightenment. It is exactly the other way round. The unconditioned existence of nirvāṇa is the condition that makes enlightenment possible. Hence we find in another major treatise of classical Buddhism, i. e. in the influential Abhidharmakośabhāşyam, an interesting debate: Does the fact that nirvāṇa, while being itself unconditioned, conditions our salvation, entail that it is in some sense “active”? Being “outside of time” nirvāṇa can “neither project nor produce a result” in time. However, it is not entirely without any form of causal effectiveness. Firstly, it can be the object of human experience, that is, it can be a kind of causal condition for cognition. Secondly, as an object of cognition it “causes an obstacle to the vices” – “as the stars are not visible when the sun shines.” That is, the cognition of nirvāṇa puts a lasting end to all the defilements and is thus the cause of their final cessation.¹³ So, it is a “cause” in the sense of

 On the pre- and non-Mahāyāna concept of nirvāṇa see Chandrkaew 1982; Pandit 1993: 254– 339; Collins 1998; 2010; Gowans 2003: 50 – 54, 148 – 157 and Harvey 2004: 180 – 245.  Ñāṇamoli 1999: 508 – 516. See also Trenckner Milindapañha (4: 7), 13 – 17.  E.g. Suttanipāta 228, Khuddakapāṭha 6: 7. See also Harvey 2004: 232.  See Pruden 1991: 255 – 302.

90

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

the “unmoved mover”, who brings the effects about simply by its attractive presence. Not all contemporary interpreters share the view that we find in Keown’s and Prebish’s introduction. The scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, for example, states quite unambiguously: Nibbana is not only the destruction of defilements and the end of samsara but a reality transcendent to the entire world of mundane experience, a reality transcendent to all the realms of phenomenal existence.¹⁴

The Pāli equivalent to “transcendent” would be lokuttara (lokottara in Sanskrit) meaning literally “transmundane” or “beyond the world”. This transmundane or otherworldly nature of the nirvāṇa is also graphically expressed in early Buddhist iconography. The ancient explanations of how to paint the so-called bhavacakra (“The wheel of becoming”) instruct that “outside” of the big wheel, which represents saṃsāra and is framed by the images representing dependent origination, the artist should paint a Buddha pointing out the “white nirvāṇa circle”.¹⁵ The positioning of the nirvāṇa circle “outside” the wheel of saṃsāra clearly carries ontological implications.¹⁶ Nirvāṇa lies beyond the world which itself is visually encircled by “dependent origination” and hence in the grip of death (Yāma who holds the wheel of saṃsāra in his claws). Besides iconography, the transcendent nature of nirvāṇa is further underlined by early Buddhist metaphorical imagery. A particularly ancient¹⁷ metaphor speaks of nirvāṇa as the “other/further shore” (paratīra) which is reached when one has crossed saṃsāra. Not the early Buddhists denied transcendence but the materialists who lived in India at the time of the Buddha. The so-called Cārvākas rejected the existence of any transworldly realities.¹⁸ Yet the Buddha was neither one  Bodhi, Nibbana, 2. According to Tilakaratne the early Buddhist tradition contains two different concepts of nirvāṇa, a “naturalist” conception of nirvāṇa as a mental state (which Tilakaratne prefers) and a “metaphysical” interpretation as an unconditioned, transcendent reality, which is the one affirmed in the abhidhammical and commentarial tradition (see Tilakaratne 2016).  See Zin/Schlingloff 2007: 23, 38, 148 f. Schlingloff speculates whether the Buddha may have originally been painted inside the nirvāṇa circle. Later on, the Buddha was painted as pointing towards the white circle. In some later traditions the circle was then misunderstood as the moon, which can be seen from the fact that the circle contains the Buddhist image of the ‘hare in the moon’ (going back to the famous Sasa-Jātaka; Jātaka No. 316).  Zin/Schlingloff 2007: 23.  See the frequent use of the metaphor in the Suttanipāta which is usually considered as containing rather old Buddhist material.  See Turner-Lauck Wernicki.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

91

of the Cārvākas nor was he particularly sympathetic with them. On the contrary, the Cārvākas’ teachings were seen by the Buddhists as seriously unwholesome. As a transcendent reality, nirvāṇa is also understood to be transconceptual or ineffable. It is atakkāvacara: “beyond conceptual reasoning”.¹⁹ It can only be expressed either by negations, or in parables. The same applies to the one who has “plunged” into nirvāṇa. He too is beyond any words,²⁰ and to him applies the fourfold negation, that is: One cannot say that he exists, that he does not exist, that he both, exists and not exists, nor that he neither exists nor not exists.²¹ Nevertheless, through enlightenment nirvāṇa is experienced as highest bliss²² and the Buddhist tradition regards it as that reality which all beings unconsciously or consciously are longing for.²³ The suffering of which the First Noble Truth speaks, is basically the suffering that results from not finding the goal of this longing. Thus we read in the canonical auto-interpretation of the First Noble Truth: And what is not getting what one wants? (…) In beings subject to birth, to ageing, to disease, to death, (…) this wish arises: ‘Oh that we were not subject to birth, to ageing, to disease, to death, (…) that we might not come to these things!’ But this cannot be gained by wishing. That is not getting what one wants.²⁴

II How, then, is it possible for human beings to find and experience the ultimate reality of nirvāṇa? As has been stated before, the Milindapañha strongly emphasizes the unconditioned and uncaused nature of nirvāṇa. But while “Nirvāṇa (…)  Ireland, Itivuttaka (43), 181. Tilakaratne denies that nirvāṇa is regarded as “ineffable” in the Theravāda tradition and holds “that there exists not even one single place in the discourses where the Buddha has suggested that nirvana is ineffable” (Tilakaratne 2016: 99). Though, he admits that atakkāvacara might be interpreted as “ineffable”, he prefers its interpretation as a reference to “the crucial need of practice” (ibid. 99, fn. 21). Yet there are other places: Sutta Nipāta 1149 speaks of nirvāṇa as being “beyond comparison” (natthi upamā), in Dhammapada 92 f. it is called “signless” (animitta) and in Dhammapada 218 the “undeclared” (anakkhāta). Tilakaratne also neglects the various statements about the ineffability of the one who has attained nirvāṇa. The eminent Pāli scholar and Mahāthera Nyanponika thus judged: “Nibbāna is indescribable in the strictest sense (avacanīya)” (Nyanaponika 2008: 251).  E.g. Suttanipāta 911, 1075 f.  E.g. Majjhimanikāya 72.  Dhammapada 203 f.  Bodhi, Aṅguttaranikāya (10: 58: 8) (PTS 5, p. 107), 1410.  Dīghanikāya 22:17 (PTS p. 317); Translation abridged after Walshe 1995: 345.

92

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

is unproduceable, and no cause for its origin has been declared” there is nevertheless “a cause that will bring about the realisation of Nirvāṇa”.²⁵ This cause is further specified as the “pure mind” or “pure heart”: Nirvāṇa exists, O king. And it is perceptible to the mind. By means of his pure heart (vishudena mānasena ²⁶), refined and straight, free from the obstacles, free from low cravings, that disciple of the Noble Ones who has fully attained can see Nirvāṇa.²⁷

This raises interesting questions regarding the relationship between the transcendent reality of nirvāṇa and the immanent reality of the “pure” or “luminous mind” (pabhassara citta). A canonical passage from the Aṅguttara-Nikāya (1: 41– 52 = PTS 1, pp. 8 – 10) affirms that nirvāṇa can be realized only by someone who “pierce(s) ignorance” with “a well-directed mind”. As part of the subsequent explanations, the text states: Luminous, Bhikkhus, is this mind, but it is defiled by adventitious defilements. Luminous Bhikkhus, is this mind, and it is freed from adventitious defilements.²⁸

The central defilements (kleśa, Pāli: kilesa), greed, hatred and delusion, and all of its derivatives are not regarded as natural to the mind but as “adventitious”. Accordingly, Buddhaghosa, in his commentary to this particular text, speaks of the mind as “naturally pure” (pakati-parisuddhaṃ).²⁹ Yet how should one understand this “natural” purity or luminosity of the mind? According to Buddhist cosmology, there never was a state in which the beings’ minds would have been entirely free from all defilement. I therefore suggest that this naturalness indicates a natural inclination towards nirvāṇa in every sentient beings’ mind. Such an inclination is also implied by the Buddhist premise that our true and deepest longing is for the ultimate reality of the deathless and not for the transitory things of saṃsāric existence, which underlies the Buddhist distinction between the “noble” and the “ignoble search”.³⁰

 Rhys-Davids, Milindapañha (4: 7: 14), 104 f.  Trenckner 1880: 270.  Milindapañha 4: 7: 16. Rhys-Davids 1894: 106.  Bodhi, Aṅguttaranikāya (1: 49 – 50), 97.  See Harvey 2004: 167.  See above at fn. 3. This is also presupposed in later Mahāyāna thought. According to the Ratnagotravibhāga (1: 40 – 41) human frustration with saṃsāric existence is triggered by the unconscious familiarity with nirvāṇa which is here understood as the presence of nirvāṇa in one’s mind in the form of the tathāgatagarbha or gotra: “If there were no Buddha Element one would not become sick of suffering and want to seek after or aspire for nirvana. Seeing the

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

93

This, however, raises a further question: How can one define this inclination in ontological terms? If inclination means that the mind is naturally bound towards nirvāṇa it is probably insufficient to understand this inclination as the mere potential to reach enlightenment, because a mere potential would not explain the finalization which seems to be presupposed. Should we therefore understand the mind’s natural purity or luminosity as a hidden awareness, as a kind of unconscious familiarity with nirvāṇa? Or will we have to go further and postulate some form of presence or immanence of nirvāṇa in the mind? The latter has been suggested by Christopher Gowans in his thoughtful reflections on early Buddhist philosophy. He speaks of a “liberated dimension” in every person and concludes “that Nibbāna and the liberated dimension have always been united…”.³¹ This would bring early Buddhism in much closer line with the Jainas and with the Upaniṣadic seers who both presupposed a strong inner link between the nature of one’s mind or self and one’s transcendent goal. Be that as it may, the later Mahāyāna teaching of the buddha-nature (buddhadhātu) or buddha-germ (tathāgatagarbha) clearly affirmed such an ontological link.³² The statement in the Milindapañha that while the existence of nirvāṇa itself is uncaused, the experience of nirvāṇa requires an explanation in terms of the causes that account for the possibility of this experience, reflects a way of thinking which in Western modernity has been called “transcendental”. Structurally this questioning is very similar to the approach of the so-called “transcendental theology” which asks for the condition that enables the human mind to receive divine revelation. Karl Rahner, as probably the best known representative of this school of theological thinking, holds that this condition is found in the human mind’s structural openness to an incomprehensible mystery. In the human capacity of understanding finite reality as finite the idea of the infinite is already presupposed. It constitutes an inevitable component of such understanding because without the presupposition of the idea of the infinite we would not be able to be aware of the finitude of finite reality. The infinite, however, is essentially mysterious, because it cannot be circumscribed, that is, it cannot become part of a still wider conceptual web. Rahner holds that this openness to the infinite mystery is in itself already an unconscious familiarity with the infinite nature of God and as such nothing but God’s self-communication to the human mind. I think the structural similarity of this line of transcendental theology fault with existence, suffering, and the virtue of nirvana bliss, happens because of having the gotra; it does not happen in those without it.” See Hookham 1991: 209; see also ibid. 55.  Gowans 2003: 155.  On the connection between the early Buddhist idea of the luminous mind and the buddhanature teaching see also Harvey 2004: 174– 176.

94

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

with the early Buddhist position that the mind can perceive nirvāṇa only if one presupposes some kind of natural inclination towards nirvāṇa, that is, a “natural” purity or luminosity of the mind, is striking. In reply to the question of whether early and non-Mahāyāna Buddhism understand nirvāṇa only as an entirely transcendent, i. e. trans-worldly, reality or whether it is assumed that nirvāṇa is also somehow immanent, one may very well point to the nirvāṇic dimension of the mind’s natural luminosity. Nirvāṇic immanence finds its clearest expression by the fact that buddhas emerge as “nirvāṇized” human beings out of saṃsāric existence, like the pure lotus blossom emerges out of muddy waters as symbolized in popular Buddhist imagery. The canonical affirmation of the mind’s original luminosity presupposes that Buddhas can emerge in this world only because the germ of such emergence is already present in the mind. The muddy waters must contain the seed of the lotus flowers in order to allow for their marvelous appearance in the midst of filth.

III Let me now turn to Nāgārjuna and thus to the beginning of philosophical Mahāyāna. I will confine myself to Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) and my remarks will be very brief and thetic.³³ First of all, Nāgārjuna retains the traditional view according to which nirvāṇa is unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) (MMK 25: 12– 13). From this, he concludes that nirvāṇa cannot be expressed in terms of conditioned existence (bhāva). In that sense nirvāṇa, just like the one who has attained to nirvāṇa, is subject to the fourfold negation (MMK 25: 3 – 18). That is, there is no way to describe it: not in an affirmative way, not in a non-affirmative way, not in both ways, not in neither ways. This rather traditional statement is followed by Nāgārjuna’s most famous remark according to which there is no difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra (MMK 25: 19 – 20). This, of course, is just the opposite of what the Buddhist tradition before Nāgārjuna had claimed. The key question is, therefore, how to interpret Nāgārjuna’s surprising identification of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. According to my understanding, Nāgārjuna’s central argument for this identification is that saṃsāra is as mysterious as nirvāṇa; it is in this sense that there  For my interpretation of Nāgārjuna see Schmidt-Leukel 2006: 115 – 124. For English translations of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā based on the Sanskrit text see Streng 1967: 183 – 220; Inada 1970; Kalupahana 1986; Jones 2010; Siderits/Katsura 2013. Inada, Kalupahana and Siderits/Katsura also give the Sanskrit text.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

95

is no difference between the two. Traditionally, saṃsāra is understood as the world of dependent origination and destruction, that is, the realm of conditioned existence. From this perspective, nirvāṇa appears as radically different, i. e. as a transcendent and unconditioned reality. According to Nāgārjuna, however, close logical investigation reveals that there are no entities which originate and decay. And this can be shown precisely by means of a careful analysis of dependent origination. In the very first chapter of the MMK, Nāgārjuna demonstrates that there is no way how one could consistently explain any type of causal relationship. The idea that the origination of some entity is conditioned or caused by some other entity involves severe and, according to Nāgārjuna, insurmountable logical problems. This insight must lead to the dissolution of the concept of any substantial entities (svabhāva). But without any substantial entities there cannot be any origination and destruction, because origination and destruction can only be thought of as the origination and destruction of some-thing. Nāgārjuna concludes: “If all existence is empty, there is no origination nor destruction” (MMK 25: 1).³⁴ Or, as he says in MMK 21: 9: Origination and disappearance does not obtain for that which is empty. Origination and disappearance does not obtain for that which is not empty.

Hence, Nāgārjuna’s argument is that dependent origination and decay do not apply under any circumstances: The impression that there is a world of things which originate and pass away because they are conditioned is an illusion. In reality, the world that one perceives as saṃsāra is as unoriginated and deathless as nirvāṇa is thought to be. Therefore the two are undistinguishable, yet in the radically apophatic sense that ultimately saṃsāra turns out to be as ineffable as nirvāṇa. And two ineffables are undistinguishable. On my understanding, Nāgārjuna does not deconstruct and reduce nirvāṇa to the level of saṃsāra. He is not saying that in the end the only true reality is the reality of saṃsāra, that is, the reality of conditioned existence or dependent origination and destruction. On the contrary, he clearly says that the only true reality is the unconditioned reality to which – as in the case of nirvāṇa – no concept whatsoever applies (MMK 18: 7, 9): When the domain of thought has been dissipated, ‘that which can be stated’ is dissipated.

 Note that this premise of the objection in MMK 25: 1 is not rejected by Nāgārjuna! All quotations from MMK, apart from the translation of 24: 10, are taken from the translation in Streng 1967: 183 – 220.

96

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Those things which are unoriginated and not terminated, like nirvāṇa, constitute the Truth (dharmatā)… ‘Not caused by something else’, ‘peaceful’, ‘not elaborated by discursive thought’, ‘indeterminate’, ‘undifferentiated’: such are the characteristics of true reality (tattva).

This, I suggest, is clear evidence that in Nāgārjuna’s thought nirvāṇa is not reduced to the level of saṃsāra, but, on the contrary, saṃsāra is elevated to the level of nirvāṇa. ³⁵ This is rather similar to Śaṅkara’s understanding of the relation between saṃsāra and brahman. Saying that the world is brahman implies, so Śaṅkara, an elevation of the inferior to the higher but not a reduction of the higher to the lower. Śaṅkara gives an example from ordinary life: The representative of the king has to be honored like the king himself. But it would be wrong to conclude from this that it is also appropriate that the king is reduced in estimation to the level of his ambassador.³⁶

IV One final aspect of Nāgārjuna’s understanding deserves our attention. Traditionally “enlightenment” or “awakening” (bodhi) is understood as both: the attainment of, or plunging into, nirvāṇa and the final removal or destruction of all illusion (avidyā). Regarding this second aspect, Nāgārjuna again follows the traditional paradigm, but suggest a far more radical understanding of illusion in the sense that all conceptual understanding is illusory. According to Nāgārjuna overcoming illusion, or understanding absolute truth, implies to transcend all conceptual construction of reality (prapañca). Nevertheless, conceptual constructs are indispensable as the starting point from which one may begin the process of arriving at full enlightenment. Therefore Nāgārjuna distinguishes “two truths”: on the one hand, the relative truth, or conceptual truth, as implied in the Buddha’s teaching, especially in the teaching of dependent origination, and, on the other hand, the ultimate truth which is beyond all concepts (MMK 24: 10):

 A similar interpretation is suggested by Chandrkaew, who renders Nāgārjuna’s view as: “… when the empirical truth (saṃvṛti) is removed, what remains is the Absolute.” See Chandrkaew 1982: 100.  Gambhirananda, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (4. 1. 5), 824.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

97

The ultimate truth is not taught independently of customary ways of talking and thinking. Not having acquired the ultimate truth, nirvāṇa is not attained.³⁷

Thus the two-truths teaching leads to a restitution of the distinction between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa but also to an interesting duplication. The restitution consists in the view that the ontological distinction between saṃsāra as the conditioned realm of dependent origination and nirvāṇa as the unconditioned reality is necessary at the level of relative truth. It is indispensable in order to orient people’s lives in the right direction. Further, the distinction between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is duplicated in the form of the epistemological distinction between the two truths. The “relative truth” (saṃvṛtisatya) or “world-ensconced truth” (lokasaṃvṛtisatya) still carries traits of illusion or ignorance. It is still saṃsāric. It needs to be overcome in order to reach nirvāṇic enlightenment, the acquiring of transcendent or otherworldly truth (paramārthasatya) beyond all concepts. The distinction between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, which is part of the relative truth, is thus duplicated as the distinction between conceptual (relative) and transconceptual (absolute) truth. However, the distinction between conceptual and transconceptual truth is itself still a conceptual distinction and hence part of the relative or conceptual truth. So what we find in Nāgārjuna is the idea that the notion of a radically transcendent reality requires us to understand every distinction between the mundane and the supra-mundane as provisional. If absolute transcendence translates into transconceptuality and ineffability, transcendent reality cannot even be defined as that which is totally different from the world. To use the terminology of Berhard Nitsche, in the end, the ineffability of “great transcendence” makes everything ineffable, absorbing the difference between immanence and transcendence and turning our words and concepts at best into worldly veils of the ultimate. This, I suggest, marks the transition between pre-Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna concepts of the ultimate on the one hand and on the other hand its radical understanding in Mahāyāna-Buddhism.³⁸

 Here the translation follows Siderits/Katsura 2013: 273.  See also the Bodhisattvabhūmi of the Yogācāra tradition: On the one hand nirvāṇa is defined, quite traditionally, as “perpetual in terms of its essential nature”, while “all conditioned entities are not perpetual”. See Engle 2016: 60. On the other hand the “complete” nirvāṇa of the Mahāyāna is defined as “the cessation of all [conceptual] elaboration” (ibid. 100).

98

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Coda The conviction that transcendent reality, because of its transcendent nature, is ineffable and beyond all concepts and categories, is by no means an exclusively Buddhist view but is widely affirmed in all major religious traditions. In Hinduism, for example, this ineffability can either be expressed by claiming that transcendent reality is “without attributes” (nirguṇa), as in the case of Advaita Vedānta, or that it possesses “the fulness of attributes” (guṇa-pūrṇa) or “infinite attributes” (amita-guṇa) as in the case of Dvaita Vedānta. In both cases divine nature exceeds human words and concepts. The finding that the ineffability or transcategoriality of ultimate reality is affirmed in all major religions has an important implication for the topic of this volume, the understanding of “impersonal” and “personal” forms of speaking about transcendent reality. It implies that “impersonal” can mean two very different things. This can best be explained by drawing on the distinction between cataphatic and apophatic language. Whereas cataphatic language employs positive concepts and images in referring to transcendent reality, apophatic language consists primarily of negations, that is, it points out the inability of human concepts and images to adequately capture the transcategorial nature of the ultimate. Hence the term “impersonal” has two different meanings depending on whether it is used in a cataphatic or apophatic sense. A statement like: Buddhism refers to ultimate reality primarily in impersonal ways, can mean that on the cataphatic level, Buddhism employs such images and concepts for nirvāṇa that are of an impersonal nature. Nirvāṇa, for example, is such an impersonal concept meaning literally the “blowing out” or “fading away” (e. g. of a flame). Both, canonical and post-canonical Buddhist scriptures have used many further impersonal images and metaphors for nirvāṇa, such as the “other shore”, the “safe city”, a “cool place” (which is only attractive in hot countries!), etc.³⁹ In that sense “impersonal” refers to images and concepts which are different from personal images. In contrast to this, “impersonal” can also signify apophatic language. On the apophatic level, “impersonal” refers to the abandonment of all concepts and images, whether personal or impersonal. That is, in the apophatic sense, “impersonal” language is both, im-personal and im-impersonal. I suggest that traditional talk of God in the so-called theistic religions is as much “impersonal” in the apophatic sense of the term as is traditional talk of the Ultimate in the so-called non-theistic religions. Both types of  See, for example, the many images and parables used in Trenckner, Milindapañha (4: 8) 61– 84. See also the instructive discussion of “Nirvāṇa as an Image” in Collins 2010: 61– 99.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

99

religions do not differ in emphasizing the need of apophatic negations. They differ in their employment of personal and impersonal language on the kataphatic level. And even here the difference is only gradual. For actually, on the kataphatic level we find personal and impersonal images employed by both, theistic and non-theistic religious traditions.⁴⁰ The last observation has some relevance for Bernhard Nitsche’s suggestion that different cataphatic designations of the Ultimate, as archetypically represented by monism, theism and panentheism, are routed in three basic forms of personal self-understanding. For, as Nitsche also argues, none of the major religious traditions is confined to just one of these archetypical models. Even if one model is dominant, the other two will also be present in that particular tradition. With relation to Buddhism, one might state a certain dominance of impersonal imagery which may have to do with the fact that, at least in early Buddhism, liberation is primarily seen as liberation from transience. The existential signs of transience are old age, disease and death, while nirvāṇa is characterized as that reality which is free from all of these. The impersonal image of nirvāṇa as the “unaging”, “unailing” and “deathless”⁴¹ reality has thus a clear relation to what Nitsche calls the cosmomorphic way of thinking as mediated by one’s bodily reality. However, personal imagery is not absent and enabled by the fact that the Buddha (and the higher bodhisattvas) are seen as “nirvāṇized” beings, thus becoming personal representations of the Ultimate. And as I tried to show in this paper, we also find an important tradition in Buddhism that links the Ultimate to some kind of transcendental mental ground. Yet this ground is not characterized as the “I” consciousness. It is rather seen as something beyond the “I”, something that enables us to transcend the confinements of the ego-centric perspective toward a “not-self” attitude. According to a significant strand in Mahāyāna Buddhism the full realization of the “not-self”-attitude implies to view the whole world, and in particular all other sentient beings, as one’s self (and hence no longer as other) and to care for them as for oneself.⁴²

 On the further significance of this insight see Schmidt-Leukel 2017: 222– 245.  Majjhimanikāya 26 and more often.  Schmidt-Leukel 2019, Bodhicaryāvatāra 6, 125 – 127; 8, 111– 173. Schmidt-Leukel 2017: 297– 313; 391– 402.

100

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Bibliography Bodhi (no year). Bhikkhu Bodhi (transl.), “Nibbana”, at: https://web.archive.org/web/ 20070509005227/http://hkims.org/documents/Nibbana%20by%20Bhikkhu%20Bodhi.pdf Bodhi 2012. Id., (transl.), The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2012. Chandrkaew 1982. Chinda Chandrkaew, Nibbāna. The Ultimate Truth of Buddhism. Bangkok: Mahachula Buddhist University 1982. Collins 1998. Steven Collins, Nirvāṇa and Other Buddhist Felicities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998. Collins 2010. Id., Nirvāṇa. Concept, Imagery, Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010. Engle 2016. Artemus Engle, The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Boulder: Snow Lion 2016. Gambhirananda 2004. Swami Gambhirananda, Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya. Calcutta: Advaita Shrama 2004. Gowans 2003. Christopher W. Gowans, Philosophy of the Buddha. London/New York: Routledge 2003. Harvey 2004. Peter Harvey, The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhism. London/New York: Routledge Curzon 2004. Hookham 1991. S.K. Hookham, The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine According to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga. Albany: SUNY 1991. Inada 1970. Kenneth K. Inada, Nāgārjuna. A Translation of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā with an Introductory Essay. Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press 1970. Ireland 1997. John Ireland, The Udāna and Itivuttaka. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society 1997. Jones 2010. Richard H. Jones, Nagarjuna: Buddhism’s Most Important Philosopher. New York: Jackson Square Books 2010. Kalupahana 1986. David J. Kalupahana, Nāgārjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way. Albany: SUNY 1986. Ñāṇamoli 1999. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) by Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa. Seattle: BPS Pariyatti Editions 1999. Ñāṇamoli/Bodhi 2001. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi (transl.). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2001. Nyanaponika 2008. “Thera Nyanaponika, Anattā and Nibbāna”. In: Collected Wheel Publications. Vol. 1 – 15. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society (2008) 239 – 264. Pandit 1993. Moti Lal Pandit, Being as Becoming: Studies in Early Buddhism. New Delhi: Intercultural Publications 1993. Prebish/Keown 2006. Charles S. Prebish and Damien Keown, Introducing Buddhism. New York: Routledge 2006. Pruden 1991. Leo Pruden (transl.), Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press 1991. Rhys Davids/Oldenberg 1996. T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (transl.). Vinaya Texts: Part I (SBE 13). Reprint of the edition by Oxford University Press 1885. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1996.

Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality

101

Rhys Davids 1894. T.W. Rhys Davids, The Questions of King Milinda. Part II (SBE 36), Oxford University Press 1894. Schmidt-Leukel 1993. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, “Mystische Erfahrung und logische Kritik bei Nāgārjuna: Zum Verhältnis von meditativer, begrifflicher und existentieller Welttranszendenz im Buddhismus”. In: Religiöse Erfahrung und theologische Reflexion. Armin Kreiner, Perry Schmidt-Leukel (Hg.). [FS Heinrich Döring]. Paderborn (1993) 371 – 393. Schmidt-Leukel 2006. Id., Understanding Buddhism. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press 2006. Schmidt-Leukel 2017. Id., Religious Pluralism and Interreligious Theology: The Gifford Lectures—An Extended Edition. Maryknoll: Orbis 2017. Siderits/Katsura 2013. Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura (transl.), Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2013. Streng 1967. Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville/New York: Abingdon Press 1967. Tilakaratne 2016. “Asanga Tilakaratne, The Ultimate Buddhist Religious Goal, Nirvana and its Implications for Buddhist-Christian Dual Belonging”. In: Buddhist-Christian Dual Belonging. Affirmations, Objections, Explorations. G. D’Costa, R. Thompson (Eds.). Farnham: Ashgate (2016) 89 – 106. Trenckner 1880. V. Trenckner, The Milindapañho. Being Dialogues Between King Milinda and the Buddhist Sage Nāgasena. London/Edinbrugh: Williams & Norgate 1880. Turner-Lauck Wernicki (no date). Abigail Turner-Lauck Wernicki, “Lokayata/Carvaka—Indian Materialism”. In: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP): http://www.iep.utm.edu/in dmat/. Walshe 1995. Maurice Walshe (transl.), The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīghanikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications 1995. Zin/Schlingloff 2007. Monika Zin, Dieter Schlingloff, Saṃsāracakra: Das Rad der Wiedergeburten in der indischen Überlieferung. Düsseldorf: EKŌ-Haus 2007.

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence” Paradigm to the Hermeneutics of Buddhist Scriptures “No more: inquire into their descent [that of To-Be and Being in their difference, H.-J.R.] – thereby [working] on the dead end track; but: let difference and transcendence go”.¹

It is a common and everyday experience that Western, or occidental, readers of Indic, Chinese, or Tibetan Buddhist scriptures read understandings into words, phrases, longer passages, or entire works which have as their sources not the words as they stand, but a confidence, a trust, an intellectual impression, some suggestive memory, or simply an irresistible force of habit to sticking to one’s own customary tracks of thought that make it seem justified to transfer the words in the texts into vocabularies and semantics that are characteristic landmarks of Western, or occidental, traditions of speaking and thinking.² In contrast to that, it is, at least to my experience, more rare that readers withstand this temptation, discipline themselves, hold their own interventions back as strictly as they can and keep track with what musicians nowadays call an “historically” – and, we should add: a philologically – “informed practice of performance.” That does not mean that meanings of words and works belonging to times long since gone are just reconstructed in the form they may have looked like at times forever and irretrievably gone by, but that faithfulness, fidelity, and accuracy towards the transmitted scores are maintained as subtly as possible in their present performance today. Words, old, distant, and alien as they might seem on first sight, do obviously never cease to be ambitious to reach most distant shores of understanding in time and space. But therefore, once they get a footing on that shore, they deserve not to be bent into directions of meaning, that they, according to their own charge, commission, and authenticity, are originally not conveying – just as it is wondrously revealing when Bach’s cello suites are played not from romantic or modern editions with fencing pre-

 German translation in Heidegger 2006: 77: “Nicht mehr: fragen nach ihrer Herkunft [that of Sein and Seiendes in their difference, H.-J.R.] – dies auf dem Holzweg; sondern: fahren lassen die Differenz und Transzendenz.”  Peter Harvey writes: “One must seek carefully to allow the texts to speak for themselves, being alive to the fault of imposing one’s own prejudices on the material.” (Harvey 2012: 8) Pity enough, Harvey himself was not able to follow his maxim as truly as he must have wished himself to do in this book. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-009

104

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

scriptions that do willingly brush aside those of Bach’s own handwriting. It is my opinion and also my somewhat baleful experience that in the case of “transcendence” just something of that kind is happening, and that this case is among the most conspicuous. In this paper I’d therefore like first to present a series of suggestive theses that might contribute to remedy this situation. Part of them have to remain hypotheses for the moment. Due to the limitation of space I cannot furnish them all with a sufficient denseness of textual witnesses that would of course otherwise be necessary. Nevertheless, I’d wish the reader to understand the whole set of hypotheses as the argument, with the later ones building on the earlier ones. I shall first develop these theses in short form, and then expand on one singular point only, which I consider to delve into one of the more crucial of the problems. My point of departure at this single point will be a short sūtra as it was received and resumed in the Madhyamaka tradition, read against a passage in Nicolaus of Cusa’s Idiota de sapientia. I am well aware that, for example, in Sarvāstivāda, Yogācāra, Huáyán/Kegon sources or in the texts and traditions of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra and the tathāgatagarbha teachings much more is possible – and quite antagonistically so.

Hypothesis # 1 1.) “Transcendence” is not a universal, but a specific feature of a specific tradition of thought, namely of “Western,” or occidental philosophies and theologies, coming from a Greek, and, by way of translation and exegesis, Latin speaking background, later intruding into the Arabic, Persian and Slawic speaking worlds of Christianity and Islam. 2.) “Transcendence” is an identification mark of that very cluster of traditions, while it is explicitly not one of the worlds of Sanskrit, Middle Indic languages, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, etc. 3.) Wherever it appears, there is an indication that this specific “Western,” or occidental, tradition is at work, including epochal instances in which it has been successful in intruding into other traditions that did not have the “transcendence” paradigm in them before.

Hypothesis # 2 1.) That specific tradition of occidental philosophies and theologies taking refuge to the “transcendence” paradigm started with Plato and his teaching of ideas in

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

105

connection with his philosophy of “τὸ ὄν,” and it only worked under conditions in which the Platonic heritage held sway in one way or another. 2.) The specifically Platonic and Neo-Platonic origination and perfection of the “transcendence” paradigm was made evident in an exemplary manner and densely documented by the Heidelberg philosopher Jens Halfwassen, to whose work I’d like to direct attention here.³ 3.) This is, for instance, notably clear in the case of St. Augustine and during the time of the early Christian fathers in general, in the mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysios Areopagita, in the Apophthegmata and in the Philokalia traditions, when Neo-Platonic thought intensely immersed into Christian theology of the time and later also into Islamic theologies; it is omnipresent in medieval scholasticism, its innermost impact has been responsible for all kinds of transcendentalisms since the middle of the 18th century in Europe down to Husserl’s phenomenology, and it is still feeding and nurturing philosophies and theologies of our own day now.

Hypothesis # 3 1.) The “transcendence” paradigm is so deeply rooted in European philosophical and theological traditions down to our own days and its internal appeal in those traditions is so immense that they cannot be imagined without it, although different kinds of criticism of it would often grow parallel to the different phases of its history. 2.) From here an overall universal impression was – without notable resistance – able to emerge that, on a worldwide scale, only interpretations of different meanings of transcendence might have appeared, but not that that paradigm as a whole could be entirely absent in traditions of thought outside of it. 3.) But that paradigm is indeed originally absent in traditions of thought outside the Platonic heritage.

Hypothesis # 4 1.) “Transcendence” is not an innocent term of everyday language but a term of fairly high-graded determination and conditioning in the structures of certain systems of philosophy and theology dependent on the Platonic heritage. 2.) That heritage rests on a certain series of presuppositions and vocabularies, outside of which it loses its sense.

 Halfwassen 1998: 1442b–1447a.

106

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

Hypothesis # 5 1.) Being one among the most prolific identification marks of the Platonic heritage of occidental thinking, contemplating along the paradigm of “transcendence” is indicative of epochal changes whose first incident took place in Ancient Greece after the “classical,” the Parthenon period, had come to an end. 2.) The presence of the Gods and, with them, the meaning of “τὸ ὄν” began to wane away. 3.) “Transcendence” is thus an indicator of the absence, gradual inaccessibility, or even withdrawal of the Gods or, in Christianity, of God. 4.) This puts the thinking soul, or “I,”, or “person” on its own in such a way, that thereby the grounds for the emergence of the “subjectivity” principle in the late 17th century is laid. 5.) Since that time the perspective, motivation, and direction of the transcending movement is from the use of reason of the subject towards a realm that has become virtually hard to reach or even by some authors thought to be unreachable at all.

Hypothesis # 6 1.) Plato’s recognition and acknowledgement, or invention, of the chorismós (the cleavage, spatial disruption, schism) between the realms of the highest idea, that of the one, and all kinds of different mimetic, or imitational, ranges of being⁴ is indicative of his pain and his need to overcome the far, and gradually more and more unbridgeable distance physically, and noetically, of “that which is.” 2.) That event is not a universal human condition, but a paradigmatic epochal change that first took place towards the end of the 5th century B.C. in Ancient Greece. 3.) It may serve as a parameter that repeats itself several times later again in the epochal history of Europe. 4.) St. Augustine’s deep desire of his stirred soul painfully striving for rest until it finds silence, stillness, and peace in God, may serve not only as testimony of private or personal character of his own, but also as a pertinent example of a changed epochal situation of thinking; Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetry might serve as another; there are, of course, many more, all of them bearing their own specific epochal marks of diagnosing a distance from the most holy. 5.) Plato’s chorismós, or, as Aristotle criticised him, his “doubling of the world,” is the one crucial and responsible decisive element without which there is no such a thing as a “transcendence” paradigm; this cho-

 See the subtle analysis in the latest book by Günter Figal (id., 2015: 38 – 56).

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

107

rismós resides in one way or another in all the different scetches and drafts of thinking in terms of transcendence down to our own day. Note: By “chorismós” I do not mean here what has been lemmatized in the modern philosophical lexicon by Neo-Kantian philosophers as Paul Natorp, Wilhelm Windelband, Ernst Cassirer, Ernst Hoffmann, Nicolai Hartmann, et. al., namely the separation of the “mundus sensibilis” from the “mundus intelligibilis.” The term was settled in this way only around the turn of the century (ca. 1900) pinpointing Aristotle’s criticism of the “lovers of ideas” (including Plato) who were, in his opinion, guilty of making the gap between the visible and the logical (or noetical) spheres unbridgeable. The point here is that humans are unable to perceive the ideas either by their senses or by their noetic capabilities, but that the ideas illuminate the sphere of the nous by and of themselves. Only by the nous working itself further on into the realm of sensualities could they be imparted to us at all. What is thus left is no more than the Platonic “methexis” and “mimesis” in successively waning grades. Therefore, what I mean by “chorismós” here is a separation and even isolation of spaces of “being” in the form of a loss-making propensity, deprivation, gradual fading-away of the quality of being (“Seins-Abfall”) waiting for compensation by the counter-movement of “transcending.” Each rung of the ladder thwarts and frustrates the immediacy of the highest perfection at its own place. In Parmenides 134c–d, Plato has the interlocutors first agree in not wanting to think that anything else but God possesses the most meticulous, or thorough (ἀκριβέστερον), participation (μετέχει) in the episteme, not without then discussing successive stages of gradual deprivation that are the fate of human knowledge. It is only in our speaking and our thinking, in our “reflection,” that this abyss opens up.⁵

Hypothesis # 7 1.) “Transcendence” is indicative of someone who is stretching out desirously for resolution while the spaces and times to reach there have put the redeeming power into a substantial and absolute difference and abscondity from him, into absence, as it is experienced from the point of view of human thought. 2.) There is always a danger in exercises and validations of “transcendence” that the connection line keeping the divorced sides of the Platonic chorismós in a relation breaks down and implodes without reconciliation, or that the term “transcendence” itself becomes virtually meaningless (like, probably, in Franz Liszt’s extremely virtuoso and hard-to-play Grandes Études for piano of 1851/52 that he later renamed Études d’exécution transcendante).

 Cf. Massimo Pistone 2015, who lets a quintet of speakers theatrically “demask” the frauds of Hegel and Heidegger, behaving as “humorists of logic.”

108

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

Hypothesis # 8 1.) Transcendence is correspondent to an experience that we are living under conditions of obstruction in the face of “that which is” solid enough not to be removed without hard efforts, or even unremovable. 2.) For example, phenomenology as a science was first exercised in the 1760ies in Germany to investigate, as Johann Heinrich Lambert, one of its earliest protagonists, wrote, “ob sich der Verstand durch den Schein blenden lasse, ohne immer zu dem Wahren durchdringen zu können” [if understanding lets itself be dazzled without ever being able to break through to truth]”⁶ from which reason Lambert drew up a new science which he called a “transcendent (or transcendental) optics,” or “phenomenology.” 3.) The standpoint from which Lambert judges is the subjective status of human reasoning, suffering from an objected world whose truth has become difficult or even impossible to grasp, affording new “organa,” or methods, like that of phenomenology, to bridge the gap.

Hypothesis # 9 1.) As “transcendence” is dependent on a philosophy of “τὸ ὄν” “that which is,” together with its negation, any philosophy or teaching that rejects making assertions in the form of “is-ness” and/or “not-is-ness” is therefore not a candidate for the “transcendence” paradigm either to be originally a part of it or to be introduced into it from outside. 2.) Buddhism is, probably with the exception of the Sārvāstivāda school and others leaning on it, such a teaching. 3.) To insinuate that Buddhism is a system of thought that bears formats of thinking along the “transcendence” paradigm in it must therefore be a misunderstanding. 4.) But proving this is a difficult and expensive task; on the one hand the entire corpus of its scriptures would have to be hermeneutically scrutinized in order to show that the “transcendence” paradigm is indeed missing from it; on the other hand it would be necessary for any pledge raised in favor of the fact that a certain word or passage in a Buddhist scripture had anything to do with “transcendence” to be disproved.

 Lambert 1764: 10.

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

109

Hypothesis # 10 1.) The Platonic chorismós does not reside in any way in Buddhist teachings. 2.) “Transcendence,” “transcendent,” and “transcendental” are not among the items of the Buddhist dictionary. 3.) Although it is true that they contain all kinds of heres and theres, this-shores and other-shores, that there is the supreme-truth and two-truths teaching, this-worldly life and life in solitude and retirement, stages on the bodhisattva-path that are entered, mastered and left behind, these all do not witness the “transcendence” paradigm, and the realm of the Buddhadharma is never anyhow depicted as “transcendent” or “immanent.” 4.) That this is so, can only be judged on the basis of a subtle knowledge and understanding of the European Platonic tradition, because it is only here that that paradigm does indeed work intactly. 5.) Not every crossing of a river or a bridge is an act of transcendence, just as the mythic moment of birth of an adept into a pure land or the birth of a Buddha into our own country of Jambudvīpa is not. 6.) Also states of samādhi or dhyāna are not states of transcendence. 7.) Trances can not by themselves and automatically be interpreted as states of “transcendence.”

Kātyāyanāvavāda The Japanese monk Myōan Eisai 明菴栄西 (1141– 1215), the founder of the Rinzai Zen sect in Japan, once wrote – in Gishin Tokiwa’s translation: Great Sage Nāgārjuna (…) says [in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Treatise] (T. 25, XI, 139c): Existence is not anything; nonexistence is not anything; existence-nonexistence is not anything: neither existence nor nonexistence is not anything. This kind of exposition is also not anything. He also says [in the same treatise] (T. 25, XVIII, 190b): There is no verbal expansion; there are no words. If anybody can contemplate this, he is regarded as seeing the Buddha.⁷

As is well known, the only scripture that Nāgārjuna mentions by title in his Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā is the Kātyāyanāvavāda [The Admonitions of Kātyāyana]. There Nāgārjuna writes:

 Tokiwa 2005: 150.

110

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

In the Kātyāyanāvavāda the most exalted one, having thoroughly understood becoming and extinction, has rejected is-ness [cāstīti] and is-not-ness [nāstīti].⁸

This scripture is the basis of Nāgārjuna’s own admiration of the Buddha as the most supreme of all teachers. In the maṅgala verses at the head of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna praises the Buddha for having taught the pratītya-samutpāda, the teaching of “dependent origination.” The paramount text of tradition which Nāgārjuna is leaning on in this hymn can thus be identified as the Kātyāyanāvavāda, and it is exactly the wording in this text that lays the foundation for Nāgārjuna’s fourfold negation in the tetralemma, now identifiable as a fourfold rejection of teachings in the form of “is-ness,” exactly by which the way is paved for a thorough understanding of the correctness and truth of the pratītya-samutpāda teaching, a teaching that clarifies “becoming and extinction” by the very rejection of any kind of resorting to ontic utterances. Also the meaning of the name of the school that Nāgārjuna founded, “Madhyamaka,” “The Middle Way,” is precisely in accord with the explanation of the “middle” in this text, but it is not with explanations of the “middle” in several other sūtras. The text goes (the translations quoted here are made from the Pāli Canon’s version by Maurice Walshe [MW], but there are several more)⁹: The world in general, Kaccāyana, inclines to two views, to existence¹⁰ or to non-existence.¹¹ But for him who, with the highest wisdom, sees the uprising of the world as it really is,¹² ‘non-existence of the world’ does not apply, and for him who, with highest wisdom, sees the passing away of the world as it really is, ‘existence of the world’ does not apply.

 Mūlamadhyamakakārikāḥ 15.7; ed. J. W. de Jong; English transl. from the Sanskrit original is mine.  See Walshe 2007.  Walshe 2007: note 58. “Atthitā: ‘is-ness.’ The theory of ‘Eternalism’ (sassatavāda).”  Walshe 2007: 59. “Natthitā: ‘is-not-ness.’ The theory of ‘Annihilationism’ (ucchedavāda). All forms of materialism come under this heading. See the discussion in Bhikkhu Bodhi 1978: 30 – 33.  Walshe 2007: note 60. “Yathābhūtaṃ: cf. note 60.” Again, with regard to the “is” and “is not” question this is a disastrous translation, because yāthāva means “just as much,” “sufficiently founded,” “consistent, exact,” and bhūta “grown, become; born, produced,” a “result of becoming.” So yathābhūtaṃ means “sufficiently” or “consistently grown,” “produced,” or “become,” “grown up to a well founded state.” But again there is neither any trace of “really” nor of “is” in it. Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation, “as it actually is,” does not do any better—there is simply no “actually” and no “is” in the text here! If it were, it would be guilty of a contradictio in adiecto, destroying its own teaching immediately again, because the Buddha cannot first say that he has abandoned all views of “is-ness” and “is-not-ness,” and then unhesitatingly claim that the world must be seen “as it really is,” or “as it actually is”.

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

111

The world in general, Kaccāyana, grasps after systems and is imprisoned by dogmas.¹³ But he¹⁴ does not go along with that system-grasping, that mental obstinacy and dogmatic bias, does not grasp at it, does not affirm: ‘This is my self.’¹⁵ He knows without doubt or hesitation that whatever arises is merely dukkha¹⁶ that what passes away is merely dukkha and such knowledge is his own, not depending on anyone else. This, Kaccāyana, is what constitutes right view. ‘Everything exists,’¹⁷ this is one extreme [view]; ‘nothing exists,’ this is the other extreme. Avoiding both extremes the Tathāgata¹⁸ teaches a doctrine of the middle: Conditioned by ignorance are the formations… [as SN 12.10]… So there comes about the arising of this entire mass of suffering. But from the complete fading away and cessation of ignorance there comes the cessation of the formations, from the cessation of the formations comes the cessation of consciousness… So there comes about the complete cessation of this entire mass of suffering.

I mention only in passing that the same topic, namely the positive treatment of “is-ness” and “is-not-ness” in the teachings of non-Buddhist schools and the Buddha’s rejection of doctrinal inclinations of this ontic kind is, some three centuries later, also a central theme in the Chapter Two of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra. ¹⁹

 Walshe 2007: note 61. “Or, as we might say today, ‘ideologies’ or ‘isms.’”  Walshe 2007: note 62. “I take this to mean the man who sees ‘with the highest wisdom’ mentioned above. Mrs Rhys Davids seems to have gone slightly astray here.”  Walshe 2007: note 63. “[Attā me ti:] Cf. SN 3.8, n. 1. Feer’s edition of SN reads here attā na me ti ‘this is not myself,’ which would also make sense but is contradicted, not only in SA [Commentary], but also when the story is repeated at SN 22.90.”  Walshe 2007: note 64. “The usual translation ‘suffering,’ always a makeshift, is inappropriate here. Dukkha in Buddhist usage refers to the inherent unsatisfactoriness and general insecurity of all conditioned existence.”  Walshe: note 65. “Sabbam atthi. From the Sanskrit form of this expression, sarvam asti (though used in a slightly different sense) the Sarvāstivādin school got their name. They held that dharmas existed in ‘three times,’ past, present and future. It was mainly to this early school that the label ‘Hīnayāna’ (‘Lesser Career or Vehicle’) was applied and later illegitimately applied to the Theravāda (see SN 12.22, n. 1).”  Walshe 2007: note 66. “Lit. probably either ‘Thus come’ tathā-āgata or ‘Thus gone (beyond)’ (tathā-gata): the Buddha’s usual way of referring to himself. For other meanings cf. Bhikkhu Bodhi, The All-Embracing Net of Views (BPS 1978), pp. 50 – 53, 331– 344.”  See for this Forsten 2006: 64, with a reconstruction of the Sanskrit text, Chinese parallels, and an English translation. As to the problem of a critical edition now see Horiuchi 2015: 275 – 286; also note the new kundoku 訓読 translation by the same author, made in collaboration with the late Takasaki Jikidō, of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra from Gunabhadra’s Chinese version, in the Shin kokuyaku daizōkyō 新国訳大蔵経 series.

112

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

Nicolaus Cusanus, Idiota de sapientia I would now like to compare this to a passage in Nicolaus Cusanus’ dialogue Idiota de sapientia. At the opening of its second book a Roman orator addresses a layman with these words: O most desired man, help me out of my impotency, so that I, in the difficulties that transcend my spirit, may come away with some ease; otherwise there will be no use to have heard from you theories of such height.²⁰

A few minutes later the layman probes into two ways of theology, one that produces “positiones,” i. e. affirmative propositions, and one that produces “ablationes,” negations. Then the layman says: This [namely: that position applies to God, H.-J. R.] is the case insofar as we admit that anything can be affirmatively said of God. Because in a theology that negates everything about God, it must be spoken in a different way, because here the truer answer to any question is the negation [of what the question is inquiring after]. But in this mode we are not led to a cognition of what God may be, but of what he may not be.²¹

There is not the slightest possibility here to think it out that the abandonment of any inquiry into “quid Deus non sit” could be one and the same simultaneous exercise as that of the abandonment of any inquiry into “quid Deus sit,” because it is the very character of esse, ens, est, and the like, in their affirmation as well as in their negation, that is then given up. Karl-Heinz Volkmann-Schluck had written in his book on Cusanus: Negative theology does indeed explicate the inconceivability of God by finite notions and is therefore recognized by affirmative theology as a corrective for safeguarding the transcendence of God. But also it does not comprehend the inappropriateness of its methodical ending. Also it does not know of any other mode of asking questions except the one that prescribes an answer in the sense of differentiating determination.²²

 Nikolaus von Kues, Idiota de mente, “Liber secundus”; quoted from Gabriel 2014b: 454: “O vir desideratissime, adiuva impotentiam meam, ut in difficilibus, quae mentem [meam] transcendunt, quadam facilitate depascar; alioquin parum proderit tot altas a te audisse theorias.” In the Critical Edition by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences “meam” is deleted.  Ibid. 458/60: “Hoc est prout de Deo admittimus aliqua affirmative dici posse. Nam in theologia, quae omnia negat de Deo, aliter dicendum, quia ibi verior responsio est ad omnem quaestionem negatio. Sed eo modo non ducimur ad cognitionem quid Deus sit, sed quid non sit.”  Volkmann-Schluck 1957: 43; English transl. from the German original is mine.

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

113

But the quoted passage in Idiota de sapientia is immediately followed by words, which, on first sight, might seem as if Nicolaus Cusanus had stood at the same crossroads as the Buddha in the Kaccāyanagotta-sutta, pondering on the possibility of yet a third alternative of theology: There is yet another consideration about God, namely that neither position nor ablation applies to him, but that he is above (supra) all position and ablation. And then the answer negates affirmation and negation and the copulation [of both]; so that, if it is asked, whether God is, according to position it must be answered from what is presupposed, namely that he is, and this itself [means:] the absolute presupposed entity; according to ablation it must be truly answered that he is not, because in this way nothing of the ineffable applies to whatever can be said; but according to [the standpoint] that he is above all position and ablation it must be answered that he neither is the absolute, namely (the absolute) entity, nor that he is not, nor both of them simultaneously, but above [them all].²³

The layman says of God, that in the third way he still “is above,” “est supra.” So he only quits affirmation and negation as kinds of “dicere de Deo,” “speaking of God,” but he does not quit the “is-ness” of God. He further says, that God still “is above the absolute, i. e. [absolute] entity,” (esse supra absolutam scilicet entitatem). Although both, esse and non esse, have already been dismissed, God still “is,” namely “supra,” “above;” and he still “is,” when he is “above absolute entity.” He still “is,” when he “is” above affirmation and negation, although these two had destroyed the rhetoric of both, “is” and “is not,” “being” and “nonbeing.” The basic question had been, “an Deus sit,” “whether God is,” while the question “quid Deus sit,” “what God is,” was already left behind earlier. The third way of theology answers that it cannot be said that God either is or is not, but it nevertheless claims that he still “is,” namely “above” saying that he is or is not. In this way the introductory words are verified, in which the Roman orator confesses that “difficilia mentem meam transcendunt,” “the difficulties transcend my spirit.” This is the crossroads at which Nicolaus Cusanus sees no other way any more than that of transcending and transcendence, thereby leaving God’s “being” entirely untouched. We could say that God’s being would still occur to

 Ibid. 460: “Est deinde consideratio de Deo, uti sibi nec positio nec ablatio convenit, sed prout est supra omnem positionem at ablationem. Et tunc responsio est negans affirmationem et negationem et copulationem; ut, cum quaereretur, an Deus sit, secundum positionem respondendum ex praesupposito, scilicet eum esse et hoc ipsam absolutam praesuppositam entitatem; secundum ablationem vero respondendum eum non esse, cum illa via ineffabili nihil conveniat omnium, quae dici possunt; sed secundum quod est supra omnem positionem et ablationem respondendum eum nec esse absolutam scilicet entitatem nec non esse nec utrumque simul, sed supra.”

114

Hermann-Josef Röllicke

him, especially at a point when all rhetoric of “is” and “is not” has been thoroughly dismissed. So it is true that he sees no other way but to “safeguard God’s transcendence” in regard of his “being.” But from the point of view of texts like the Kaccāyanagotta there is no need whatsoever “to safeguard the transcendence” of the Buddha, or of nirvāṇa, because of the absence of either a negative or an affirmative ontology from them. The sutta says: just as no “is-ness” occurs when things are coming perpetually back in a never-ending circle of returns, just so no “is-not-ness” occurs when things are disintegrating forever without return. Given this, there is no space at all either for a “being” or a “non-being” to which anybody who has originated when he or she was begotten and will disintegrate when he or she will die would have to transcend or which would itself transcend the origination and disintegration of things. This the text explicitly rejects. There is thus no aiming at a cognition left of what there may or may not “be,” because “is-ness” and “is-notness” do not occur any more at all to a pupil of highest knowledge. His highest knowledge, sammappaññāya, also does not lead him or her to an answer to the question what a being’s to-be might be, but to how the unending perpetual return of originations and disintegrations might be broken up and extinguished and how he, who provides us with that insight, may be correctly and honorably named. To extinguish the unending perpetual return of originations and disintegrations does not coincide with “transcending” them, just because there is neither “being” nor “non-being” left at all, and no super-“being” to be reached from there. There is simply neither “being” nor “non-being” to get at. So Nicolaus’ conclusion does not apply here that as neither “being” nor “non-being” do occur to sammappaññāya, and neither “being” nor “nonbeing” are to be reached, there would therefore be a demand for anything that “is above” them. There also “is” no “above” left at all. There is nothing to be reached, thus there is also no transcendence. Seen from the point of the prajñā-pāramitā teachings, which, of course, also is Nāgārjuna’s own agenda, we could say that because all dharma (“things”) are “empty” of “is-ness” and “is-not-ness,” there is full extinction, but there is no more super-realm above this. In other words: nirvāṇa, “extinction,” never originates or ceases, grows or diminishes, etc., just because it neither “is” nor “is not.” This is certainly not in accord with Nicolaus’ only conclusion that God still “is above” being and non-being, and thus “above absolute entity,” which stems from the necessity and unconditionedness of his presupposition that “God is.” This presupposition cannot be put to anybody’s disposal with him.

Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence”

115

Bibliography Bhikkhu Bodhi 1978. Bhikkhu Bodhi (transl.), Brahmajāla Sutta: The All-embracing Net of Views. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society 1978. de Jong 1977. Mūlamadhyamakakārikāḥ. J. W. de Jong (Ed.). Madras: Adyar 1977. Figal 2015. Günter Figal, Unscheinbarkeit: Der Raum der Phänomenologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2015. Forsten 2006. Aucke Forsten, Between Certainty and Finitude: A Study of Laṅkāvatārasūtra. Münster: LIT Verlag 2006. Gabriel 2014a. Nikolaus von Kues. Philosophisch-theologische Schriften. Lateinisch-Deutsch. Vol. 1. Leo Gabriel (Ed.). Freiburg: Herder 2014. Gabriel 2014b. Nikolaus von Kues. Philosophisch-theologische Schriften. Lateinisch-Deutsch. Vol. 3. Leo Gabriel (Ed.). Freiburg: Herder 2014. Halfwassen 1998. Jens Halfwassen, Art. “Transzendenz”. In: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Vol. 10. Basel: Schwabe 1998. 1442:b–1447:a. Harvey 2012. Peter Harvey, The Selfness Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhism. Richmond: Curzon Press 1995. Heidegger 2006. Martin Heidegger, Die onto-theologische Verfassung der Metaphysik. In: Identität und Differenz. Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 11. Frankfurt/a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann 2006. Horiuchi 2015. Toshio Horiuchi, Toward a Critical Edition of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra: The Significance of the Palm-leaf Manuscript. Indian Logic 8. 27. (2015): 275 – 286. Hogrebe 2011. Wolfram Hogrebe, “Mantics and Hermeneutics”. In: Carlos João Correia, Markus Gabriel (Eds.), Arte, Metafísica e Mitologia. Lissabon: CEEA/Centro de Filosofía da Universidade de Lisboa (2008): 235 – 248. Lambert 1764. Johann Heinrich Lambert, Neues Organon, oder Gedanken über die Erforschung und Bezeichnung des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung von Irrthum und Schein. Bd. 2. Leipzig: Wendler 1764. Pistone 2015. Massimo Pistone, Einstein & Parmenide: Scaffale aperto. Rom: Armando Editore 2015. Schleiermacher 1959. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik. Ed. Heinz Kimmerle, Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Heidelberg: Universitätsbuchhandlung Winter 1959. Tokiwa 2005. Gishin Tokiwa (transl.), A Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State. In: Zen Texts. BDK English Tripitaka 73-III/98-VIII, 98-IX, 104-I. Berkeley: Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research (2005): 45 – 211. Volkmann-Schluck 1957. Karl-Heinz Volkmann-Schluck, Nicolaus Cusanus: Die Philosophie im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1957, here used 19843. Walshe 2007. Maurice O’Connell Walshe, Saṃyutta Nikāya: An Anthology, Part III. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1985; reprint of 1st edition 1984; quoted here from the Buddhist Publication Society Online Edition = Access to Insight Edition, John T. Bullitt (2007 – 2010) 29 – 30 and 122 – 124. Wilpert 1964. Paul Wilpert (transl.), Nicolaus de Cusa: Die belehrte Unwissenheit. Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1964.

Anne MacDonald

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation Madhyamaka is one of the two – or, if one includes the Tathāgatagarbha stream – one of the three main currents within the great river of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The founder of the Madhyamaka school is considered to have been the Indian author Nāgārjuna, whom the majority of modern scholars assign to the second or third century C.E. Unfortunately, the “biographies” of Nāgārjuna contain many contradictory assertions, and are embellished with so much legendary and hagiographical material that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the historical facts of his life.¹ Challenging also is any attempt to determine which of the many works ascribed to Nāgārjuna were truly authored by him. A good number of these works were probably composed by authors who bore the same name, possibly later scholars in his tradition, or by individuals who had assumed or were bestowed his name on account of their skill in explaining and/or defending the Madhyamaka tenets. It is additionally feasible that works were attributed to Nāgārjuna because his name lent them a status and authority they might not otherwise have acquired. One of the works that both traditional and modern scholars agree was composed by Nāgārjuna is his magnum opus, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (henceforth MMK), the foundational treatise of the Madhyamaka school. Although he is credited with establishing the Madhyamaka tradition, Nāgārjuna was more a systematizer of pre-existing views than the initiator of a completely new direction within Mahāyāna Buddhism. He organized and argumentaResearch for this paper was generously supported by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) in the context of the projects 27479-G15 and 32118-G32. I thank Marcus Schmücker for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and Patrick Suchy for generously helping with technical details.  See, e. g., Mabbett 1998 and Walser 2005. As Mabbett states (332), “Nāgārjuna, the founder of Madhyamaka, is an enigma. Scholars are unable to agree on a date for him (within the first three centuries A.D.), or a place (almost anywhere in India), or even the number of Nāgārjunas (from one to four).” Walser comments (60), “Although there is no lack of literary sources discussing Nāgārjuna, almost all the elements contained therein are mythical at best and conflicting at worst. Furthermore, very few details contained in these sources can be corroborated with external evidence. Most of this material comes from accounts that were written with hagiographical interests ahead of historical documentation. Clearly, for those who like certainty, any kind of “proof” of Nāgārjuna’s dates and place of residence is still a long way off.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-010

118

Anne MacDonald

tively grounded ideas found in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, specifically in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, of which parts and core sections are thought to have appeared by the first century B.C. A main theme throughout these compositions is the idea that the constituents of the person, namely, corporeal matter (rūpa) and the other four skandhas, as well as external things, are empty (śūnya), i. e., bereft of an “own-being” (svabhāva), and are as a consequence similar to magical illusions, and in reality non-existent. The text of the sūtras is predominantly narrative and descriptive, with the reasons for the ontological observations and conclusions not immediately evident, with the result that many passages seem enigmatic, even paradoxical upon intial encounter. The logic behind, for example, the curious assertion that a bodhisattva should bring all beings to the state of full nirvāṇa but should do so knowing that no beings (including himself) exist goes unstated, the only “explanation” proferred being that this is the true nature of things, like that of a magical illusion.² Nāgārjuna obviously recognized the need for logical argumentation that would be capable of underpinning and justifying the sūtras’ declarations and exhortations, and which could be employed toward both the edification of neophyte Mahāyānists and the defeat of Buddhist and non-Buddhist opponents. To fill the gap he relied on a method of logical reasoning which exposes the unwanted logical consequences of his opponents’ claims. Scrutinizing under a unique critical lens many of the categories and elements mentioned in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, as well as other entities and concepts familiar to and upheld by the philosophical world of his day, he skilfully disclosed the unacceptable logical entailments connected with theses assuming or in support of their existence, and thus in his view proved the impossibility of the existence of any of these things. A great deal of confusion still exists in modern scholarship in regard to Nāgārjuna’s intent when he speaks of emptiness and ultimate reality. A discussion of the prevailing interpretations of Madhyamaka thought would go beyond the scope of this paper, but it might be noted that some are barely disguised variations on and modifications of Conservative Buddhist (“Hīnayāna”) views, while others superimpose later Tibetan (primarily dGe lugs pa) exegetical ideas onto our early authors. Those which interpret Madhyamaka as championing the “interdependence” of all things present a view not attested in the works of the In-

 See, e. g., the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, where it reads (Vaidya 1960: 10.25 – 29): bhagavān āha – iha subhūte bodhisattvasya mahāsattvasyaivaṃ bhavati – aprameyā mayā sattvāḥ parinirvāpayitavyā iti │ asaṃkhyeyā mayā sattvāḥ parinirvāpayitavyā iti │ na ca te santi yair ye parinirvāpayitavyā iti │ sa tāṃs tāvataḥ sattvān parinirvāpayati │ na ca sa kaścit sattvo yaḥ parinirvṛto yena ca parinirvāpito bhavati │ tat kasya hetoḥ │ dharmataiṣā subhūte dharmāṇāṃ māyādharmatām upādāya syāt │. Translated in Conze 1958: 8.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

119

dian Mādhyamikas and only rarely encountered – and even then in specific, restricted contexts – within the broader landscape of Indian Buddhism, more at home in Chinese Buddhism. In order to bring some transparency to the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) as understood within Mahāyāna and especially Madhyamaka, and for the sake of illuminating the early Mādhyamika’s intent, a brief detour back to early and Conservative Buddhism may prove instructional, as may reference to the anti-substantialist or anti-foundationalist trend within Buddhism in general, a trend set in motion by the historical Buddha himself. “Substance” in this regard refers to that which would serve as the bearer of or foundational basis for a thing’s qualities, states and functions, as well as to a principle of unity and wholeness which would subsume and unite the various appearances and expressions of a thing. As the bearer of qualities or a principle of wholeness it would represent the enduring, unifying essence of a thing, as opposed to its changing appearances and expressions. The anti-substantialist trend finds its roots in teachings about the impermanence of the world and its inhabitants – which for the historical Buddha was the prime ground for the suffering nature of existence – notably in his analyses of the human being. The body’s inevitable death and post-mortem decay was obvious, but its apparent wholeness as suggested by its material compactness and relative uniformity prior to death tended to obscure its constant underlying impermanence and actual lack of solidity. Taking as his subject matter the human body-mind continuum and separating out its two main components, the Buddha presented the body as mere assemblages of different types of matter, and the mind, significantly, as nothing more than an ever-changing stream of independent states and conditions, namely, as fleeting instances of feeling (vedanā), apperception (saṃjñā), impulses (saṃskāra), and perception/ cognition (vijñāna), and demonstrated that these could not, either as a group or individually, represent or lay claim to an enduring core. The mention of a carrier substance, i. e., a Self or soul (ātman), would have been counterproductive to the point of the analysis, viz., the breakdown of the person into individual parts and states for the sake of highlighting the fundamental lack of unity and persistent evanescence, and was thus deliberately avoided.³ The possibility of a core, a

 vijñāna is in some of the older sermons said to have a substance-like character – this idea taken over from external, non-Buddhist sources – and is described along the lines of a mental faculty composed of a subtle stuff. It was assigned the function of a vital soul that continues on after the death of the body and enters its next mother’s womb, but since it too changed and transformed, and finally came to an end when the liberated person died, it was seen as ultimately impermanent. Its considerable duration probably led to it being rarely mentioned in the early

120

Anne MacDonald

carrier, or unifying factor was not explicitly denied, but it was disregarded and allocated to the background, with the non-unitary, non-enduring, fragmented and fluctuating nature of the human body and mind given center stage. With their attention being directed to the insubstantial and impermanent nature of the body-mind continuum, the Buddha’s disciples became ideally positioned to recognize that the constituents of the body and mind could not possibly be the ātman because none of these were truly joyful or enduring, as the ātman was held to be, and to see in all its starkness the unsatisfactory and suffering nature of their existence and thus be motivated to strive for liberation. Valued objects also quickly lost their worth when observed from the point of view of their inevitable, uncontrollable impermanence. The aware observation of the impermanence of the body and mind – indeed of all things of the world – therefore originally served to facilitate a turning away from the world and its attractions, a rejection of existence as a whole, and to inspire the aspiration to escape. It further expedited the work of subduing, overcoming, and achieving release from the various emotional-intellectual defilements, crucially desire, the cause of ensnarement in saṃsāra, and the attachment that prevented one from progressing toward nirvāṇa, which in the early sermons is occasionally endowed with an immutable and positive, metaphysical character. More to the point, the experiential release of attachment to the body and mind and to the belief that these are or conceal a real Self had the power to liberate. Early Buddhism’s eschewal of substance for the sake of stressing the negative character of the world, which found its primary expression in the analysis of the body and mind, was thus spiritually and practically motivated. The anti-substantialism of early Buddhism is best described as a propensity and tendency, for it was not yet established as a systematized theory. The Buddhists of the Conservative schools, inheriting the anti-substantialist impulses, embraced them, and notably expressly denied the existence of any solid or enduring core of the person. The earlier portrayal of the person as an impermanent physical-mental continuum, which had relegated notions of a unitary principle, enduring core and/or carrier to the background, was interpreted as providing authoritative proof for the absolute non-existence of a Self or soul (ātman, pudgala). The Abhidharma scholars dogmatically declared that a referent for the notion of “I” did not exist. In addition, they expanded on and generalized the earlier often person-focussed anti-substantialist notions. The idea that there existed no carrier of the parts and qualities of an individual person was transferred to

texts. When vijñāna is mentioned in the early Buddhist texts, it is usually the expressions and functions of this vijñāna that are meant, i. e., the actual processes of perception and cognition.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

121

the things of the outer world: the elements into which the Buddha had categorized the external (and internal) material world (rūpa), namely, earth, water, fire, air, and ether, each of which had been ascribed a distinct quality (to earth odour, to water taste, fire visibility, air touch, ether sound), were, like the human body and mind, analyzed and shown to lack real substance. Attention was diverted away from the concept of a bearer of the qualities of things to the extent that qualities came to be viewed as the sole existing entities. Odour, for example, held to be the quality (guṇa) of the substance (dravya) earth (note the corresponding categories in non-Buddhist schools), was, so to speak, “liberated” from earth and set off as an independent entity, and earth, now deprived of its status as a carrier substance, was identified with its nature of solidity; both earth as the unique independent quality solidity and the emancipated quality odour were viewed as fundamental components of outer (and inner) matter.⁴ All things of world, then, with the exception of nirvāṇa and, depending on the Conservative school, certain limited additional unconditioned entities, came to be envisioned as being nothing but collections of independent, fluctuating qualities and states, i. e., dharmas, all of which existed free of any enduring core or carrier and were held together only via causal mechanisms, and not by any encompassing, embracing or pervading entity endowing wholeness. In Mahāyāna, the trend to jettison substance is taken to unexpected extremes. As in the Conservative schools, the existence of ātman as understood by the non-Buddhists is denied,⁵ but in contradistinction to them, the fluctuating qualities and states constituting the heaps and streams of things and persons are equally denied real existence. For the Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika schools, for example, these qualities and states, viz., the conditioned dharmas, although lasting for a mere moment, are the final irreducible factors of existence and as such do exist⁶; for the Mahāyānists these building blocks of the Conservative world

 The elements earth, water, fire, and air, taught already in early suttas, were counted as special forms of the independent quality “tangible.” The element water was identified as moistness, fire as heat, and air movement, with these existing in the form of chains and groups of atoms. The conventional distinguishing of characteristic and object characterized was, however, still applied by the scholastics in regard to, e. g., the individual element-cum-quality earth, even as they rejected the notion of substance as posited by the non-Buddhists. In schools such as the Sarvāstivāda, ether maintained its independent status as a substantial unconditioned entity. See also the discussion of the Buddhist theory of atoms in Frauwallner 1958: 96 – 100.  I refer here primarily to the view of ātman within early Mahāyāna and the Yogācāra and Madhyamaka schools, and must pass over its interpretations in the Tathāgatagarbha school.  The Sarvāstivādins also allow for the existence of the dharmas in the past and future. According to Lambert Schmithausen (class lectures), their ontology appears to represent the assimilation and redesigning (“antisubstantializing”) of the Sāṅkhya concept of prakṛti and the pre-ex-

122

Anne MacDonald

are as unreal as the ātman, as illusory and misleading as a mirage. The Mahāyāna’s revamping of the Conservative Buddhist schools’ take on the ontological status of dharmas, however, was neither an independent, unconnected development nor a response to external stimuli, and can rather be understood as the spectacular culmination of early Buddhism’s penchant for headlining impermanence and the resultant undermining of any positive appraisal of existence and its cause, and the related resistance to specific ideas of substance. The Mahāyānist innovations were in large part similarly inspired by practical and spiritual concerns, namely, the desire to break the bonds of the often painful and ultimately unsatisfactory cycle of birth and death. Although Mahāyāna’s views on the status of the world were vastly different from those of its predecessors, adumbrations of the later developments can occasionally be observed already in later layers of the canonical literature. The Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta, “The Discourse [in which the skandhas are described as] comparable to a Clump of Foam [etc.],” of the Saṃyuttanikāya, for example, compares bodily matter (rūpa) to a clump of foam floating on the Ganges: On one occasion the Exalted One was dwelling at Ayojjhā on the bank of the river Ganges. There the Exalted One addressed the bhikkhus thus: “Bhikkhus, suppose that this river Ganges was carrying along a great lump of foam. A man with good sight would inspect it, ponder it, and carefully investigate it, and it would appear to him to be void, hollow, insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a lump of foam? So too, bhikkhus, whatever kind of corporeal matter there is …, it would appear to him to be void, hollow, insubstantial. For what substance could there be in corporeal matter?⁷

The sutta continues on to compare feeling (vedanā) to a water bubble, apperception (saññā) to a mirage, impulses (saṅkhāra) to the (pseudo)stem of the banana plant, and cognition (viññāna) to a magical illusion. Whereas the mention of foam, a water bubble, and a banana stem illustrate well the lack of substance in and thus the worthlessness of the skandhas, it is particularly the comparisons

istence (and post-existence) of this Ur-matter: the Ur-matter, in which qualities and states latently exist beyond their emergence in the present, loses its substance, so that in the past and the future only the pre- and post-existing independent qualities and states remain.  Translation following Bodhi 2000: 951. See Feer 1975: 140: Ekaṃ samayam Bhagavā Ayojjhāyaṃ viharati Gaṅgāya nadiyā tire || || Tatra kho Bhagavā bhikkhū āmantesi || || Seyyathāpi bhikkhave ayaṃ Gaṅgā nadī mahantaṃ pheṇapiṇḍam āvaheyya || || tam enaṃ cakkhumā puriso passeyya nijjhāyeyya yoniso upaparikkheyya || || Tassa tam passato nijjhāyato yoniso upaparikkhato rittakaññeva khāyeyya tucchakaññeva khāyeyya asārakaññeva khāyyeya || kiñhi siyā bhikkhave pheṇapiṇḍe sāro || || Evam eva kho bhikkhave yaṃ kiñci rūpam … Tassa tam … rittakaññeva khāyati tucchakaññeva khāyati || asārakaññeva khāyati || kiñhi bhikkave rūpe sāro || ||.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

123

to a mirage and a magical illusion which suggest the potential for and possibility of a development from anti-substantiality to illusionism. Mahāyāna sūtras and especially Madhyamaka works are in fact well known for asserting that everything in the world is comparable to a mirage and magical illusion, as well as to the reflection of the moon in water, an echo, a dream, and so forth.⁸ The references in the canonical texts to insubstantial things like foam, bubbles, the banaba stem, mirages, and magical illusions are intended to point out the deceiving nature of things and their character of not providing what they appear to promise, and thus their lack of value, but definitely not their ontological unreality; nevertheless, the relevant textual passages document a way of looking at things that stresses the insubstantiality of appearances to the extent that they verge on vanishing. Mention of things being empty (śūnya), often associated with Madhyamaka teachings, occurs in early and Conservative texts, but there too illusionism and the ultimate non-existence of things is not intended, for the concept of emptiness is invoked, for example, by the Conservative authors primarily when they wish to communicate that the (real) dharmas are not themselves the real “I” or Self, and that they are empty of a real “I” or Self, or that no Self or substance is to be discovered somehow supporting or hidden behind them. Mahāyānist declarations that things are empty include this idea that things are empty of a real “I,” Self, or otherwise conceptualized substantial core, yet extend the scope of emptiness so that it encompasses the things themselves; the very qualities and states the Conservative Buddhists protected from their attacks on substance and preserved as ontological primitives become exposed as fakes. They are, like the person, without a real self, without an ownbeing (svabhāva) that might endow them with existence, and thus actually unreal. Convincing arguments have been made for the idea that the doctrine of the unreality of the world, indeed of all world systems and realms together with their inhabitants, cannot be reduced to a mere theoretical development of the originally spiritually motivated attempt to divert attention away from a positive world view; although definitely still on the anti-substantialist trajectory, this doctrine may also have roots in certain transphenomenal experiences generated in states of deep meditative concentration, presumably the three samādhis or “gates to deliverance” (vimokṣamukha) known as emptiness (śūnyatā), freedom from appearances (ānimitta), and not being fixed on anything (apraṇihita).⁹  The Mādhyamika Candrakīrti, for example, occasionally cites the Sanskrit version of a verse found at the end of the Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta that compares the skandhas with the insubstantial objects in order to support his view of emptiness; see MacDonald 2015: 162 f. and n. 317.  See Schmithausen 2014: 636.

124

Anne MacDonald

Lambert Schmithausen, referring to the doctrine of the illusoriness of all things as it appears in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, states, Following this text, it however now seems extremely unlikely that Mahāyānist illusionism developed out of purely theoretical considerations, since although the text repeatedly asserts as a claim the unreality and emptiness of all appearances, it provides no rational justification. The doctrine of the unreality of appearances is thus in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā obviously not the result of theoretical reflection, rather much more the reflex of a spiritual state, and at the same time also the signpost pointing to its attainment. In fact the text clearly reveals that the “Perfection of Insight” (prajñāpāramitā), in which all appearances and fixations prove themselves to be illusory, is a state of concentration. … The doctrine of the unreality of the world of appearances therefore seems to be the ontological equivalent of a mystical, thus spiritual state, in which for the mystic all subjective and objective appearances here and now have disappeared.¹⁰

Schmithausen goes on to suggest that for Buddhist yogins who were familiar with the assertions about the voidness, pithlessness, unreliability and seeming illusoriness of things, such as those in the Saṃyuttanikāya passage above, and who were practising one or more of the concentrations of the vimokṣamukha trio (also known in early Buddhism),¹¹ it may have been a small and inviting step to interpret their experiences in the transphenomenal state of the concentrations as the mystical vision of the actual and eternal unreality of appearances and as providing unmediated experiential verification for the intellectual analyses that had been undertaken earlier.¹² As is known, Nāgārjuna was familiar with certain early Mahāyāna works (he refers, e. g., to an idea found in the Kāśyapaparivartasūtra in MMK XIII.8) and draws on concepts used in early Prajñāpāramitā circles when in MMK XXIV verses 8, 9 and 10 he speaks of the importance of distinguishing two levels of truth, viz., saṃvṛtisatya and paramārthasatya. His contribution to the development of Mahāyāna theory consists in the first place, as stated, in providing logical argumentation – later Mādhyamikas such as Bhāviveka and Candrakīrti would battle over the appropriateness of Nāgārjuna’s reliance on consequences (prasaṅga) – that could back up the assertions conveying the experience of emptiness and the non-existence of things that had occurred in the concentrations. As alluded to by his reference to two levels of truth, when the Mādhyamika speaks of the non-existence of appearances, he is speaking from the perspective of the ultimate state of affairs. Even though things do not ultimately exist, as long as an individual  Translated into English by the author of the present paper; original German in Schmithausen 1973: 181.  See Schmithausen 2014: 636, n. 2574 for references.  Cf. also Vetter 1984, Vetter 1994: 1260 f., and Vetter 2001: 70 ff.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

125

has not fully realized this lack of existence, the superficial level’s appearances remain untouched, in the same way that a person whose eyes are affected by floaters (timira) continues to see non-existent hairs, insects, and so forth until the visual disorder is medically addressed and healed. In the attempt to fathom important aspects of Nāgārjuna’s principal and indeed key mode of argumentation, one needs to be aware that for him (and the later Mādhyamikas) absolute, i. e., “real,” reality implies complete independence. For a thing to be truly real, it must have an own-being (svabhāva), that is, its “own” existence, a “self,” as it were, that provides for and grants it its reality without any need for reliance on anything external to it.¹³ Yet independent existence is not to be found amongst the world’s objects or concepts: things are dependent on other things, unable to exist without additional supporting factors and circumstances, thus in want of the self-sufficiency that might bestow upon them true reality. The existence assumed and ascribed to them by ordinary, i. e., unawakened persons, being dependent on other things, does not legitimately belong to them, and can only be artificial and bogus. If a thing cannot exist on its own, and has to rely, to lean, so to speak, on something else, more specifically, on its causes (hetu) and conditions (pratyaya), to achieve its “existence,” it remains without a real essence and is thus bereft of real existence. The dependent nature of a thing testifies to and proves its inexistence. And as Nāgārjuna explains in the twenty-fourth chapter of the MMK, were things to have ownbeing, i. e., be real, they could as a consequence neither arise, perish, nor change in any way, for a truly existent thing would not require or be affected by external factors like conditions.¹⁴ Existing by its own force, it would consistently remain the same into eternity. The fact that the phenomena apprehended by the unawakened individual are seen to come into being and to later disintegrate and/or vanish demonstrates that they are empty of an own-being, and thus without true existence. Yet it is the emptiness of everything that allows for the dynamic processes perceived and experienced on the conventional, everyday level, as well as the modification, transformation, and innovation that can be achieved and undertaken on this level; worldly activities and transactions as well as psychological and spiritual growth can occur precisely because things are empty of a real nature. Responding to an opponent who has argued that the Mādhyamika claim of emptiness invalidates arising, perishing, and the  Cf., e. g., MMK XV. 1: na saṃbhavaḥ svabhāvasya yuktaḥ pratyayahetubhiḥ | hetupratyayasaṃbhūtaḥ svabhāvaḥ kṛtako bhavet || and MMK XV.2: svabhāvaḥ kṛtako nāma bhaviṣyati punaḥ katham | akṛtrimaḥ svabhāvo hi nirapekṣaḥ paratra ca ||. All MMK citations follow Ye 2011.  Cf. MMK XXIV. 16: svabhāvād yadi bhāvānāṃ sadbhāvam anupaśyasi | ahetupratyayān bhāvāṃs tvam evaṃ sati paśyasi ||.

126

Anne MacDonald

Four Truths of the Nobles, Nāgārjuna in MMK XXIV.14 famously states that everything is suitable, i. e., appropriate, possible, for the person for whom emptiness is suitable (sarvaṃ ca yujyate tasya śūnyatā yasya yujyate) and conversely, that nothing is suitable/possible for the person who rejects emptiness (sarvaṃ na yujyate tasya śūnyaṃ yasya na yujyate). On the everyday level, or perhaps more befitting the context the surface or superficial level, which is mistakenly assumed by the unawakened to be genuinely trustworthy and authentic, things – subject to the causal mechanisms of this level – do indeed appear but they have only an apparent realness, bear only a semblance to real things, and, completely deceptive as to their true nature, turn out to be “fakes,” fictions, similar to the seemingly genuine objects and people conjured up by skilled magicians. Like the things in magical illusions they can, as stated, perform functions,¹⁵ but in the final analysis they do not exist in any way and from the ultimate vantage point are no longer perceived at all. In order to prove that things cannot exist, Nāgārjuna employs a variety of arguments in the MMK, the most essential focussing on dependencies between things. His radical reinterpretation of the traditional teaching of dependent-arising (pratītyasamutpāda) – in early Buddhism a formula or principle used to explain the process of rebirth and the causes of suffering (viz., the twelve-linked chain beginning with ignorance [avidyā]) and on occasion causal arising in the external world, later developed by the Conservative Buddhists into a general law of causality governing all entities, in particular the dharmas – turned the previous understanding of it on its head, for it was now no longer employed to explicate how the inner and outer entities of the world come into being, but was utilized to demonstrate and prove that it is impossible for anything whatsoever to arise or exist. Arising in dependence was retranslated to mean not really arising in dependence, not able to exist. Some of the most transparent examples for his novel interpretation of the theory of dependent-arising occur in the context of Nāgārjuna’s rejection of the possibility of causes and effects, as, for example, in MMK I. 6, where he argues that a condition is not logically tenable as a causal factor for either an existing or non-existing thing, i. e., an effect: Neither for an inexistent nor an existent thing is a condition tenable. [If the thing] is inexistent: of what [will] the condition [be]? And [if it’s] existent: what use is a condition? ¹⁶

 See MMK XVII. 31– 32 and the well-known example in Vigrahavyāvartanī XXIII of a magically created man preventing another magically created man from acting.  MMK I. 6: naivāsato naiva sataḥ pratyayo ’rthasya yujyate | asataḥ pratyayaḥ kasya sataś ca pratyayena kim ||.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

127

It is obvious that if an effect is already existent, its causal condition would no longer be necessary, but less easy to grasp why a condition is unacceptable for an effect that has not yet come into existence. Analogous logical consequences are indicated in MMK IV. 4.¹⁷ Nāgārjuna commences by stating that matter (rūpa; see MMK IV. 2 and 3),¹⁸ subsequently the four other skandhas, indeed all things (see MMK IV. 7), cannot exist separate from their respective causes and that causes cannot exist without their effects. As evidenced in numerous places in the MMK, he exploits this idea of mutual dependency to come up with conclusions such as those implied by the rhetorical questions of MMK I.6cd, which annihilate the possibility of causality and thereby the possibility of the existence of the entire internal and external world. At the basis of the reasonings drawing on mutual dependency is the idea that “real-world” conditions, which have temporal implications in that they are considered to occur before their effects, need to comply with the demands of logical conditions, which are atemporal as regards the conditioning relation. To explain, logical presuppositions regarding cause and effect do not assume a temporal relationship between cause and effect, but rather assume that the concept of cause requires the concept of effect, and vice-versa. Nāgārjuna consciously and intentionally transfers the logical presuppositions to – or, alternatively, merges the logical, conceptual condition-relations with – the “real-world” conditions, with the result that the “real-world” conditioned relationships as accepted by the common man and philosophers are obliged to meet the requirements of the logical relationships.¹⁹ To return to MMK I.6’s statement regarding an inexistent thing, Nāgārjuna is asserting that it is not possible for a condition (pratyaya) to exist before its effect has come into existence because for something to be the causal condition of something else, the existence of that other thing, namely, the effect, is re-

 MMK IV. 4: rūpe saty eva rūpasya kāraṇaṃ nopapadyate | rūpe ’saty eva rūpasya kāraṇaṃ nopapadyate ||.  MMK IV. 2: rūpakāraṇanirmukte rūpe rūpaṃ prasajyate | ahetukaṃ na cāsty arthaḥ kaścid āhetukaḥ kvacit || (Ye 2011 reads āhetukaṃ for ahetukaṃ; see MacDonald 2015: Vol. I, 164, n. 19) and MMK IV. 3: rūpeṇa tu vinirmuktaṃ yadi syād rūpakāraṇam | akāryakaṃ kāraṇaṃ syād nāsty akāryaṃ ca kāraṇam ||.  See Oetke 1990 and Oetke 2004 for more detailed explanation of the “merging” of condition types and the reasons behind it. Oetke (cf. 1990: 102, 2004: 92) sets forth the general theorem he credits to Nāgārjuna: “for all x and all y: If x is the condition of y / If x is the condition of the existence of y, then y must be something that exists during the existence of x (or: … that does not exist exclusively later than x).” He states (2004: 95), “The problem which seems to have been systematically exploited for metaphysical purposes by the writer of the MMK for the first time in Indian philosophy is that of conceptual relationships, in particular relationships of conceptual involvement.”

128

Anne MacDonald

quired. Any attempt to get around this by arguing that the effect will show up right after the condition is futile; a condition cannot occur without its effect. Yet if the effect would exist before or at the time of the condition, the condition would be utterly useless. With these two options for the existence of conditions negated, causality is, as stated, revealed to be impossible. The application of the requirements of logical dependencies to “real” dependencies also clarifies why Nāgārjuna in MMK XIX, his analysis of time (kāla), would assert in his initial kārikā that if one accepts that the present and future are dependent on the past, then as a consequence the present and future must exist in the past:²⁰ given that the past is a necessary condition of the present and future inasmuch as it is that on which the present and future depend, the present and future would have to occur during the existence of their condition, the past. Thus, as Claus Oetke has explained, Nāgārjuna’s articulation of the unwanted logical consequence (MMK XIX. 1cd) of the dependency (MMK XIX. 1ab) as the present and future having to exist in the past is entirely appropriate.²¹ Nāgārjuna of course also rejected conceptions of nirvāṇa that allowed for or entailed its existence, such as the positively envisioned nirvāṇa assumed by much of early Buddhism and some of the Conservative schools, which was considered a sort of metaphysical dimension, unconditioned and lasting, into which the liberated mind would enter, and the nirvāṇa of the Sarvāstivādins, which was viewed as a hypostasized stopping of the defilements, an existing “non-being.” nirvāṇa was maintained to be everlasting, but according to Nāgārjuna both of these types of existent nirvāṇa would have to be conditioned, and thus nirvāṇa, like all other conditioned things, would be impermanent, and thus impossibly the cessation of suffering. He also dismissed nirvāṇa postulated, as the Sautrāntikas did, as mere non-existence (due to the complete ceasing of the kleśas and personality stream), because according to him non-existence can only be the result of some previously existent thing having lost its existence; nirvāṇa as mere non-existence could not be unconditioned because it is dependent on the earlier thing.²² A nirvāṇa posited either as existing or as non-existing does not escape the constraints of the mundane world, and subject to its limitations and condi-

 MMK XIX. 1: pratyutpanno ’nāgataś ca yady atītam apekṣya hi | pratyutpanno ’nāgataś ca kāle ’tīte bhaviṣyataḥ ||.  Oetke states (1990: 102): “On the supposition that being past is a condition of being present or future … it follows that (something’s) being present and future must be occurring during the time of (its) being past (at least at some time that is not later than the state of being past) and this thought could quite naturally be expressed by the formulation that presence / a thing’s being present or (a thing’s being) future must be in the past (time).  Cf. MacDonald 2009: 140 ff.

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

129

tionality it would be, like the mundane, entangled in suffering. The Mādhyamikas’ nirvāṇa is further not some state that has to be produced, or an other-worldly dimension that is to be reached and then entered subsequent to the liberating experience, because for them a nirvāṇa that stands apart from, is separate from saṃsāra is unacceptable and illogical. Nāgārjuna ventures so far as to declare that there is in fact no difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, intending not, however, that nirvāṇa is identical with the saṃsāric appearing, conditioned things, but rather that it is identical with their true nature.²³ saṃsāra and nirvāṇa thus in this sense coincide: the cosmos together with the realms of existence, in particular human existence, is ultimately no different than eternally peaceful nirvāṇa by virtue of the fact that its true nature is in a state of nirvāṇic calm; saṃsāric things are and always have been “extinguished” (nirvṛta) because they have actually never come into being.²⁴ Ontological nirvāṇa for Nāgārjuna is, in contradistinction to the hypotheses of his non-Buddhist opponents and many fellow Buddhists, neither something existent nor a reliable non-existence, but rather the calming (upaśama) of all objective and subjective manifoldness (prapañca), i. e., of external manifoldness and all manifold conceptual and verbal activity, none of which was actually ever there in the first place because nothing – as revealed by his brilliant exploitation of the traditional law of dependent-arising – has ever existed. This nirvāṇa transcends, so to speak, the appearing phenomena of the everyday, surface level and yet, as Nāgārjuna strives to emphasize, is immanent in them as their true nature, a nature revealed upon their disappearance once one enters the state of non-perception. Descriptions by their Buddhist cohorts of nirvāṇa as a generated state or as a dimension reached by leaving behind the (real) world were also critiqued by the Mādhyamikas as misleading, because given that nirvāṇa is ontologically anticipated in worldly phenomena, what is required to “reach” it is nothing but penetrative insight into the nature of these things. The realization of the true nature of the world actualizes the supreme aim and represents the spiritual, subjective experience of nirvāṇa: in seeing the true nature of things, one no longer sees them, and with this all concepts and mental activity based on them comes to rest. Thus is accomplished the individual’s liberation from the bondage of the emotional and intellectual defilements and all suffering: inasmuch as the defilements too have never existed, the insight into the fact that they have always been “abandoned,” that there is nothing to be eliminated, effects freedom from them – in the sense that one un Cf. MMK XXV. 19: na saṃsārasya nirvāṇāt kiṃcid asti viśeṣaṇam | na nirvāṇasya saṃsārāt kiṃcid asti viśeṣaṇam ||.  Cf. references in the Prasannapadā to the complete extinction of all dharmas, e. g., atyantaparinirvṛteṣu … sarvadharmeṣu (La Vallée Poussin 1970: 541.2).

130

Anne MacDonald

derstands that this freedom was always there. The spiritual experience, the ceasing of mental activity, the defilements, and suffering all occur and can be posited on the everyday, superficial level; from the standpoint of the ultimate they do not occur and have no reality. Even though in one sense the emptiness and non-existence of things represents their true nature, it seems unlikely that Nāgārjuna considered true reality, nirvāṇa, to be pure abstract nothingness. The Mādhyamikas defend themselves against opponents accusing them of being nihilists with a variety of arguments, one of these based on Nāgārjuna’s observation that it is generally held in the world that non-existence can only be predicated of something that previously existed; but when nothing has ever existed that has or might become inexistent, non-existence is as impossible as existence.²⁵ Instead, Nāgārjuna and his followers appear to have understood his destructive analysis of all entities and concepts as having the purpose of blazing the way for a mystical realization and internalization of an incomprehensible, concept- and language transcending absolute,²⁶ which, neither an entity nor nothingness, is also beyond any conceptualized combination or negation of these two extremes. The individual who has been liberated by way of insight into the true nature of the world (and his/her true nature) similarly seems not to have been thought to have vanished into oblivion or been completely annihilated. Of course, from the standpoint of the surface level, a realized being, for example, the Buddha, is accepted as a person, but like everything else on this level, he lacks true reality, and is similar to a person in a dream or a man created by a magician. From the standpoint of the ultimate, this liberated, realized person has never existed. However, inasmuch as he is conceived of as identical with true reality, which is his nature, he is fully inconceivable, and thus described by Nāgārjuna as “transcending all manifoldness.”²⁷ The Mādhyamikas’ method without doubt accomplishes that which Buddhism’s early anti-substantialism movement strove to achieve by way of its  MMK XV. 5: bhāvasya ced aprasiddhir abhāvo naiva sidhyati | bhāvasya hy anyathābhāvam abhāvaṃ bruvate janāḥ ||.  See MMK XVIII. 9: aparapratyayaṃ śāntaṃ prapañcair aprapañcitam | nirvikalpam anānārtham etat tattvasya lakṣaṇam || “Not recognized through [the statements] of another (i. e., experienced only in a mystical state); peaceful, untouched by all manifoldness [and manifold linguistic and conceptual activity], free from [and beyond all] ideation, without diversity – this is the characteristic of reality.”  MMK XXII. 15: prapañcayanti ye buddhaṃ prapañcātītam avyayam | te prapañcahatāḥ sarve na paśyanti tathāgatam ||. “Those who overlay the imperishable Buddha, who transcends all manifoldness [and all manifold concepts and designations], with manifold ideas and terms, lost to manifold conceptualizing, do not see the Tathāgata [as he truly is].”

The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

131

teachings on and analyses regarding the impermanence of things, namely, freeing the individual from desire and attachment and all resultant suffering. Yet the doctrine of illusionism, the final radical issue of the anti-substantialism trend, which found its justification in Nāgārjuna’s radical reinterpretation of dependent-arising, surpassed by virtue of its superior ontological stance the teachings about impermanence and the momentariness of phenomena as a means for breaking attachment and facilitating the attainment of nirvāṇa. Unlike the earlier approaches according to which liberation was envisioned as an escape from the suffering of worldly existence, and something achieved only upon complete extrication from it, the Madhyamaka school, and in many ways the general broader Mahāyāna tradition, maintained that there was truly nothing to escape from, neither a world imbued with suffering nor the internal causes of this suffering, i. e., the emotional and intellectual defilements. Given that everything is empty and the emotional and intellectual defilements as unreal as magical illusions, ultimately not existing, the possibility of freedom from these and the cycles of suffering existence is guaranteed: one need not seek deliverance from things that have never existed but must merely awaken to the true state of affairs. Nirvāṇa is certain because it is all that has ever been; the rest is nothing but a false idea.

Bibliography Bodhi 2000. Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Vol. I. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000. Conze 1958. Edward Conze, Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā: The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Ślokas. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1958. Feer 1975. L. Feer (Ed.), Saṃyuttanikāya. Part III. London: Pali Text Society, 1975. Frauwallner 1958. Erich Frauwallner, Die Philosophie des Buddhismus. 2. Auflage. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958. La Vallée Poussin 1970. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Madhyamakavṛtti. Mūlamadhyamakakārikās de Nagārjuna avec la Prasannapadā, Commentaire de Candrakīrti. St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1903 – 1913. Reprint Osnabrück. Biblio Verlag 1970. Mabbett 1998. Ian Mabbett, The Problem of the Historical Nāgārjuna Revisited. Journal of the American Oriental Society 118 (1998): 332 – 346. MacDonald 2009. Anne MacDonald, “Knowing Nothing: Candrakīrti and Yogic Perception.” In: Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness. Eli Franco & Dagmar Eigner (Eds.). Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2009. 133 – 169. MacDonald 2015. Id., In Clear Words. The Prasannapadā: Chapter One. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2015.

132

Anne MacDonald

Oetke 1990. Claus Oetke, “On some non-formal aspects of the proofs of the Madhyamakakārikās.” In: Earliest Buddhism and Madhyamaka. David S. Ruegg, Lambert Schmithausen (Eds.). Leiden: Brill, 1990. 90 – 109. Oetke 2004. Id., “On ‘Nāgārjuna’s Logic’.” In: Gedenkschrift J.W. de Jong. H.W. Bodewitz, Minoru Hara (Eds.). Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2004. 83 – 98. Schmithausen 1973. Lambert Schmithausen, Spirituelle Praxis und Philosophische Theorie im Buddhismus. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 57 (1973): 161 – 186. Schmithausen 2014. Id., The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. Responses and Reflections. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014. Vaidya 1960. P.L. Vaidya, Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā with Haribhadra’s Commentary called Āloka. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960. Vetter 1984. Tilmann Vetter, A Comparison between the Mysticism of the Older Prajñā-pāramitā Literature and the Mysticism of the Mūla-madhyamaka-karikās of Nāgārjuna. Acta Indologica 6 (1984): 495 – 512. Vetter 1994. Id., On the Origin of Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Subsequent Introduction of Prajñāpāramitā. Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 48 (1994): 1241 – 1281. Vetter 2001. Id., Once again on the Origin of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 45 (2001): 59 – 90. Walser 2005. Joseph Walser, Nāgārjuna in Context. Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Ye 2011. Shaoyong Ye, Zhunglunsong: Fanzanghan Hejiao, Daodu, Yizhu [Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: New Editions of the Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese Versions, with Commentary and a Modern Chinese Translation]. Shanghai: Zhongxi Book Company, 2011.

Jörg Plassen

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought? Some Musings Centering on Huayan Expositions of the Net of Indra “A theological question with time-honored precedents … In his thoughtful prepatory notes laying out the objectives of the 2016 Schwerte conference, Bernhard Nitsche among other issues raises the following bundle of far-ranging questions: … [I]n European thinking Buddhism has repeatedly been claimed to embrace the thought of an all-encompassing unity. In this context the question arises of whether it is possible to think such an all-encompassing unity with the help of the concept of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), the interminable chain in the web of Indra. Is it an infinite chaining of always finite moments so that one can speak of interminability, but this interminability always remains within the concept of dependent origination of finite cause-and-effect relationship? Or is it possible to think differently? Is the notion of the one spirit or the all-encompassing buddha-nature possible in Buddhism? Or is this rather a misunderstanding (either a problematic or productive one)? …¹

The student of Huáyán thought might feel somewhat uneasy about the implicit equation of pratītyasamutpāda (yīnyuán shēng 因緣生), which designates a temporal chain, with the conditioned arisal of the dharmadhātu (ch. fǎjiè yuánqǐ 法 界緣起) as represented in the net of Indra, which in an attempt to overcome the notion of time refers to synchronous mutual co-arisal. Also, the whole question appears to be very much in line with assumptions brought forward by Catholic scholars already centuries ago: As Urs App (2005) has demonstrated, such an allencompassing unity based on the “one spirit” has in fact been considered central to Buddhist texts as early as by Alessandro Valignano (1539 – 1606): … dicentes vnum esse principium rerum omnium primum, & summum: quod in rebus singulis inest: &tam ipsorum hominum cor, quàm reliquorum omnium intimum nihil ab eo principio differe: omnia item quaecunque sunt, quum dissoluuntur in vnum, & idem principium reuerti, quod ipsi dicunt Ixin.

 Cf. Nitsche, Prepatory Notes of the Conference. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-011

134

Jörg Plassen

They argue there is only a single first and supreme principle of all things that is inherent in separate things; and both man’s own heart and all other things do not differ at all from that principle. All that exists, whatever it may be, dissolves into one and the same principle that they call isshin. (Valignano 1568: 5r, quoted and translated in App 2005: 72)

As the above passage indicates, Valignano apparently was not aware that texts introduced to him by his informants, in which he saw echoes of some objectifiable spiritual “principle” (and thus, per extension, ultimately God), actually referred to the very same “one mind” (ch. yīxīn, jp. isshin 一心) that also brings about the human world. Also, it is somewhat doubtful whether we should interpret this “one mind” as a principle underlying the whole world, or rather as referring to the mind as the locus and ultimate source of all mental projections. Thus, one of the texts resorted to by his informants, the Xuèmài lùn 血脈論 (“Blood stream treatise”), almost brutally cautions the adept not to construct an outside Buddha other than the one in himself: Buddhas don’t save buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a buddha, you won’t see the buddha. As long as you look for a buddha somewhere else, you’ll never see that your own mind is the buddha. Don’t use a buddha to worship a buddha. And don’t use mind to invoke a buddha. Buddhas don’t recite sutras. Buddhas don’t keep precepts. And buddhas don’t break precepts. Buddhas don’t keep or break anything. Buddhas don’t do good or evil. To find a buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a buddha. (transl. Red Pine 1987: 11, quoted in App 2005: 69).

Obviously, the case of Valignano should be a warning to us: Are we perhaps again committing the same categorial mistake when associating statements in Huáyán texts with the domains of cosmology or even metaphysics—texts, that actually might also, and perhaps even better, be described as referring to the psychology of mind? In what sense may we actually speak about “the one spirit” or, perhaps more accurately, “one mind” in such a reifying manner? Furthermore, while Bernhard Nitsche’s mention of pratītyasamutpāda and of the “web of Indra” does not necessarily entail subscription to modern interpretations of fǎjiè or dharmadhātu as “cosmos” or “universe”, we in any case should head caution not to prematurely trade Cusanus for Bruno. Thus we should first take a step back and ask ourselves: Unity of what? What sort of realm(s) or domains do terms as “dharmadhātu of dependent origination” and “all-encompassing buddha-nature” refer to?

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

135

… pointing at a major problem within Huáyán studies … It is at this point that Bernard Nitsche’s question, while obviously being asked from the standpoint of a Catholic theologician, becomes of utter relevance also for the concerns of the Buddhologist studying Huáyán texts. In fact, Nitsche puts the finger on a serious problem within Western scholars’ interpretation of “Huáyán thought” that seems to have been largely resolved decades ago, and yet has persisted well into the present decade.²—The to my knowledge hitherto clearest statement of the problem can be found in Mathias Obert’s seminal Sinndeutung und Zeitlichkeit: Vorwiegend von der amerikanischen Forschung wird die Huayan-Lehre als eine Art metaphysische Theorie, als System einer Welterkenntnis begriffen. Und implizit oder explizit wird darin stets eine Ontologie gesehen. Demnach geht es dem Huayan um die Einsicht, daß das disparate Seiende als eine universale Einheit, als Identität des Alls mit sich selbst in jedem Einzelseienden aufzufassen sei. Unausgesprochen scheint das Verständnis im Bann eines […] Bildes vom sogenannten “Netz der Indra”, einem Perlennetz, worin jede Perle sich in der anderen und also alles in allem sich spiegelt, zu stehen. Demnach erinnert das Weltbild des Huayan an ein – vernetztes – Beziehungsgeflecht, wobei ein Einzelnes das All enthält und umgekehrt. Es herrscht eine monistische Identität im Sein, da alle Differenz zuletzt als aufgehoben gelten muß. Für dieses Modell stehen vor allem die Begriffe “Totalismus” und “Holismus” …³

In fact, Obert’s criticism of the premature interpretation of Huáyán thought as a metaphysical / ontological theory on the identity of the individual with the totality of being or the cosmos (the German term “All” denoting both “totality” and “cosmos”) had much earlier North American predecessors. Thus, in an article somewhat ironically titled “voidnesses and totalities”, Robert Thurman wrote with regard to—partially even unpublished—works by Garma C. Chang, Francis Cook and Unno Taitetsu:

 Thus, as recently as in 2013 Alan Fox named his contribution to A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy quite conventionally “The Huayan Metaphysics of Totality.” (Fox 2016 [2013]: 180). In an even slightly more recent article on “The Practice of Huayan” philosophy (2015), Fox—apparently unaware of previous attempts at highlighting the meditative nature of pertaining Huayan texts— argues that the “concept” of the four-fold dharma sphere (sì fǎjiè 四法界) “… is articulated as a meditational framework, rather than a metaphysical theory …” (Fox 2015: Abstract, 259), but nevertheless does not go as far as to discard “[T]he metaphysics underlying Huayan’s philosophy of totality” (Fox 2015: 262).  Obert 2000: 29.

136

Jörg Plassen

Having decided that Hua Yen is thus diametrically opposed to Mādhyamika, like positive vs. negative, these scholars have conjured up what they call a“totalistic” mode of thought, a “philosophy of totality”, etc. They consider this something new, in the position of equating Hua Yen with the type of extreme, naïve realism of the Vaiśesika, for example, where a whole inheres entirely in each of its parts, etc. This is selling Maitreya’s tower as real estate, and packaging Indra’s net as ontology!⁴

A similar insight, although only with reference to the Avataṃsaka and other Mahāyāna sūtras, can be found as early as in D.T. Suzuki’s much criticised Essays in Zen Buddhism. Third Series: The doctrine of interpenetration may also be expressed in the terminology of causal relativity. But in this case the term must be understood in a much higher or deeper sense, for the Avataṃsaka world is not that of forms and appearances which are governed by such laws as mechanical causation, or theological biological causation, or statical mutuality. The Dharmadhātu, which is the world of the Avataṃsaka, is the one which reveals itself to our spiritual insight—an insight attainable only by transcending the dualism of being (asti) and non-being (nāsti). The Dharmadhātu is, therefore, realizable only when all traces of causation (hetupratyaya) are wiped off from our vision. Interpenetration is then directly perceived without any medium of concepts, which is to say, not as the result of intellectualization. It is also in this sense that this world constructed by the notions belonging to the category of causation is declared by Mahāyāna Buddhists to be empty (śūnya), not born (anutpāda), and without self-nature (asvabhāva). This declaration is not a logical inference, but the intuition of the Mahāyānist genius. When it is interpreted as relativity or as connected with the idea of causal relation, the spirit of the statement is altogether lost, and Mahāyāna Buddhism turns into a system of philosophy, which, however, has been the attempt on the part of some European Buddhist scholars. This Emptiness of all things (sarvadharmasya śūnyatā), enveloping, as it were, all the worlds with their multitudinous objects, is what makes possible the Avataṃsaka intuition of interpenetration and unobstructedness. Emptiness is a Mahāyāna perception of Reality itself. When it is conceptually reconstructed, the significance of the perception is completely struck out. Those who make a trial of such reconstruction are doing so against the spirit of the Mahāyāna. And for these reasons I recommend the study of the sutras themselves and not that of the śāstras or philosophical treatises of Mahāyāna Buddhism—that is, if students really wish to grasp the spirit, or share the experience, of the Mahāyāna.⁵

Although representative of Suzuki’s strategic appropriation of William James’ emphasis on mysticism as the basis of all religions, the above warning against reifying the “experience” of Mahāyāna as represented by the sūtras into “a sys-

 Thurman 1976: 346. In this and all following quotes, the original transcription system will be retained.  Suzuki 2008 [1958]: 155 – 156.

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

137

tem of philosophy” to a considerable extent foreshadow Thurman’s and Obert’s criticisms of ontological reifications of Chinese Huáyán thought. If it comes to Huayan commentaries as such, Robert Gimello in his seminal thesis on Zhìyǎn 智儼 (602– 668) labels the “discernments” of the Huáyán fǎjiè guānmén (Huáyán Gates to the contemplation of the dharma sphere) as “products of a meditative encounter with the Avataṃśakasūtra”, which were “explicitly intended as devices by means of which the grand visions and vistas of that immense scripture could be incorporated into an individual’s practice of meditation and thereby transformed from text into religious experience”.⁶ An even more pronounced stance is taken by Dale S. Wright in his intriguing article “The significance of paradoxical language in Hua-yen Buddhism” (1982). Wright delineates three types of paradox frequently found in Fǎzàng’s 法藏 (643 – 712) writings, all of which “originate in a tension between conventional truth (zhēndì/paramārthasatya) and ultimate truth (súdì/saṃvṛtisatya)”. The third of these types he relates directly to the doctrine of “non-obstruction of phenomena” (shìshì wú’ài 事事無礙): In as much as this “doctrine” entails that “when the ultimate truth of emptiness becomes manifest to the viewer, each phenomenon is paradoxically perceived as interpenetrating with and containing all others”, it constitutes a “paradoxical violation of the conventional order of time and space”.⁷ Thus effectively having reduced the “doctrine” to the paradoxical pattern underlying similes to be visualized as a means for spiritual cultivation (such as the notion of the single hair of a lion), Wright in the end arrives at the following conclusions: For Hua-yen Buddhists, the sudden breakthrough of enlightenment does not entail the relevation of any absolute doctrines or principles. The experience of emptiness is one which precludes any positive, graspable content. Ultimate truth is not conditioned by any form or conceptual structure. Religious doctrines and symbols that are illuminated in the experience are illuminated precisely in their emptiness, that is, no doctrine or symbol is absolut or permanent …⁸

Nevertheless, a ranking among different doctrines is possible. This, however, would only refer to their efficacy. According to the concept of upāya, or “skilful means”, … doctrines and symbols are true as long as, and to the extent that, they effectively evoke an immediate and self-authenticating awareness of “ultimate truth”. Their truth is not the

 Gimello 1976: 129.  Wright 1982: 336.  Wright 1982: 336.

138

Jörg Plassen

correspondence of their content with reality, but rather their relative capacity to point beyond their own empty form to the ground of all form in emptiness. Thus the concept of truth that obtains in Hua-yen texts does not involve a correspondence between a concept of reality and the reality that the concept attempts to grasp. Ultimately, no such correspondence is possible given the Buddhist concept of emptiness. Ultimate truth, therefore, does not not involve a set of propositions about reality but is an immediate awareness of reality itself. For Hua-yen Buddhists, truth is what is revealed from beyond the limits of reality (shih-chi/bhūtakoti) when thought appropriately opens itself to its source and foundation …⁹

Mathias Obert takes yet another qualified step by providing concrete textual evidence that the expositions on Indra’s net should not be understood as a philosophic expositions, but rather as instructions for meditative practice. Elaborating on a passage in the Huáyán wǔjiào zhǐguān 華嚴五教止觀 (The Huáyán Cessation and Contemplation [according to] the Five Teachings, T. 1867)¹⁰, he writes: In einer “prinzipiellen Hellsichtigkeit” ferner uns dieser Erfahrung selbst auszusetzen, uns also in irgendeine Perle einmal leibhaftig hineinzubegeben, lädt uns Du Shun ein (s.S.513b2: qu, ergreifen; b7: zuo, sich setzen). Wir könnten dann sehen, wie schlagartig alle Perlen um uns her ineinander aufgegangen und zu einem rundum erfüllten, zugleich in unendliche Tiefen sich ausdehnenden Spiegelraum verschmolzen wären. Wir selbst wären nicht mehr, wären eins geworden mit unserer Umgebung. Alles um uns herum wäre Glitzern des Spiegeln und Schauen aus unendlich vielen Augen zugleich. Der Blick nach außen in den Spiegel hätte sich ganz in eine innere Reflexivität verwandelt. Wir hätten mit einem Schlage die Zeit verlassen, da Schauen eins mit Spiegeln wäre und sich nichts mehr rührte in dieser totalen Transparenz zwischen uns und der nahegerückten Unendlichkeit.¹¹

While parts of this poetic description have to be taken up again below, Obert’s highlighting of the text’s adhortation to “grasp” and “take seat” in one of the pearls undoubtedly proves that the net of Indra here is employed in the context of meditation, and not in any philosophical exposition on a basic metaphysical structure.

 Wright 1982: 337.  The text has been traditionally ascribed to the so-called “first patriarch” of the Chinese Huáyán zōng 華嚴宗, Dù Shùn 杜順 (557‒640), but nowadays is considered spurious. It contains substantial sections copied (with minor alterations) from the Huáyán yóuxīn fǎjiè jì 華嚴遊心法 界記 (The Huáyán Record of the Dharma Sphere of the [Freely] Roaming Mind; T.1877). The latter text has traditionally been associated with the “third patriarch” Fǎzàng 法藏, but this attribution has likewise been doubted. For the textual relation between the two texts, cf. Liefke & Plassen (2016).  Obert 2000: 127– 128.

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

139

… and necessitating an exemplary closer look at the textual foundations.” The insight that seeming descriptions of “reality” in fact are means of meditation on a sphere beyond words does not conclusively answer the question of how to conceive of what, for lack of a better term, may provisionally be called the “absolute”. Thus, the cognitive scientist Michael Kimmel (2005) has shown stunning structural parallels between the lion paradoxon attributed to Fǎzàng 法藏 and Cusanus’ infinite sphere, both of which employ very similar thought structures in order to lead to a coincidentia oppositorum. It should not been overlooked, however, that Cusanus regards the termination of all opposites only as the moment the wall surrounding paradise is torn down so that by divine grace one eventually is allowed to behold God’s face. Thus, the coincidentia oppositorum ultimately leads to a personal encounter.¹² By contrast, Fǎzàng or, to be more precise, the texts ascribed to him say little about the resulting ultimate experience, which seems to be as much beyond words as an end in itself. Despite this fundamental difference, in the end we cannot avoid coming back to Bernhard Nitsche’s question, and should ask: Is the ultimate reality in Huáyán really beyond words, as Wright assumes? If not, to what extent do the mirroring structures of Indra’s net, described by Obert as a glistening mirroring cabinet, indeed mirror an ultimate reality? Are they really an expression of a sinification of Madhyamaka thought that “reinvests the phenomenal reality with significance”¹³, and thus a prime example of dhātuvāda, as the adherents of Critical Buddhism would say? Or does the overboarding katáphasis in the last resort nothing but yet another variant of Madhyamaka apóphasis? To get at least somewhat closer to an answer, we will have a closer reading of the passages leading up to and detailing the eventual description of the net of Indra that Mathias Obert bases his remarks on, the fifth chapter of the Huáyán wǔjiào zhǐguān 華嚴五教止觀 (T.1867.45.59 – 513, here 512– 513). In so doing, we will base our remarks on Thomas Cleary’s elegant translation,¹⁴ interspersing some remarks on alternative readings only where for our purpose philological precision should outweigh stylistic viability, in so far as an unpolished, more close reading leads to a more accurate understanding of the argument.

 For the goal of ultimately seeing God in an encounter, cf. De visione Dei, passim, http://www. cusanus-portal.de (10.02. 2017).  Bowring 2008 [2005].  Cleary 1994 [1983].

140

Jörg Plassen

In his introduction to his translation of the text, Cleary summarizes the contents of the text, detailing that it progresses in five steps from an analysis of the “elementary teaching of Buddhism” to the “Flower Ornament meditation” on what Cleary terms the “universe of thusness”, i. e. the dharma sphere of thusness of the complete teaching of the One vehicle.¹⁵ Correspondingly, we will focus on some salient parts of the fifth section.—Elaborating on the techniques for entering the dharma sphere, the author of the Huáyán wǔjiào zhǐguān 華嚴五教止觀 distinguishes three techniques leading up to the following one: The third technique is to show that things are beyond words and understanding. There are two aspects to this approach also: one is stopping sentiments; the other is revealing qualities. As for stopping sentiments, we ask “Does conditional origination exist?” The answer is no, because it is identical to emptiness: conditionally originating things have no essence and hence are empty. We ask, “Does it not exist?” The answer is no, because it is identical to existence, since conditionally originating things depend on nonexistence in order to exist. We ask, “Does it both exist and not exist as well?” The answer is no, because emptiness and existence completely merge into one, without duality, since in conditionally originating things emptiness and existence are one, with no duality. Think of it as being like gold and gold ornaments. We ask, “Does it neither exist nor not exist?” The answer is no, because it does not hinder the presence of both existence and nonexistence, since in conditionally originating things emptiness and existence remove each other and yet are fulfilled at the same time. We ask, “Is it definitely existent or nonexistent?” The answer is no, because emptiness and existence merge into each other and neither remains. In conditionally originating things, emptiness cancels existence completely, so there is only emptiness, not existence. Existence cancels emptiness completely, so there is only existence, not emptiness. Thus they take each other away simultaneously, so that both aspects disappear together. As for the second aspect, revealing qualities, we ask, “Is conditional origination existent?” The answer is yes, because illusory existence is not nonexistent. We ask, “Is it nonexistent?” The answer is yes, because having no nature is the same as emptiness. We ask, “Is it both existent and nonexistent?” The answer is yes, because it does not hinder the presence of both. We ask, “Is it neither existent nor nonexistent?” The answer is yes, because they cancel each other out and both disappear. Moreover, because of conditional origination things are existent; because of conditional origination things are nonexistent; because of conditional origination things are both existent and nonexistent; and because of conditional origination things are neither existent nor nonexistent. This reasoning leads to the fact that they are one yet not one, both one and yet not one, not one ; not not one, many and not many, both many and not many, not many and not not many. In this way they are many and they are one, they are both many and one, they are neither one nor many. The tetralemma in terms of identity and nonidentity follows same pattern.

 Cleary 1983: 43 – 45.

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

141

“Stopping” and “revealing” merge without interference, all due to the freedom of conditional origination. One who is (65) capable of seeing this will then be able to see the truth of conditional origination. Why? Because complete merging into one realm accords with the vision of truth. If one does not see before and after the same, this is wrong seeing, not right seeing. Why? Because seeing separately before and after is not in accord with truth.¹⁶

The above passage makes an astonishing point on the nature of apóphasis and katáphasis: Both “stopping sentiments” (zhēqíng 遮情) and “revealing qualities” (biǎodé 表德) eventually only serve to “show that things are beyond words and understanding” (more verbatim: “illumine that the dharmas depart from words and cut off understanding”, xiǎn fǎ lí yán jué jiě 顯法離言絕解). That is, both apóphasis and katáphasis point to the ineffability of reality. This is made clear also by the use of the tetralemma in both sub-sections: First, every possible attribution is denied from this or that viewpoint; then, every possibility is reaffirmed again. Both approaches, however, have the effect that they level all differences so that one finally can “completely merge” everything into the realm of unity, and “not see before and after”. Thus, in the end indeed nothing remains except the ineffability of things, their very emptiness.—This contemplementary approach, in which apóphasis and katáphasis both serve to induce a fusion of opposites that is beyond words, is less representative of a “cataphatic turn”, but rather of an emptiness thinking that wants to overcome also its own onesidedness by means of a more comprehensive, complementary approach.¹⁷ Almost immediately below, the text speaks directly of the nature of the dharmas: Therefore scripture says, “Things have the same nature, because it is in all things.” By way of explanation, “things” refers to conditionally originating things, which have illusory existence. The “same nature” means that, being conditionally produced, they are empty, yet without that preventing their appearances. Therefore “that” is completely contained in being “this,” since “that” is empty yet without hindering the appearance of “that.” Since

 Cleary 1994: 63 – 65. We might be inclined to render yǒu and wú as “having” and “lacking” [differentiating characteristics] rather than “existence” and “inexistence” (somewhat awkwardly, but arguably more logically in so far as emptiness is not identical with inexistence but rather with lacking characteristics) and prefer “merging into the realm of oneness” over “merging into one realm”. These changes, however, obviously would not compromise the overall structure of the passages.  It should be noted at least in passing that the logic of the passage seems to betray the influence of the two sided approach emphasizing that thorough affirmation should entail negation and vice versa as found in the Taesŭng Kisillon pyŏlgi 大乘起信論別記 and thus Wŏnhyo’s 元 曉 (617– 686) thought.

142

Jörg Plassen

“this” and “that” are completely contained in each other’s definition, neither is destroyed. Therefore within “this” there is “that” and within “that” there is “this.” It is not simply that “that” and “this” include each other—it is so of everything. Scripture says, “In one understand infinity, in infinity understand one; the procession of births is not real—the wise have no fear.” It is also said, “In one thing understand many things; in many things understand one thing.” Thus, including each other, “that” and “this” enter each other, immediately appearing simultaneously, without before or after. Whichever one completely merges, therefore, wholly contains “that” and “this.”¹⁸

The lengthy discussion of “this” and “that”, which in itself constitutes an ostentative reference to the Zhuāngzǐ [zhù] 莊子[注], should not distract from an even more interesting statement within this passage: The underlying nature that provides the basis of the interpenetration and mutual identity of the illusionary “things” or dharmas is nothing other than their very emptiness. The description of the object sphere of dharmas is then applied also to the complementary subject side of “knowledge” or wisdom: Question: Things being thus, what about knowledge? Answer: Knowledge accords with things, being in one and the same realm, made by conditions, tacitly conjoining, without rejecting anything, suddenly appearing, yet not without before and after. Therefore scripture says, “The sphere of the universal eye, the pure body, I now will expound; let people listen carefully.” By way of explanation, the “universal eye” is the union of knowledge and reality, all at once revealing many things. This makes it clear that reality is known to the knowledge of the universal eye only and is not the [object (j.p.)] sphere of any other knowledge. The “[object, j.p.] sphere” means things. This illustrates how the many things interpenetrate like the realm of Indra’s net of jewels—multiplied and remultiplied ad infinitum. The pure body illustrates how all things, as mentioned before, simultaneously enter each other. Ends and beginnings, being collectively formed by conditional origination, are impossible to trace to a basis—the seeing mind has nothing to rest on.¹⁹

As the text says, the sphere of the “universal eye” (pǔyǎn 普眼) is a higher mental plane where [subjective] “knowledge” (zhì 智, perhaps better: “wisdom”) and [objective] “things” (fǎ 法, dharmas) “unite” (actually xiāngyìng 相應, “correspond to each other”), and as such is strictly separated from all ordinary knowledge. [Rather than to an underlying unity,] this “knowledge” or “wisdom” reveals “many things” [in their emptiness]. In much the same manner as Indra’s net lets the pearls interpenetrate ad infinitum, the “pure body” (qīngjìng shēn 清凈身, a reference to Vairocana’s dharmakāya), here effectively being reduced  Cleary 1994: 65 – 66.  Cleary 1994: 66.

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

143

to a simile, illustrates that all dharmas enter each other simultaneusly (tóngshí rù 同時入), and “end or beginning” of this process are hard to trace—due to the fact that everything is assembled from conditions the “seeing mind” (jiànxīn 見心, perhaps more accurate “the mind [harboring theoretical] views”) “has no place to rest on” (wúyǐ 無奇). Obviously, the inexhaustible interpenetrations are not an end in themselves, bu in endless deferral again and again denying the mind an ultimate point to focus on, serve only to deter from any conceptualizations and evoke emptiness. What follows, is the core passage Obert bases his already quoted instructive remarks concerning Indra’s net on: Now the celestial jewel net of Kanishka, or Indra, Emperor of Gods, is called the net of Indra. This imperial net is made all of jewels: because the jewels are clear, they reflect each other’s images, appearing in each other’s reflections upon reflections, ad infinitum. all appearing at once in one jewel, and in each one it is so—ultimately there is no going or coming. Now for the moment let us turn to the southwest direction and pick a jewel and check it. This jewel can show the reflections of all the jewels all at once—and just as this is so of this jewel, so it is of every other jewel: the reflection is multiplied and remultiplied over and over endlessly. These infinitely multiplying jewel reflections are all in one jewel and show clearly—the others do not hinder this. If you sit in one jewel, then you are sitting in all the jewels in every direction, multiplied over and over. Why? Because in one jewel there are all the jewels. If there is one jewel in all the jewels, then you are sitting in all the Jewels too. And the reverse applies to the totality²⁰ if you follow the same reasoning. Since in one jewel you go into all the jewels without leaving this one jewel, so in all jewels you enter one jewel without leaving this one jewel.²¹

Again, it should not pass unnoticed that the author of these passages again stresses mutual reflection ad infinitum (lit.: chóngchóng 重重, “layer by layer”) and simultaeneous sudden appearance (tóngshí dùnxiàn 同時頓現, “at once suddenly appear”). More importantly, however, the reference to “no coming and going” reminds of the Zhōnglùn 中論, and Sēng Zhào’s 僧肇 (ca. 374– ca. 414) Wùbùqiān lùn 物不遷論, and thus again of Madhyamaka emptiness philosophy.—The discussion of the simile of Indra’s net finally culminates in the following question-answer section:

 To prevent overinterpretation of Cleary’s wordings, it should be noted that the source text actually only has yīqiè 一切 (“all”). The following clause actually constitutes an adhortation to contemplate he matter correspondingly.  Cleary 1994: 66 – 67.

144

Jörg Plassen

Question: Although the jewel in the southwest contains all the jewels in the ten directions completely, without remainder, there are jewels in every direction. How can you say then that the net is of just one jewel? Answer: All the jewels in the ten directions are in totality the one jewel of the southwest. Why? The jewel in the southwest is all the jewels of the ten directions. If you don’t believe that one jewel in the southwest is all the jewels in the ten directions, just put a dot on the jewel in the southwest. When one jewel is dotted, there are dots on all the jewels in all directions. Since there are dots on all the jewels in the ten directions, we know that all the jewels are one jewel. If anyone says that all the jewels in the ten directions are not one jewel in the southwest, could it be that one person simultaneously put dots on all the jewels in the ten directions? Even allowing the universal dotting of all the jewels in the ten directions, they are just one jewel. Since it is thus, using this one as beginning, the same is so when taking others first—multiplied over and over boundlessiy, each dot is the same. It is obscure and hard to fathom: when one is complete, all is done.²²

Of particular interest is the end of this passage (chóng chóng wú jì / diǎn jiǎn jiē tóng // yǎo yǎo nán yuán / yī chéng xián bì 重重無際 點點皆同 杳杳難原 一成咸 畢), which in a slightly more literal rendition might be translated as “layered and layered again [so that] without boundary, dot by dot are identical; getting dimmer and dimmer [so that] difficult to source, if one is completed, all are finished.” Again, the emphasis seems to rest both on the identity and simultaneous completion of all pearls in each single one as well as their unlimited repetitions, and evanescence into the [empty] darkness of infinity. Immediately afterwards, we are cautioned that Indra’s net is only a simile, and even an imperfect one in so far as in reality not the shadows of the dharmas, but the actual dharmas enter each other: Such a subtle metaphor is applied to things to help us think about them, but things are not so; a simile is the same as not a simile—they resemble each other in a way, so we use it to speak of. What does this mean? These jewels only have their reflected images containing and entering each other—their substances are separate. Things are not like this, because their whole substance merges completely. The book on natural origination in the Huayen scripture says, “In order to benefit sentient beings and make them all understand, nonsimiles are used to illustrate [the meanings of, j.p.] real truth. Such a subtle teaching as this is hard to hear even in immeasurable eons; only those with perseverance and wisdom can hear of the matrix of the issue of thusness.” The scripture says, “Nonsimiles are used as similes. Those who practice should think of this in accord with the similes.”²³

 Cleary 1994: 67– 68.  Cleary 1994: 68.

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

145

The quotation from the Huáyánjīng 華嚴經 cautioning that non-similes are used as similes of course reminds not only of the shortcomings of the simile of Indra’s net, but the principal insuffience of all illustrations of the “meanings of real truth” (zhēnshí yì 眞實義).—To put it more abstractly: While similes are used as means for practice, they should not be confused with what they point at. Kataphatic speech can lead towards awakening, but in the last resort cannot describe it adequately. The Buddha’s ultimate wisdom remains ineffable. This ultimate inconceivability should not be overlooked in the verses added to the prose text (followed only by a bibliographic note giving the expanded title and the size of the text): Vairocana Buddha’s past practices Made oceans of Buddha-fields all pure. Immeasurable, innumerable, boundless, He freely permeates all places. The reality-body of the Buddha is inconceivable; Formless, signless, without comparison, It manifests material forms for the sake of beings. In the ten directions they receive its teaching, Nowhere not manifest. In the atoms of all Buddha-fields Vairocana manifests self-subsistent power, Promising the thundering sound of the ocean of Buddhahood To tame all the species of sentient beings. …²⁴

As the verses state, “The reality-body of the Buddha remains inconceivable / Formless, signless, without comparison /.” While Vairocana’s reality-body is a chiffre for ultimate truth, there is no room for construing it in whatever fashion, and thus also not as the “one spirit” or “all-encompassing buddha-nature.”

Conclusions What does our walk-through across Cleary’s translation of the last section of the Huáyán wǔjiào zhǐguān 華嚴五教止觀 tell about the initially raised question?— Not more, but not less than the insight that the source quoted most often when it comes to Indra’s net eventually does not entail a more positive appraisal of this world (as imbued with a “divine spirit” of Buddha nature), but rather

 Cleary 1987: 68.

146

Jörg Plassen

turns out to be an extremely sophisticated exercise in rather conventional emptiness thought. Obviously, this one example, important as it may be for respective misinterpretations, does not outrule the possibility of an underlying “one spirit” hidden in the understudied swamp of the (in many cases falsely ascribed) texts we are used to call “Huáyán Buddhism”. However, given that precisely this text constitutes the prime textual example adduced in modern treatments of Indra’s net and is widely considered a proof of a turn to katáphasis in Chinese Huáyán, this should render us somewhat reflective.—In fact, the current popular and to some extent even sinological reception of the net of Indra and related Huáyán texts seem to be less informed by careful textual scrutiny, but rather by Jan Smuds’ notion of holism, or 19th century protestant missionary-sinologists’ stereotypes of the practical thought of the this-worldly “Chinese” vs. the metaphysically inclined thought of the pensive “Hindoo” (as Mathers or Johnson would put it), notions that in the last resort lead back as far as to the Enlightenment period and the rites controversy. As any introduction to the theory of science would tell, this of course does not preclude the possibility of the idea of a “one spirit” in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Not surprisingly, we can easily come up with a counter-example: Kūkai 空海 (774– 835), the transmitter of Tantrism or Mìjiào/Mikkyō 密教 to Heian Japan, argues that with all dualities also the one between mind and body should be overcome. In his thought the whole world eventually becomes a sign-expression of the omnipresent Vairocana—a notion that would lead later Japanese thinkers to transform Chinese thought experiments on the buddha-hood of plants and stones into theories taking this notion at face value. Thus, if looking beyond Huayan, the concept of an absolute is possible in Mahāyana Buddhism, even based on the net of Indra.—The historian in me would accept this as a historical reality, while the Buddhologist would be inclined to consider these tantric ideas a heterodoxy under the influence of Brahmanism.

Bibliography App 2010. Urs App, The Birth of Orientalism. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press 2010. Cleary 1994. Thomas Cleary, Entry Into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1994. [1983] Cusanus, De visione Dei, passim, http://www.cusanus-portal.de (10. 02. 2017).

Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought?

147

Fox 2016. Alan Fox, “The Huayan Metaphysics of Totality”. In: A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy. Stephen M. Emmanuel (Ed.). Chichester, UK: Wiley & Sons 2016 [2013], 180 – 189. Fox 2015. Id., “The Practice of Huayan philosophy”. In: Han zhuan Fojiao yanjiou de guoqu, xianzai, weilai 漢傳佛教研究的過去現在未來. Ed. Foguang daxue Fojiao yanjiou zhongxin 佛光大學佛教研究中心 (2015) 259 – 286. www.fgu.edu.tw/~cbs/pdf/2013論文集/q16.pdf (2018.02.13) Gimello 1976. Robert M. Gimello, Chih-Yen (智儼, 602 – 668) and the Foundations of Hua-yen (華嚴) Buddhism. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University 1976. Liefke 2016. Lena Liefke, Jörg Plassen, Some New Light on an Old Authorship Problem in Huayan Studies: The Relation between T.1867 and T.1877 from a Text-Critical and Linguistic Perspective. Bochumer Jahrbuch für Ostasienwissenschaften (BJOAF) (2016): 103 – 136. Obert 2000. Mathias Obert, Sinndeutung und Zeitlichkeit: Zur Hermeneutik des Huayan-Buddhismus [Paradeigmata 22]. Hamburg: Meiner 2000. Suzuki 2008. Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism. Third Series. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 2008 [1958]. Thurman 1976. Robert A.F. Thurman, “Voidnesses and Totalities: Madhyamika and Hua-yen.” In: Studies in history of Buddhism: papers presented at the International Conference on the History of Buddhism at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, August, 19 – 21, 1976. Ed. A.K. Narain. Delhi: B. R. Publ. Corp. (1980) 343 – 348.

Michael von Brück

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism The concept of “unity” is in itself a dualistic concept, in that it presupposes its opposite, disunity. Nāgārjuna’s method of reasoning and its consequences in Prasaṅgika-Madhyamaka epistemology seek to establish the futility of any conceptualization of terms such as “unity.” All of them lead to logical contradictions and imply their opposite, which in the case of the term “unity” make it a contradictio in adjecto. This is one reason for establishing a different way of reasoning, expressed in the Buddhist tradition as satyadvaya, the twofold truth. Conceptualization is dependent on a method of processing data based on sense experiences. The resulting synthetic formation belongs to the register of worldly or conventional truth (Skt. saṁvṛti-satya). It does not lead to an ultimate truth, because it depends on a perspective, and perspectives may differ; indeed, they must differ, since otherwise they would not be perspectives. Ultimate truth or paramārtha-satya, in contrast, could be thought of as the internal side of the mind, as “pure consciousness”, not dependent on data. Even an experience of unity – as in meditative states – may fail to qualify as ultimate truth. Unity is utterly transcendent, and yet it is the precondition for any experience that would form an impression of consistency in the space‒time continuum. The Brahmanic tradition of thinking has borrowed these Buddhist arguments.3 The result is the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta as heralded by Gauḍapāda, the guru of Saṅkara’s guru. Here unity or ekatva appears as a static oneness beyond conceptualization and difference. It cannot have limiting adjuncts; it is a relationless absolute without any qualification (Skt. nirguṇabrahman). It appears as saguṇa-brahman, and thus as relational reality. This, however is a mental appearance only, without ultimate status (Skt. paramārthika). The contradiction in this argument lies, of course, in the status of the saguṇa. Is it an appearance caused by the absolute reality itself? Or is it just an appearance in the defiled human mind? In the first case we have a movement or change in the One, which undermines its oneness. In the second we have an illusory perception (avidyā or māyā). If we enquire into the ontological basis of this illusion, the classical answer is to assert that māyā is inexpressible (Skt. anirvacanīya). Looking at these options of how to understand “unity”, we can now distinguish between two models: a static and a dynamic one. The static one is implied in the ideas just expressed. A dynamic model would not exclude but include dihttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-012

150

Michael von Brück

versity in the model of unity. It would be a unity as process. Does this really work? Here again, we face a choice: should we look at reality as a diversified chaos that gradually organizes itself and forms an ever growing unity, which would have to be some process of interrelationality, or should we instead, on the basis of empirical evidence, see unification processes as just the obverse of processes of diversification or differentiation, so that unification and diversification are two sides of the same coin, contrasting views or interpretations of change. Let us now look into certain aspects of Buddhist history in order to discern the type of unity we might find here. Since there is not one Buddhist model of reality, our question crosses the lines of the classical schools in both early Buddhism and later Mahāyāna developments. And if we turned aside from explicit philosophy and analysed ritual practices, we would get a picture that is even more diversified. Selecting a few central Buddhist concerns, I shall ask how they deal explicitly or implicitly with the question of unity.

The Unity of the Mental Process: The Theory of Skandha In Buddhism knowledge of conscious events is based primarily on introspection, i. e. observing inner mental states as they change under that very observation. Conscious states are characterized by sense experiences that cause the perception of things and events: at the beginning a sense impression is just a round form, a straight line, some colour or a certain sound, but this impression is immediately connected to something similar in the memory, so that an identification occurs which constitutes knowing. Due to this complex process of internal mapping, comparing and structuring, something appears as something: a pen as a pen and a book as a book, etc. Such notions are relative and historically conditioned. Buddhist theories of knowledge focus on the events that lead to the complex synthetic perception. The process of cognition is closely observed and analysed, and in a further step this process of observing is itself made the object of analysis and observation. This process continues on level after level, as the mind acquires skill in directing its attention onto itself. Enhanced awareness of the processes generating what we call conscious experience is a perception of perception that strengthens self-reflexivity. Through continuous meditation practice one gradually gains a direct insight into the dynamics of consciousness, or to be

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

151

more precise: into the dynamics of the complex networking of conscious processes. The main point to bear in mind is this: In Buddhism there are no substances interacting with each other, but only processes. It is by these very processes that something comes into being that can be called a something. But each moment of cognition is very brief, because any situation changes immediately. Thus instead of a something like feelings, thoughts, memory and so on, we find relations in processes of awareness and self-reflection of the same which rapidly appear and disappear. However, the structuring principle, the karmic causality, is something like a blueprint, and on that base new formations are being structured. This is why this whole process is not chaotic, but creates actions and reactions on the basis of former actions and reactions. There is causal connectivity. Thus Buddhism does not describe what a human being is, but rather studies the processes that entangle consciousness in conditioned states so that sentient beings are subject to saṃsāra, the cycle of conditioned limitation. Buddhism understands reality as an interrelational process, as indicated in the formula pratītya-samutpāda, which Nāgārjuna interprets with another equally open term: sūnyatā. Its meaning is: Nothing is what it is by itself, but only in dependent origination, and this spells not only the emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā) of all phenomena, but also their conventional and provisional but valid identity. Dependent origination can be seen as conveying the Unity of phenomena, not only in a relational sense, but also as a causal unity in a logical sense. This reasoning is applied in one of the topics that Buddhists of all times have been most interested in, the theory of cognition. Early Buddhism (Pali-Canon, Sutta-piṭaka) developed the notion of khandhas (Skt. skandhāḥ) in order to criticize constructions of a substantial Selfhood. The skandhas signify a relational cluster of processes that emerge in mutual interaction at any moment. The result is what we observe and categorize as physical processes (1) and mental processes (2 – 5): rūpa, vedanā, samjñā, saṃskāra, vijñāna. The interpretation is standardized, though there are also some variations in different traditions.¹ All material and mental processes are interrelated, yet the material and mental realms are usually kept distinct and not identified with each other, with the exception of some later developments. Rūpa-skandha signifies material reality, including the sense organs of sentient beings. This material reality, however, is not a substance, nor even a combination of smallest particles. Although the Abhidhamma, from the 3rd century BCE, has a theory of the kalapas, very small material entities, these should be

 Cf. Hamilton 1996 and Hart 2010.

152

Michael von Brück

interpreted in non-substantial terms, since they are arisings that disappear immediately after they have come into being.² The illusion of a substance only occurs because the arising and disappearing is so rapid that human perception is not aware of it. Material reality is the rapid arising and disappearing of these formations, interacting with each other and causing what we call reality. Vedanā-skandha is the first – albeit not entirely passive – registration of an impression that is mediated by the sensory organs (the impression may come from outside or inside the body, yet the distinction between “inner” and “outer” reality is a later mental construction). This registration, however, is interpreted as a first undefined reaction, because it is selective; not all impressions made on the living system are registered. Thus, there is a selecting activity in vedanā. The selection process follows a pattern, both qualitatively and quantitatively—qualitative insofar as a pre-selection of what is important to the organism is arranged, so that only what is exceptionally bad or good is noticed; quantitative insofar as stronger signals are processed whereas weaker ones are liable to be ignored.³ Saṃjñā-skandha is the activity of knowing this impression as this impression. This means the impression is identified in the context of former impressions that are already in the memory, so that the present impression is evaluated and catalogued in reference to earlier events. This accounts for the historicity of experience. Saṃskāra-skandha is the evaluating interpretation of an impression that creates a definite notion and therefore triggers a craving for the object, or the opposite of that, an aversion. That is to say, volition with regard to the object is created. This builds on patterns established in earlier processes; so volition is based on experience. Volition (Skt. cetanā) is the intention that concentrates the focus of the mind on an object as it appears in perception. All longings, cravings, concentration, wisdom, intentions to act, etc. are the result of this skandha. Through repetition, the patterns of volitional evaluation grow stronger and the process becomes increasingly firm, that is to say, the mind shapes itself into a character. This, however, can be changed, but the longer the formation has taken place the more difficult it is to change. It is on the basis of this skandha that karma is produced. Vijñāna-skandha (consciousness) is the conscious realization of the processes that have been described, a kind of double structure that appears when all these processes are reflected in themselves. This is a different level to the level

 Kornfield 1977: 316.  Rager/von Brück 2012: 194

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

153

of original impulses. Due to this conscious doubling, the observer observes these processes, objectifying them. And this is the reason for the observing mind experiencing itself as a subject, an “Ego” that seems to be different from the outer world. This, however, is an illusion since the observing process is part of the whole interrelated networking of the skandhas. Vijñāna-skandha is connected to the activity of the respective sense, that is to say, there is an eye-consciousness, an ear-consciousness, etc. This is so because the very agitation of the sensory organs transforms into a perception only when the agitated state of the organ and a conscious realization of that stimulus fuse in the process of perception. Therefore, we can say that vijñāna-skandha is the systemic and relational interconnectivity between the skandhas 1– 4.⁴

The Unity of Time in Buddhism The transitory nature of reality and the flux of all formations (Skt. anitya) are a basic Buddhist experience. Reality consists in momentary arisings, not substances. Time is experienced on the basis of the mutual conditioning of the twelve aspects of dependent origination. It is based on avidyā, which causes suffering (Skt. duḥkha). Duḥkha happens when living beings cling, when they look for something permanent and try to avoid the stream of becoming and decaying. For Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti and other Madhyamaka philosophers, any possible ontology of time would be not a description of reality, but an ego-projection serving to objectivize the alleged Ego in order to know it. Thus, it is the process of establishing an ego-identity that constructs time, and this identity is a unity of perception. Time is a movement in consciousness. This does not imply an idealistic reductionism, since valid temporal structures can be ascertained on the level of causation. However, our knowledge of causation outside ourselves is mediated by conscious processes only. In any case, time is an expression of mutuality. This is metaphorically explained in the Avataṃsaka sūtra, which teaches the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena.⁵ Not only do micro- and macro-spaces interpenetrate each other, but also past, present and future events condition each other in mutual, complex relationships. The experience of the present moment is a processing of past impressions, and its structure of anticipation conditions this processing of the past in

 Rager/von Brück 2012: 194  Several texts of this Avataṃsaka sūtra are translated and commented on in: von Brück 2000.

154

Michael von Brück

the present. Perception of past events depends on conditions of the present which are activated by conditioning factors of the past and anticipations of the future. In other words: What the past has been we cannot know, what the past is at present, however, depends on conditions which are future potentials. The Avataṃsaka sūtra clarifies that these three aspects of time are unlimited, because they are ever evolving potentialities, not determined suchnesses. Time exhibits a dynamic unity which might be called a “holistic interaction process” that continually forms new “onenesses”. Since time itself is evolving, this process is in time and beyond time simultaneously, depending on the focus. In altered states of consciousness (such as in a dream or when meditating), time is being experienced precisely in the mode of this mutual interpenetration of temporal moments.⁶ Here time is a moment of perfect alertness, and past, present and future collapse into this moment. Yet, this “moment” is not static, but it moves on and enfolds its inner dynamics. We can call it a temporal-transtemporal present. The entire Avataṃsaka sūtra is nothing other than an illustration of this meditative experience, in which countries, mountains, rivers, flowers, humans, clouds all appear as reflections of brightness and shining light.⁷ Individual occurrences do not disappear, but appear as interpenetrated by this unending buddha-light. Yet, this is not a different light; it is a reflecting light of their own nature. D.T. Suzuki discusses the paradox of time in response to a question that is raised by Subhuti in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā sūtra: ‘Is enlightenment] to be attained ‘by the awakening of a previous thought or by the awakening of a succeeding thought?’⁸ This choice between opposing alternative possibilities is based on a false conception of time, such that ‘what we call mind is a succession of thoughts, it can be cut up into so many thoughts and arranged in time-form, i. e. in terms of priority and posteriority.’⁹ Is consciousness a sequence of thoughts, which would imply a time scale, is it a wave-like flow, or is it a series of discrete moments? If a flow, what is the glue that connects the time moments, and how can a single thought of enlightenment, which is one specific moment in time, pervade the whole chain, since each thought would be only one moment in time? In other words: What is the unity in the sequence of time? The Buddha makes an analogy with a flame: ‘The burning takes place not by a preceding

   

Cleary 1987: 7. Suzuki 1953: 77. Suzuki 1953: 271. Ibid.

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

155

flame, not by a succeeding one; yet it is not separated from either. It goes on through the succession of flames. When it is taken by itself, there is no burning…. But in point of fact there is a suchness of burning.’ Similarly, ‘Prajñā escapes all our intellectual efforts to pin it down in the loom of time.’¹⁰ If a consciousness of enlightenment were to appear all of a sudden, it would have to be conditioned, that is, it could not break through the chain of karman or conditionality. Were it conditioned, it could be enlarged and augmented. This would mean that complete and perfect enlightenment could never be attainable. Therefore, there cannot be steps or grades in enlightenment. Enlightenment cannot be the result of something, for this would imply a conditioning in time. This is why for Nāgārjuna, nirvāṇa is never lost nor attained, it is neither temporal nor timeless, neither destroyed nor created, neither oneness nor multiplicity.¹¹ Those differentiations in space and time occur only in consciousness on a certain level, but they are not absolute. In consciousness (Skt. prajñā) there is neither time nor space. So what is real, and what is illusion? Mahāyāna Buddhism, especially the Prajñāpāramitā tradition, likes to use the metaphor of the moon reflected in water. Looking only at the mirrored image, one thinks it is real and wants to grasp it, which is of course impossible. The image appears as many in different pots of water. This multiplicity seems real, but it is only the reflected oneness. The mirrored world of multiplicity has its own reality, comparable to that of the magic fabrications of a sorcerer (Skt. māyā). “A world of appearances is not denied, only its seizability or attainability is denied […]. The veil of Maya is recognized as such by the Bodhisattvas, but those who are still in bondage take it for reality. “¹² On the relative level (Skt. saṁvṛiti), spatio-temporal phenomena are real and valid, and it is useful to consider this and act accordingly. However, one should not cling to these flowing images, because on the absolute level they are empty (Skt. śūnya) of separate reality; they are without substance for it is in mutual dependency that they are what they are. Now one should not make the mistake of understanding emptiness as a standpoint that somehow substantializes this as a “dimension” of reality, the truly real, in distinction to the “world” of plurality, merely pragmatically valid. No, even this “standpoint” needs to be repeatedly overcome. Emptiness is a sempiternal (zeitewig) transcending of itself, a “śūnyataizing” of śūnyatā

 Ibid.  Siderits/Katsura (transl.), Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 25, 5 – 6.  Suzuki 1953: 246.

156

Michael von Brück

(Skt. śūnyatā-śūnyatā), so that the incomprehensible buddha-nature might manifest—as non-nature (see Hakuin’s zazen wasan).¹³ Nāgārjuna’s dialectic attempts to chart this process analytically. No positive ontology is possible here, but only the deconstruction of all constructs which have been built up by an ego craving for substance. Let me put it this way: The two ways of looking at things (Skt. satyadvayavibhāga), difference and oneness, time and no-time, can be compared to a one-way mirror. If you look from the side of the time-space differentiation, the mirror is impenetrable, you see the reflections of multiple forms, everything is divided into subject-object realities. Looking from the other side, however, everything appears in trans-temporal simultaneity and interpenetration of times and spaces. One still sees patterns and forms, but all of them in the medium of a unifying stream. Thus, for Mahāyāna Buddhism, śūnyatā does not mean the negation of time and space or multiplicity in view of some kind of unity opposed to them, but śūnyatā transcends the very duality of time and timelessness, multiplicity and oneness. This view received an existential interpretation in Chinese‒Japanese Chán/ Zen, especially in Dōgen’s Time-being or Being-time (uji, Jap. 有時). Just one aspect should be mentioned: A central notion for Dōgen’s understanding of time is nikon, the “now”, comparable with the “Nun” in German mysticism, especially Master Eckhart. Dōgen clarifies that this is not an eternity beyond time, since his depth of time or widening experience of the “just now” (nikon) is mediated by the continuity of a holistic processing of time events (kyoryaku). Nikon is not a notion that contradicts the fundamental impermanence of all things, for it is not to be taken as some cryptic eternalism, but it designates a quality of each “event” from one moment of Being-time to the next. This quality is characterized by a unity of present, past and future in one focus of awareness. At the same time it establishes “events”, that is to say, difference.

Unity and the Formless Form In Indian traditions (Sāṅkhya, Vedānta etc.) the relationship of body and mind is approached in a variety of ways, and all these models differ from Greek Platonic and Aristotelian world views. In Sāṅkhya – which also had a formative influence on Buddhist thought – all mental states, psychic events, emotions, etc., are part

 von Brück 2016: 85 – 86.

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

157

of the changing world (Skt. prakṛti).¹⁴ Rather than a permanent or independent phenomenal soul, there is only pure awareness (Skt. puruṣa) that is formless and beyond space-time. This can be experienced in meditative states. To interpret puruṣa in our terminology, we might say that it is the structure of the Present in all changing events, or the observation of the time-moment that itself is not a moment in the stream of observed time-events. Tuning in to this pure awareness in non-dualistic thinking, we have a new perspective on the bottom-up causality (body influencing mind) and the reverse top-down causality (mind influencing body). We realize that it is less a question of finding out what “mind” is (over and against matter) than challenging the very concept of matter. In classical physics, matter was understood in terms of mass and movement, and perhaps energy, in the frame of space and time. Today the concept of matter is grounded in an evolving potentiality-space. It appears and disappears. It transcends locality and temporality as understood on the basis of sensory experience. It changes from the implicate to the explicate order, to use physicist David Bohm’s terms.¹⁵ Accordingly, the world is not stable but in continuous flux (which Bohm calls holomovement). It is the brain that constructs the stability we experience in order to give us practical orientation. Whether those changes are continuous or happen in discontinuous “steps” (quantum leaps) is another question. In many Indian philosophical traditions (especially Sāṃkhya) the world is understood as a continuity, and the more subtle realities such as mental states are aspects of the One reality reflecting itself as itself.¹⁶ Humans experience these reflections as awareness and self-awareness. There is one reality (prakṛti) that undergoes continuous transformation, attaining complexities that dissolve time and again. However, as already stated, the stream of consciousness is being observed by a pure observing reality (Skt. puruṣa) that is supposed to be beyond time and change. This could be interpreted as a “second” reality. In Advaita Vedānta, however, there is only One reality that is pure consciousness (Skt. ātman identical with cit). This condenses temporarily, as it were, into a more conditioned matter and expresses itself as the basic categories of time, space and causality. It remains One reality all the time, and thus temporality and change are to be seen as mere illusions (in modified forms of Vedānta,

 Michaels 1998: 291.  Bohm 1980. I have discussed the implications of Bohm’s theory with regard to a non-dualistic model of reality in: Rager/von Brück 2012: 239 f.  This is the principle sat-cit as the expression of identity in the experience of oneness of reality (sat-cid-ānanda, Being-Consciousness-Bliss).

158

Michael von Brück

this non-dualistic idealism can yield to a more realistic philosophy in which the One reality really changes into Many, though still remaining the One reality). The question is whether reality – in developing and destroying creatively new forms and structures and functions – undergoes a process of evolution to ever more complex systems that would have a memory of previous forms, that is to say, whether time matters for the understanding of reality as such. Indian philosophies have different answers to this question. Mind, in any case, can comprehend the problem and experience the difference in its own formations. Memory is the matrix of the identity of a specific mind-stream (consciousness), and it is memory that inducts new data into the frame established by former events. Potentiality-space may be conceived as a relational continuum of possibilities, not in a Platonic sense expressing “ideas” that are already there, but in the sense of the non-dual formation of new orders out of the potentiality for differentiation. This is why, in Buddhist terms, form is formless, or pratītyasamutpāda is śūnyatā. Formation, in this sense, is not an Aristotelian forming of “something”, but an appearance of the formless relational potentiality-space as something that appears momentarily as “this” and “that” and then disappears again. Appearing and disappearing might be understood as perspectives of the observer, but in reality they are one process. The time frame of these processes depends on the degree of subtlety of the observer. Out of the formless there are events which interactively emerge as forms; the forms themselves are “events” perceived as particles, waves, etc. Inherently they have the capacity for relationality that appears in consciousness as self-reflective knowing. In meditative states this feature is even stronger than in normal waking states insofar as non-locality and non-temporal differentiation are experienced (all times are simultaneously present in an endless space, as expressed in Chán/Zen).¹⁷

Unity in Diversity and vice versa: Chán In Chán/Zen the training of the mind in concentration is an experience of unifying consciousness corresponding to the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena as envisaged in Huáyán. This implies that during formal sitting meditation the mind should neither cling to sitting nor to non-sitting, neither to movement nor to quiet, neither to practice nor to non-practice. This is because if liberation, or what Zen calls the reality of buddha-nature, were a concept in opposition to

 Cf. Dōgen Zenji is repeatedly expressing this idea in his Shōbōgenzō.

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

159

the actual predicament of human beings, there would be duality. If, however, the two were identical, there would be the contradiction that evil or suffering or immoral action would be an aspect of buddha-nature. Therefore, what is required is a third option that upholds both non-duality and at the same time the distinction between right and wrong. This is what Zōngmì (780 – 841) had in mind when he criticised the so-called Northern School for their underestimating the breakthrough to an overwhelming experience of awakening in which a new level of consciousness is manifested (jiěwù). It is only on the basis of this type of consciousness that a practice of meditation bare of any egocentricity is possible. Moreover, he criticises the Hóngzhōu school since their interpretation does not distinguish properly between the essence (tǐ) and the function (yòng) of the One consciousness. According to Zōngmì, pure essence and the different functions which are conditioned by changing circumstances are in a relationship that is like that between deep water and the surface of the water that is in turmoil – they are neither identical nor can they be separated. If one were to give up the distinction, however, there would be no basis for any ethics, and mental as well as moral decline would be the unavoidable consequence. This is Zōngmì’s criticism of monism.¹⁸ Here arises the question of how an illusion can emerge at all, if the nature of consciousness is as pure and pristine as Zen maintains. Shénhuì was aware of this problem and answered it through his image of the mirror: the mirror without any reflection of an image represents the spontaneously enlightened consciousness without any thought. An image may appear or not appear, the mirror’s potential for reflection will always be there. Language and notions are possible only on the basis of definitions or the formation of alternatives and limitations. This is why non-duality can be expressed only by silence. However, if this inexpressibility were the only answer, the danger would emerge that the multiplicity and pluriformity of phenomena, the contradictions and time-bound evolutions would be neglected. This is why Shénhuì insists on a return to the concrete moments in time: Here and now is the place where the Absolute is to be realized – in this actual flower, or in this grain of sand. The Absolute Oneness is present in this single and unique event, nowhere else.¹⁹ Chán/Zen expressed this experience poetically and in the form of the Koan in ever new ways, but not in philosophical reasoning. Expressing the Onenessin-Difference philosophically was the forte of the Huáyán tradition, in which Fǎzàng (643 – 712) had a decisive role. His definition of the “sudden” (dùnjiào)

 Cf. Broughton 2004.  Cf. von Brück 2016: 42; cf. Mc Rae 1986.

160

Michael von Brück

in the wǔjiào chapter of his famous treatise Golden Lion is similar to what we have found in Shénhuì. However, contrary to Fǎzàng, Shénhuì does not name a level beyond non-duality to assert again the worldly domain and the ability of the Awakened One to work in the world. For Fǎzàng the “sudden” is just one view in a system of five different perspectives to comprehend the dharma. As already in Shénhuì, the experience of the “sudden” is a non-duality of being and non-being, it is neither form nor emptiness, i. e. it is inexpressible. But in Huáyán, this is a level of knowledge that is surpassed by a higher realization of the “unhindered mutual interpenetration of all phenomena”. According to Fǎzàng, the “suddenness” of awakening in Chán means that the transcendental unity and individual phenomena are not separated, or in other words, duality is not different from the highest goal of unity. The Many are in the One, and the One is in the Many. One does not annihilate the other, but both are united in a higher form of dynamic unity. In Chán this is not mere theory, but the essence of a specific experience of or in consciousness.²⁰

Bibliography Broughton 2004. Jeff Broughton, “Tsung-mi’s Zen Prolegomenon. Introduction to an Exemplary Zen Canon. In: S. Heine, D. S. Wright (Eds.), The Zen Canon”. Understanding the Classic Texts. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press 2004, 11 – 51. Bohm 1980. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge 1980. Cleary 1983. Thomas Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable. An Introduction to Hua-Yen Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1983. Cleary 1987. Id., The Flower Ornament Scripture Vol. III. Boston/London: Shambhala 1987. Gimello 1983. Gimello, Robert M., “Li T’ung-hsüan and the Practical Dimensions of Hua-yen”. In: Gimello, Robert M./Gregory, P.N., Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1983, 341 – 344. Hamilton 1996. Hamilton, S., Identity and Experience. The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism, London 1996. Hart 2010. Hart, W., The Art of Living. Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N.Goenka, Igatpuri/India 2010. Kornfield 1977. Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma. Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters. Boston: Shambhala 1977. Rager/v. Brück 2012. Günter Rager, Michael von Brück, Grundzüge einer modernen Anthropologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2012. McRae 1986. J.R. McRae, The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch’an Buddhism, Honolulu 1986.

 Cleary 1983: 18 – 42; Gimello 1983: 341– 344.

Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

161

Michaels 1998. Axel Michaels, Der Hinduismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart. München: C.H. Beck Verlag 1998. Siderits/Katsura 2013. Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura, Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2013. Suzuki 1953. Daisetz Teitarō Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (3rd series). London/New York: Rider for the Buddhist Society 1953. von Brück 1996. Michael von Brück, “Wo endet Zeit? Erfahrungen zeitloser Gleichzeitigkeit in der Mystik der Weltreligionen”. In: K. Weis (Ed.), Was ist Zeit? Zeit und Verantwortung in Wissenschaft, Technik und Religion. München: Technische Universität München 1994, 207 – 262 von Brück 2000. Id., Weisheit der Leere. Sūtra-Texte des indischen Mahāyāna Buddhismus. München: Kösel 2000. von Brück 2016. Id., Zen. Geschichte und Praxis. München: C.H.Beck 2016.

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity: Does the Concept Lead to an Idea of All-Unity? Since early on, the tenet of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda) has played a central role in Buddhism, laying as it does the doctrinal foundation for a karman-based rebirth without a soul or personal self (ātman). Its customary form of a twelve-membered chain of causes and effects can be already found in the Bodhikathā (Mahāvagga I. 1):¹ Then, in the night, the Exalted One contemplated dependent arising in the forward and reverse order: Dependent on ignorance, volitional formations (saṃskāra) come into being; dependent on volitional formations, cognition. […] Through the cessation of ignorance due to complete passionlessness, the volitional formations cease; through the cessation of volitional forces, cognition ceases; […]

The double-structured formula “dependent on x, y comes into being” and “through the cessation of x, y ceases” includes the twelve members of the causal nexus: (1) ignorance, (2) volitional formations, (3) cognition, (4) mind and matter (i. e., one’s psycho-physical aggregates, or skandhas), (5) sixfold basis of cognition (āyatana), (6) contact, (7) sensation, (8) thirst, (9) grasping, (10) becoming, (11) birth, and (12) old age and death, sorrow and lamentation pain, distress, and despair. This causal nexus originally describes a series of causes and effects over several life-times, and came to be eventually seen as also explaining one’s stream of existence at different stages in one’s present life. This development must be seen against the backdrop of the upcoming doctrine of momentariness, which dissolved the stream of live into momentary factors of existence (dharma).² To be sure, even at this stage dependent arising did not include all causal relationships of the world, but only referred, as Shulman points out, to processes of mental conditioning:

Improvements to my English by Philip H. Pierce (Kathmandu) are gratefully acknowledged.  Quoted from Frauwallner 2010: 32.  Frauwallner 2010: 50 – 51. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-013

164

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

[I]t was an analysis of the self, not of reality, embedded in the Upaniṣadic search for the ātman. The teaching also possessed important ontological implications regarding the nature of the relation between consciousness and reality. These implications suggest that rather than things being conditioned by other things, they are conditioned by consciousness.³

Things changed with the Śālistambhasūtra, where an inner dependent arising (i. e., the old twelve-membered causal nexus explaining rebirth) is distinguished from an external version of it. In both cases, the old formula “dependent on x, y comes into being” remains in place. External dependent arising is then explained with reference to the simile of a rice seedling growing in a causal flow of its seed, sprout, and so forth. Of particular interest is here that any cognitive or intentional element is excluded in the process: It does not occur to the seed, “I cause the sprout to develop.” Nor does it occur to the sprout, “the seed develops me.”⁴

It is rather the five external factors and the factor of season, which are thought to be involved in the process. A comparison with the six factors of internal dependent arising shows that its sixth’s factor, that of consciousness (the first five continue to be earth, water, heat, wind, and space, as they operate in the body) is replaced by the “factor of season”: How should the conditional relation in external dependent arising be seen? As the coming together of six factors. As the coming together of what six factors? It is the coming together of the earth, water, heat, wind, space, and the season factors, which should be seen as the conditional relation in external dependent arising.⁵

This laid the ground for extending the tenet of dependent arising from its original meaning of being the law according to which bondage in, and liberation from, cyclic existence takes place, to the dominating law of the whole phenomenal world.⁶ Of particular interest is a passage further down in the sūtra, which

 Shulman 2007: 297.  ŚSS 35, § 11, l. 7– 9: tatra bījasya naivaṃ bhavati | aham aṅkuram abhinirvartayāmīti | aṅkurasyāpi naivaṃ bhavati | aham bījenābhinirvartita iti (reconstructed from the Tibetan by Reat). First translated by Reat 1993: 35.  ŚSS 36, § 12, l. 1– 5: kathaṃ bāhyasya pratītyasamutpādasya pratyayopanibandho draṣṭavyaḥ | ṣaṇṇāṃ dhātūnāṃ samavāyāt | katameṣāṃ ṣaṇṇāṃ dhātūnāṃ samavāyāt | yad idaṃ pṛthivyaptejovāyvākāśaṛtusamavāyāt | bāhyasya pratītyasamutpādasya pratyayopanibandho draṣṭavyaḥ | (reconstructed from the Tibetan by Reat). First translated by Reat 1993: 36.  Frauwallner 2010: 51.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

165

characterizes dependent arising⁷ as consisting of interdependent causes and conditions, and excludes in a way typical of Madhyamaka, permanence, impermanence, and so forth: Thus this twelve-membered dependent arising, with its interdependent causes and conditions, is neither impermanent nor permanent, neither conditioned nor unconditioned. It is not without causes and conditions; it is not an experiencer, not a destructible thing, not a ceasing thing. It is not cessation [but] proceeds throughout beginningless time; is not cut off [but] continues like a flowing stream.⁸

A similar proto-Madhyamaka element can be found in the description of the causal nexus between the seed and the sprout. After excluding in a way typical of external dependent arising any cognitive or intentional element from the earth factor or the season that might intentionally support the seed, the sūtra states: In the presence of these conditions, when the seed is about to cease, the sprout originates. This sprout is produced neither by itself, nor by another, nor [a combination of] both. It has not been created by the Lord, transformed by time, or brought about by original matter (prakṛti). It is not founded on a single principle, yet it has not arisen without any cause. From the coming together of the earth, water, heat, wind, space and season factors, when the seed is about to cease, the sprout originates.⁹

We have here not only a loosely defined formula, “dependent on x, y comes to be,” but one in combination with an explicit exclusion of production from locally determined causes and conditions. This, therefore, does not negate dependent arising but rather defines it as an open, dynamic process. It is thus reasonable to refer the attributes “interdependent causes and conditions” (anyonyahetuka and anyonyapratyaya) to external dependent arising, too. The implied lack of locally determined causes and conditions is then more clearly formulated in Madhyamaka through the concept of emptiness from an own nature (svabhāva).

 Admittedly only the twelve-membered inner dependent arising, but I do not see any reason why this should not apply to external dependent arising as well.  ŚSS 57, § 30, ll. 1– 5: evam ayaṃ dvādaśāṅgaḥ pratītyasamutpādo ‘nyonyahetuko ‘nyonyapratyayo nāivānityo na nityo na saṃskṛto nāsaṃskṛto nāhetuko nāpratyayo na vedayitā na kṣayadharmo na vināśadharmo na nirodhadharmo ‘nādikālapravṛtto ‘nucchino ‘nupravartate nadī(em., text: nadi)srotavat (reconstructed from the Tibetan by Reat). First translated by Reat 1993: 57.  ŚSS 38, § 14, ll. 5 – 10: satsu pratyayeṣu teṣu bīje nirudhyamāne ‘ṅkurasyābhinirvṛttir bhavati | sa cāyam aṅkuro na svayaṃkṛto na parakṛto nobhayakṛto neśvaranirmito na kālapariṇāmito na prakṛtisaṃbhūto (na caikakāraṇādhī(em., text: dhi)no nāpy ahetusamutpannaḥa | pṛthivyaptejovāyvākāśaṛtudhātusamavāyāt | bīje nirudhyamāne ‘ṅkurasyābhinivṛttir bhavati | (reconstructed from the Tibetan by Reat). First translated by Reat 1993: 38. a See MacDonald 2015, vol. 1, 169 & vol. 2, 95, fn. 204; Reat has āhetusamutpannaḥ.

166

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

Such a development answers positively to the question of an all-encompassing unity, in the sense of a continuity in which the individual components of dependent arising lack clearly demarcated borderlines, both in their spatial and temporal extensions.¹⁰ In his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā’s initial homage to the Buddha, Nāgārjuna (fl. 200 CE) defines dependent arising in a way similar to the above-quoted passage from the Śālistambhasūtra on inner dependent arising, and starts his treatise by negating, similar to the Śālistambhasūtra’s description of the sprout occurring from the seed, what could be associated with arising: I pay homage to him, the best of [all] teachers who, fully awakened, Taught dependent arising as being without cessation and arising; Without annihilation and eternity; without one thing and many things; And without coming and going—[that is,] the pacification of mental fabrication.¹¹ Nowhere are any things found that have arisen From themselves, something else, a combination of both, or without a cause.¹² (MMK I. 1)

As already proposed above, the seeming contradiction between endorsing dependent arising on the one hand, and negating things arising from self, other, and so forth on the other can be resolved by understanding dependent arising as a complex process. This means that it cannot be broken down into locally determined smallest parts possessing an own nature (“without one thing and many things”). An own nature, however, is for Nāgārjuna the criterion for something to exist, as is clear from Mūlamadhyamakakārikā I. 10: Since the existence of entities devoid of an own nature is not found, This [formula] ‘When x exists, y comes to be’ is not appropriate.¹³

To be sure, Nāgārjuna does not negate dependent arising entirely, but only takes issue with its traditional formula ‘When x exists, y comes to be.’ Nāgārjuna shows here an understanding of existence that presupposes an independent ex-

 In the absence of an arising in terms of an own nature, nothing passes out of existence in this mode, either. See MA VI.39 quoted below.  MMK 121–4: anirodham anutpādam anucchedam aśāśvatam | anekārtham anānārtham anāgamam anirgamam | yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaṃ prapañcopaśamaṃ śivam | deśayāmāsa saṃbuddhas taṃ vande vadatāṃ varam|.  MMK 1213–14: na svato nāpi parato na dvābhyāṃ nāpy ahetutaḥ | utpannā jātu vidyante bhāvāḥ kvacana kecana ||.  MMK 181–2: bhāvānāṃ niḥsvabhāvānāṃ na sattā vidyate yataḥ | satīdam asmin bhavatīti etan naivopapadyate ||.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

167

istence (svabhāva). This, however, does not work, because in his system something independently existing cannot have any causal relation to anything: if the building blocks of the universe consisted of completely isolated, independent entities, there could be no interaction at all. Such an understanding follows from the following three verses from the chapter on the Four Truths for the Noble Ones (MMK XXIV. 16 – 18): If you see the true existence of things as coming From a [supposed] own nature (svabhāva), Then, in that case, you see things as being Without either causes or conditions.¹⁴ You exclude result, Cause, agent, making, action, Arising, passing Out of existence, and fruit.¹⁵ (MMK XXIV. 16 – 17)

For Nāgārjuna, in other words, things with an own nature cannot partake in the process of dependent arising. Since there is no such thing that is not empty of an own nature, the entire world is subject to both dependent arising and emptiness. Nāgārjuna thus states in his next verse, which is the most crucial for his Madhyamaka: That which is dependent arising— That we call emptiness. The latter is dependent designation. This is the right middle path.¹⁶ (MMK XXIV. 18)

To sum up these three verses, dependent arising presupposes the emptiness of all involved components. It is for this reason that Nāgārjuna equates dependent arising with emptiness. When the verse returns from emptiness to dependent arising’s designative aspect, a cognitive element of labelling and conceptualizing is emphasized. To what extent this includes mental influences on that facet of

 MMK 42413–14: svabhāvād yadi bhāvānāṃ sadbhāvam anupaśyasi | ahetupratyayān bhāvāṃs tvam evaṃ sati paśyasi ||.  MMK 42419–20: kāryaṃ ca kāraṇaṃ caiva kartāraṃ karaṇaṃ kriyām | utpādaṃ ca nirodhaṃ ca phalaṃ ca pratibādhase ||.  MMK 4261–2 (XXIV. 18): yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyatāṃ tāṃ pracakṣmahe | sā prajñaptir upādāya pratipat saiva madhyamā ||. My translation follows MacDonald (oral communication).

168

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

dependent arising that is called external in the Śālistambhasūtra is another question. In his commentary on the first two lines, Candrakīrti (ca. 600 – ca. 650 CE) endorses what we have already observed at the beginning of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: arising from self, other, and so forth is ruled out, without completely negating dependent arising. The non-arising from a self, other, and so forth corresponds here to non-arising in terms of an own nature: What arises in dependence—the manifestation of a sprout, consciousness, and so forth in dependence on causes and conditions—does not arise in terms of its own nature. Emptiness is the non-arising of things in terms of an own nature.¹⁷

To include the manifesting sprout as an example for something dependently arising shows that for Candrakīrti the external dependent arising of the Śālistambhasūtra is covered by the formula in MMK XXIV. 18. While the external dependent arising of the sūtra does not include cognitive elements, such elements are presupposed by including dependent designation in MMK XXIV 18c. In his Prasannapadā, Candrakīrti elaborates: [In MMK XXIV.18c] it is stated that precisely this emptiness is dependent designation. A chariot is designated [as such] in dependence on the parts of a chariot such as wheels. For it, a designation in dependence on its own parts, [can]not be an arising in terms of an own nature. Non-arising in terms of own nature, in turn, is emptiness.¹⁸

It goes without saying that there are no irreducible parts of a chariot, neither material nor mental, that form a basis for designation. That would be an Abhidharma or Yogācāra position (see below). Walser (2008:234) argues that Nāgārjuna adopted the Prajñaptivādins’ (i. e., the nominalists’) stance that all conditioned dharmas are reciprocally designated (anyonya prajñapti). Many of Nāgārjuna’s arguments thus aim to expose the phenomena they investigate as designations

 PP 50312–13: yo ’yaṃ pratītyasamutpādo hetupratyayā[na]apekṣyāṅkuravijñānādīnāṃ prādurbhāvaḥ sa svabhāvenānutpādaḥ | yaś ca svabhāvenānutpādo bhāvānāṃ sā śūnyatā ||. a La Vallée Poussin does not explain his usage of square brackets. In any case, the context here requires deleting its content. This is clear from the first line of the quotation that Candrakīrti adduces as support (PP 5041: “That which arises through conditions has not arisen.” (yaḥ pratyayair jāyati sa hy ajāto)).  PP 5048–10: yā ceyaṃ svabhāvaśūnyatā sā prajñaptir upādāya | saiva śūnyatā upādāya prajñaptir iti vyavasthāpyate | cakrādīny upādāya rathāṅgāni rathaḥ prajñapyate | tasya yā svāṅgāny upādāya prajñapti sā svabhāvenānutpattiḥ, yā ca svabhāve[n]aānutpattiḥ sā śūnyatā ||. a Here the content of the square brackets is needed.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

169

(prajñaptis) without any substantial basis whatsoever. This principle, which provides the structure of argument throughout the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, can be best seen in Nāgārjuna’s analysis of elements, where even space is composite, because it cannot be conceived apart from the reciprocal designation of characteristic (lakṣaṇa) and the characterized (lakṣya).¹⁹ Walser (2008: 240 – 41) further observes that “[t]he fact that Nāgārjuna founds his apparent paradoxes on these kind of reciprocal relations is tacitly recognized by Candrakīrti. In a brief comment on verse 8 of chapter 6 (‘Investigation of Passion and the Impassioned’), Candrakīrti states that one of the reasons that the opponent has difficulty establishing either the simultaneity or priority of rāga (“passion”) and rakta (“the impassioned one”) is that they have each other as a basis (itaretarāśraya).” Still, it could be argued that the Mādhyamikas, and especially Nāgārjuna, did not fully endorse a Prajñaptivāda position. The other question is what it means to be a mere designation. Does it mean that one burns one’s mouth when saying ‘fire’? For Nāgārjuna this does not make sense (see below). Dependent arising in the form of dependent designation could also be compared to the role an observer has in quantum measurements. Depending on whether one asks, through the choice of the means of measurement, the same incoming stream of photons a particle or a wave question, one gets particles or waves accordingly. If this is not mere fiction, there must be some sort of underlying causal nexus that is responsible for a particle or wave behavior. Similarly, through a particular set of designations shared by a large group of sentient beings, a particular world emerges that functions as such on the basis of an underlying process of dependent arising that is not only a mental construct. What I thus propose is that Nāgārjuna may have accepted mind and matter conventionally, sharing a relational or complementary character. Given their dependent arising and emptiness, one does not need to subscribe to a substance dualism, though. Mind and matter thus are neither reducible to each other nor completely separate categories. Assuming such a continuity, dependent arising would indeed invite the notion of all-unity. Ratnākaraśānti (ca. 970 – 1045)²⁰ is well known for having interpreted Nāgārjuna along the lines of Yogācāra. Of particular interest here is the explanation of MMK XXIV.18 is his Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti/Madhyamapratipadāsiddhi. ²¹ The model of reality in place is now based on a distinction between a substantially existent (dravyasat) dependent nature and an only nominally existing  See Walser 2008: 239 – 40.  According to the unpublished PhD thesis (“Defining Wisdom: Ratnākaraśānti’s Sāratamā”) of Gregory Seton.  For this text, see Seyfort Ruegg 1981: 122 f.

170

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

(prajñaptisat) imagined nature.²² A third nature, the so-called perfect nature is defined as the dependent nature empty of the imagined nature, and includes, besides an unchangeable perfect, an aspect of it that is ‘perfect in terms of being unmistaken’ (aviparyāsapariniṣpattyā pariniṣpanna) with regard to the object to be known,²³ the luminous nature of mind that becomes aware of its own true nature once the dependent nature no longer functions as false imagining (abhūtaparikalpa). Ratnākaraśānti reads the Yogācāra model of three natures into MMK XXIV. 18 by equating dependent arising with the dependent nature and emptiness with the absence of imagined nature. Together with its existing remainder, the dependent in the form of false imagining, Yogācāra emptiness still has the capacity to designate, and make the dependent nature appear as skandhas:²⁴ Nāgārjuna taught [MMK XXIV.18]: “That which is dependent arising—that we call emptiness. The latter is dependent designation. This is the right middle path.” That which is dependent arising, i. e., the dependent nature—in it the imagined nature does not exist. How should there then be a misplaced denial of dependent arising? Dependent designation, too, is dependent arising. When false imagining (abhūtaparikalpa) exists, the skandhas of appropriation and so forth are designated/imputed by it. This is the idea. [The verse] “That which is dependent arising … this is the right middle path” is meant in this way. Nothing that is of an imagined nature exists, but what has a dependent nature is not non-existent. Therefore, this [system] is called the middle path. It is because of these appearances of non-existent duality that false imagining exists; and given its existence it

 This distinction has developed from the Abhidharma theory, which distinguishes the mere nominal existence of their relative truth from substantially existing factors of existence (dharmas). These dharmas are not further reducible and possess a svabhāva, notwithstanding their conditioned and momentary nature. The reason for this is that they are thought of as not depending on parts for their existence (see Burton 1999: 90). While any such substantial existence is negated in the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras teaching of emptiness, the Yogācāras managed to reconcile the Abhidharma ontology with the Madhyamaka interpretation of the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras by restricting emptiness to the imagined nature (parikalpitasvabhāva) and retaining a purely mental dependent nature that is real. In functioning as false imagining (abhūtaparikalpa), the dependent nature causes the imagined nature (see Rospatt 1995: 69 ff).  See MAVBh 4120–421: “How can the unconditioned and the conditioned both be called perfect nature? Both are [accepted] because they are perfect in terms of being unmistaken and unchangeable. (MAV III.11cd). The unconditioned is perfect in terms of being unchangeable, and the conditioned, which includes the truth of the path, [is perfect] in terms of being unmistaken. This is, again, because [the latter] is unmistaken with regard to the object to be known.” (katham asaṃkṛtaṃ ca saṃskṛtaṃ ca pariniṣpannaḥ svabhāva ucyate | nirvikārāviparyāsapariniṣpattito dvayaṃ || (MAV III.11cd) asaṃskṛtam avikārapariniṣpattyā pariniṣpannaṃ | saṃskṛtam mārgasatyasaṃgṛhītam aviparyāsapariniṣpattyā punar jñeyavastuny aviparyāsāt |).  Thus Ratnākaraśānti does not simply equate dependent designation with false imagining, as Moriyama (2013: 53) claims.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

171

also exists in that which is empty of duality (i. e., the perfect nature).²⁵ This establishes the three nature theory. It is [thus] settled that the imagined nature does not exist, whereas the dependent is not non-existent. And this is the middle path. Because some do not accept the existence of false imagining, we must reply that everything would then be a falsity.²⁶

In other words, the process underlying the manifestation of false duality must be real in this system. The Madhyāntavibhāga, which was one of Ratnākaraśānti’s main sources, also describes the entire process of dependent arising—in other words, the dependent nature²⁷—as false imagining.²⁸ This includes the “entire external world,” which we usually perceive as reality. Everything thus is but a product of false imagining. While the result is unreal (the imagined nature), the underlying process from which the imagined world emerges (the dependent nature) is real.²⁹ In his commentary on the Dharmadharmatāvibhāga’s definition

 This is clear from Madhyāntavibhāga I.5. See Mathes 2000: 208.  MAVṛ/MPS 104b4–105a2: ‘dir slob dpon klu sgrub kyis lan btab ste | gang zhig rten cing ‘brel bar ‘byung || de ni stong pa nyid du bshad || de ni rgyur bcas brtags pa ste || de ni dbu ma’i lam yin no || (MMK 24.18) gang zhig gzhan gyi dbang gi ngo bo nyid rten cing ‘brel par ‘byung ba yin la | de nyid la kun tu btags (em., text: brtags) pa’i ngo bo med pa’i phyir ji ltar rten cing ‘brel bar ‘byung ba la skur ba btab par ‘gyur | nye bar len pa btags pa de nyid kyang rten cing ‘brel par ’byung ba yin te | yang dag pa ma yin pa’i kun tu rtog pa yod na | des nye bar len pa’i phung po la sogs pa rnams ‘dogs pa’i phyir ro zhes dgongs pa yin no || gang zhig rten cing ‘brel bar ‘byung || de nyid dbu ma’i lam yin no || zhes bya ba ni ‘di ltar dgongs pa yin te | kun tu btags (em., text: brtags) pa’i bdag nyid thams cad med la | gzhan gyi dbang gi bdag nyid ni med pa ma yin te | de’i phyir dbu ma’i lam zhes bya’o || de lta bas na gang gi phyir gnyis po med par snang ba de nyid kyi phyir yang dag pa ma yin pa’i kun tu rtog pa ni yod do || gang gi phyir de yod pa nyid kyi phyir gnyis kyis stong pa de la yod de ‘di ni chos gsum gyi rang bzhin du grub par gyur pa yin no || kun tu btags (em., text: brtags) pa’i rang bzhin de ni yod pa ma yin gyi | gzhan dag ni med pa ma yin pa ‘di ni dbu ma’i lam yin no zhes nges par ‘grub pa yin no || yang gang zhig yang dag pa yin pa’i kun tu rtog pa yang yod par mi bzhed pa’i phyir thams cad brdzun pa yin zhes smra ba de la lan gdabs par bya ste […].  For this equation, see Sandhinirmocanasūtra VI.5 (SNS 6025–27).  In MAVBh I.5, false imagining is related to the dependent nature. (MAVBh 1919–20: abhūtaparikalpaḥ paratantraḥ svabhāvaḥ). In his subcommentary, Sthiramati explains: “‘False imagining is the dependent nature’ means that [false imagining] is other-dependent (paratantraḥ, otherwise translated as dependent), inasmuch as it is ruled (tantryate) or produced by other (parair) causes and conditions, and hence does not exist in its own right.” (MAVṬ 235–7: abhūtaparikalpaḥ paratantraḥ svabhāva iti | parair hetupratyayais tantryate janyate na tu svayaṃ bhavatīti paratantraḥ).  MAVṬ 1323–25: “The past, future and present mind and mental factors, which are cause and result, which belong to (i.e., constitute) the beginningless threefold world, which end in nirvāṇa, and which conform with saṃsāra, are precisely false imagination.” (atītānāgatavartamanā hetuphalabhūtās traidhātukā anādikālikā nirvāṇaparyavasānāḥ [saṃsārānurūpāś cittacaittā aviśeṣenābhūtaparikalpaḥ] a). a Reconstructed by Yamaguchi.

172

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

of phenonema, Vasubandhu too explains false imagining a dependent designation: False imagining consists of dualistic appearances […] and that which appears, based on that, in accordance with expressions. [These appearances] serve as a basis³⁰ for the designation of an own nature and particular features (*svabhāvaviśeṣaprajñapti).³¹

In the eyes of Ratnākaraśānti, the move from dependent arising to emptiness and back to dependent designation does not mean that everything exists only nominally (prajñaptisat). Since emptiness only negates the imagined nature in this system, a substantially existing (dravyasat) dependent nature remains in place. Being enriched with mental imprints, it functions as false imagining. It causes within itself the manifestation of the imagined nature.³² In other words, external objects, be they seeds or sprouts, are completely unreal, whence the question of the causal relation between them is simply devoid of any sense. What really arises in dependence is the mental imprints that cause the wrong projections of seeds and sprouts. In his Madhyamakāvatāra, Candrakīrti takes issue with Yogācāra refuting both the three nature theory and the straightforward statement in the Sandhinirmocanasūtra that this theory has definitive meaning. He criticizes, in particular, the Yogācāra distinction between nominal and substantial existence in terms of imagined and dependent natures. This comes out most clearly in Candrakīrti’s auto-commentary on verse VI. 36 of the Madhyamakāvatāra: Therefore, even as it is [usually] not maintained that particulars do not arise on either level of truth, this is what must be postulated beyond any doubt. Some think that the [argument] that there is no [arising] from self, and so forth, as put forward by the master Nāgārjuna, refutes only the imagined nature, but not the dependent nature. Their (i. e., such a) position is not established either, in the absence of proof.³³

 The ngo bo (Skt. *-rūpa) in rten gyi ngo bo indicates a predicative usage (“having the form of…”).  DhDhVV 62– 64: … gnyis su snang ba gang yin pa dang | de la brten pa ji ltar mngon par brjod par snang ba gang yin pa ste | ngo bo nyid dang khyad par du gdags pa’i rten gyi ngo bo de ni yang dag pa ma yin pa’i kun tu rtog pa’o |. For an annotated German translation, see Mathes 1996: 118.  MAVṬ 1317–18: “False imagining is that, in which or by which false duality is imagined.” (abhūtam asmin dvayaṃ parikalpyate ‘nena vety abhūtaparikalpaḥ).  MABh 1231–8: de’i phyir rang gi mtshan nyid kyi skye ba ni bden pa gnyis char du yang yod pa ma yin no zhes mi ‘dod pa bzhin du yang gdon mi za bar khas blang bar bya’o || gang dag bdag las ma yin zhes bya ba la sogs pas ni slob dpon klu sgrub kyi zhal snga nas kyis brtags pa’i ngo bo nyid kho na bkag pa yin gyi | gzhan gyi ngo bo ni ma yin no snyam du sems pa de dag gi ‘dod pa ‘di yang gtan tshigs med par mi ‘grub pas |.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

173

Since nothing arises in terms of an own nature, there can be no passing out of existence in terms of an own nature either. Following this line of thought, Candrakīrti explains that the future result of deeds can be asserted even without the Yogācāra school’s notion of a dependent nature or ground consciousness: Since there is no passing out of existence in terms of an own nature, one should know that the fruit [of a deed] will arise at some time, even if the termination of the deed [sometimes] lies a long time back. Because of its (i. e., the deed’s) power, [this works] even without a ground [consciousness].³⁴ (MA VI. 39)

How Candrakīrti views the three natures is best ascertained from the conclusion to his refutation of arising from other in his auto commentary on verse VI.97 of the Madhyamakāvatāra: A snake, for example, is imagined on [the basis of] a dependently arisen coiled rope, for there is no [snake] in it, while the perfect [is found] in what the snake actually is (i. e., the rope), inasmuch as it is not imagined. Likewise an own nature is imagined on [the basis of] what is dependent, i. e., created. An own nature, however, is not created, for it is said [in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, verse lines XV. 2cd]: An own nature is not artificial; it does not depend on something else. What is imagined on [the basis of] something created—[something] like a perceived dependently arising reflection—that is [only] real insofar as it is the experiential object of a Buddha, because [then] it is not imagined. A Buddha is so named because he awakens to the [true nature of entities] alone, inasmuch as he directly actualizes, without touching created entities, [their] own nature only.³⁵ A correct understanding of the presentation of the three natures called the imagined, dependent, and perfect having thus been facilitated, the intention of the [related] discourses must be explained. Since neither the perceived object nor the perceiving subject exists as something different from the dependent, the fact that these two (i. e., the perceived and the perceiver) are imagined must be taken in terms of [their being] the dependent³⁶ [nature].³⁷

 MA 725–28 (verse VI. 39) : yasmāt svarūpeṇa na tan niruddhaṃ ciraṃ niruddhād api karmaṇo ‘taḥ | kvacid vinaivālayam asya śakteḥ phalaṃ samutpadyata ity avaihi ||.  The emendation of ma rig par to ma reg par is based on the Sanskrit original of this sentence, which Anne MacDonald kindly provided me from her forthcoming edition: kr̥takapadārthāsaṃsparśena kevalasya svabhāvasya sākṣātkāraṇāt tasyaiva buddhatvād buddha ity ucyate |. La Vallée Poussin’s (1911: 255) reconstruction avidyāsvabhāva thus is not tenable anymore.  Translated on the basis of the Sanskrit provided by Anne MacDonald: paratantre a tayoḥ parikalpitatvaṃ cintyam (em., text: centyam). a (Later?) corrected to paratantra, but the reading paratantre is supported by the Tibetan.  MABh 2017 – 2024: dper na sbrul ni thag pa bsdogs pa rten cing ‘brel bar ‘byung ba la brtags pa yin te | de de la yod pa ma yin pa’i phyir ro | de sbrul dngos la ni yongs su grub pa yin te | de kun tu

174

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

In other words, both, the perceived object and the perceiving subject, are imagined and dependent at the same time.³⁸ To sum up, Candrakīrti mainly takes issue with the traditional Yogācāra ontology of distinguishing nominal and substantial existence by ascribing the dependent nature the status of a real, yet mental, substratum. The dependent nature contains, as a carrier of karman, mental imprints or seeds responsible for the projection of the perceived object (grāhya) and the perceiving subject (grāhaka), both of which have nominal existence (prajñaptisat) only. For Candrakīrti everything has nominal existence (prajñaptisat) only. Candrakīrti’s reduction of Yogācāra’s dependent nature to a dependent designation,³⁹ which allows for nominal existence only, raises the question whether Mādhyamikas were really that radical. In his Lokātītastava, verse 7ab, Nāgārjuna thus admits something more real than mere nominal existence: If a name and its object were not different, One’s mouth would be burned by [the word] fire.⁴⁰

The question whether there is some ‘physical reality’ behind the factors of existence, finds an interesting answer in the Samādhirājasūtra, which is considered authoritative in Madhyamaka philosophy. In it, ordinary factors of existence

ma brtags pa’i phyir ro | de bzhin du rang bzhin yang gzhan gyi dbang byas pa can la ni kun tu brtags pa yin te | rang bzhin dag ni bcos min dang || gzhan la bltos pa med pa yin || zhes byung bas ngo bo nyid ni byas pa can ma yin no || bzung bzhin pa’i rten cing ‘brel par ‘byung ba byas pa can gzugs brnyan dang ‘dra ba la brtags pa gang yin pa de ni sangs rgyas kyi spyod yul la ni dngos yin te | kun tu ma rtags pa’i phyir te | dngos po byas pa can la ma reg (em., text: rig) par rang bzhin ‘ba’ zhig mngon sum du mdzad pas de nyid thugs su chud pa’i phyir sangs rgyas zhes (em., text: shes) brjod do || de’i phyir de ltar brtags pa dang gzhan gyi dbang dang yongs su grub pa zhes bya ba ngo bo nyid gsum rnam par bzhag pa rtogs par byas nas mdo’i dgongs pa rnam par bshad par bya’o || gzung ba dang ‘dzin pa gnyis ni gzhan gyi dbang las ma gtogs par dngos po med pa’i phyir na | gzhan gyi dbang la de gnyis kun tu brtags pa nyid bsam par bya ste |.  It is interesting that in some passages of Vasubandhu’s (or Daṃṣṭrāsena’s?) Śatasāhasrikāpañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitābṛhaṭṭīkā (which takes the perfect to be empty of both the imagined and dependent) all phenomena are categorized as belonging to either the imagined or perfect natures, the dependent nature being subsumed under the imagined nature (Brunnhölzl 2011: 34). In a similar vein, the Bhagavatyāmnāyānusāriṇīnāmavyākhyā takes both the imagined and dependent natures to be nonexistent (ibid., 59) and repeatedly includes dependent phenomena under imagined ones (ibid., 66). In his gZhan stong snying po, Tāranātha reaches a similar conclusion (see Mathes 2000: 219 – 20).  See Salvini 2015: 48 – 49.  LS 7ab (LS 13010): saṃjñārthayor ananyatve mukhaṃ dahyeta vahninā |.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

175

(dharmas) are said to be buddha qualities (buddha-dharmas) for those who are trained in the “true nature of dharmas” (dharmatā).⁴¹ The question thus arises whether the above-mentioned reduction of the dependent nature to the imagined also includes mere luminosity, i. e., the real part of the dependent that partakes of the perfect nature. At least there seems to be not merely blank nothingness at the time of perceiving the ultimate for Candrakīrti. Hence, Buddhas still abide, in the eyes of Candrakīrti, in objectless wisdom. MacDonald (2009: 165) thus writes: [I]t is probably not inappropriate to state that for the Mādhyamika as yogin the final goal, and the final state, is not nothingness, but transcendence. Although he is more often occupied with and thus associated with rigorously arguing an uncompromising denial of the world, it is in passages such as the ones examined here⁴² that we encounter Candrakīrti, as he moves on from this to allude to the outcome and purpose of that denial, as a conveyer of spiritual, mystical experience.

Other strands of Mahāyāna Buddhism, such as the Tathāgatagarbhasūtras and the main Indian commentary on them, the Ratnagotravibhāga (RGV), raise the question whether a positively described ultimate is subject to dependent arising and whether it still makes sense to attribute to it the label of “all-unity.” A case in point is the way buddhahood is understood in RGV I.4: Homage to you who opened up to buddhahood, which is without beginning, middle, or end, and is peaceful, And who, after awakening, taught the fearless, eternal path for the sake of the awakening of those who are not yet awake; To you, who holds the supreme sword and vajra of wisdom and love, cuts the tumour of

 See Samādhirājasūtra XXXII.8ab (SRS 19524), where phenomena (dharmas) are in reality buddha qualities (buddha-dharmas): “All dharmas are buddha-dharmas [for those] who are trained in dharmatā.” (sarvadharmā buddhadharmā dharmatāyāṃ ya śikṣitāḥ). Note that ya is used for ye etc. for metrical reasons.  PP 53314–17 (on MMK XXV.16): “Since consciousness has characteristic signs as support and in nirvāṇa there is no characteristic sign whatsoever, therefore it (i. e., nirvāṇa) is indeed not to be apprehended by consciousness. Why is that? Because wisdom must have emptiness as support. It has only the nature (lit. ‘form’) of non-arising. How then does one grasp through this [wisdom], an own nature of which does not exist, that nirvāṇa is neither an existent nor a non-existent? It is [possible] because of wisdom’s nature, which transcends all mental fabrication.” (yasmān nimittālambanaṃ vijñānaṃ na ca nirvāṇe kiṃ cin nimittam asti | tasmān na tat tāvād vijñānenālambyate | jñānenāpi na jñāyate | kiṃ kāraṇaṃ yasmāj jñānena hi śūnyatālambanena bhavitavyaṃ | tac cānutpādarūpam eveti | kathaṃ tenāvidyamānasvarūpeṇa naivābhāvo naiva bhāvo nirvāṇam iti gṛhyate sarvaprapañcātītarūpatvāj jñānasyeti |).

176

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

suffering into pieces, And destroys the rampant of doubts enclosed by a thicket of various views.⁴³

This original opening verse in the śārdūlavikrīḍita meter is further elaborated in commentary verses (in the more simple anuṣṭubh meter), which were probably added later.⁴⁴ Of particular interest are RGV I. 6 – 7b: Buddhahood is not conditioned, Is effortlessly [active], is not realized through the help of others, And endowed with wisdom, compassion, power. It has two benefits.⁴⁵ Given its nature of being without beginning, Middle, or end, it is unconditioned.⁴⁶

To be sure, buddhahood is here not viewed as being produced by the common process of accumulating merit and wisdom. It is rather that the historical Buddha with the worldly name Siddhārtha opened up, or rather discovered, a buddhahood within himself, which is without beginning, middle or end. The Ratnagotravibhāga is here fully in line with the Tathāgatagarbhasūtras, in the sense that all sentient beings are endowed with a buddha-nature that is inseparably endowed with innumerable buddha qualities, and thus already a complete, fully awakened Buddha. Sentient beings only differ from an actual Buddha in that they have not yet purified from themselves their adventitious stains of saṃsāra. Such a full equation of buddha-nature and with a Buddha’s dharmakāya is most clearly pronounced in the Śrīmālādevīsūtra: Illustrious One, the cessation of suffering is not the destruction of phenomena. It is on the basis of what is called ‘cessation of suffering’ that the dharmakāya of the Tathāgata is taught. It is without beginning in time, not fabricated, unborn, not arisen, without end, [by nature] indestructible, permanent, stable, calm, eternal, by nature pure, freed from the sheath of all defilements, and endowed with inseparable and inconceivable buddha qualities, which surpass in number the grains of sand of the river Gaṅgā. Illustrious

 RGVV 79–12: yo buddhatvam anādimadhyanidhanaṃ śāntaṃ vibuddhaḥ svayaṃ buddhvā cābudhabodhanārtham abhayaṃ mārgaṃ dideśa dhruvam | tasmai jñānakṛpāsivajravaradhṛgduḥkhāṅkuraikacchide nānādṛggahanopagūḍhavimatiprākārabhettre namaḥ ||.  Different layers of texts in the Ratnagotravibhāga display a complex history of composition. See Takasaki 1966: 10 – 19 and Schmithausen 1971: 123 – 30.  RGVV 714–15: asaṃskṛtam anābhogam aparapratyayoditam | buddhatvaṃ jñānakāruṇyaśaktyupetaṃ dvayārthavat ||.  RGVV 81: anādimadhyanidhanaprakṛtiatvād asaṃskṛtam |. a Johnston –ta-. See B 5a4

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

177

One, precisely this, the dharmakāya of the Tathāgata, is called buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) when the sheath of defilements has not [yet] been separated [from it].⁴⁷

But does such an unconditioned buddha-nature still partake in dependent arising? Surely not of the twelve-membered chain starting with ignorance, which is subsumed under the separable adventitious stains that only cover up buddhanature without belonging to it. But how about the external dependent arising of the Śālistambhasūtra, which represents a causal nexus that is not triggered by ignorance or thirst? We could allude here again to the dharmas of the Samādhirājasūtra, which are buddha qualities (buddhadharma) when one is trained to realize the true nature of dharmas. In this case buddha-nature would consist of buddha qualities that constitute, just as dharmas, complex, dynamic systems, whose individual components lack independent existence. Buddha-nature, and buddhahood for that matter, would be without beginning, middle, or end, in the sense of being a never-ending continuous dynamic principle. In an interlinear note on verse 28 in Sajjana’s⁴⁸ Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa, it is claimed: The luminous mind (prabhāsvaraṃ cittaṃ)⁴⁹ is not conditioned. This is because [in the luminous mind] there is nothing to be done through cause and conditions coming together, based on the fact that the origination of the [luminous] mind in the succeeding moment depends on [the mind] that was generated by its (the mind’s) own kind (sajāti) in the previous moment.⁵⁰

Sajjana, or a later scribe, thus exempts luminous mind from the rule that only something conditioned is momentary. This calls to mind the Śālistambhasūtra’s

 The Sanskrit of the Śrīmālādevisūtra is quoted in RGVV 1210–14: na khalu bhagavan dharmavināśo duḥkhanirodhaḥ | duḥkhanirodhanāmnā bhagavann anādikāliko ‘kṛto ‘jāto ‘nutpanno ‘kṣayaḥ kṣayāpagataḥ nityo dhruvaḥ śivaḥ śāśvataḥ prakṛtipariśuddhaḥ sarvakleśakośavinirmukto gaṅgāvalikāvyativṛttair avinirbhāgair acintyair buddhadharmaiḥ samanvāgatas tathāgatadharmakāyo deśitaḥ ayam eva ca bhagavaṃs tathāgatadharmakāyo ‘vinirmuktakleśakośas tathāgatagarbha ity ucyatea |. a Johnston –bhaḥ sūcyate; see Schmithausen 1971: 137.  A Kashmiri paṇḍita from the 11th century, who figures prominently in the transmission of the Maitreya texts in India and thus indirectly influenced later bKa’ brgyud masters.  See RGV I.63, where buddha-nature is explained in terms of the unchanging luminosity of mind: RGVV 439–12: “This luminous nature of mind, like space, never undergoes change. It bears afflictions through adventitious stains, such as attachment, which have arisen from false imagining.” (cittasya yāsau prakṛtiḥ prabhāsvarā na jātu sā dyaur iva yāti vikriyām | āgantukai rāgamalādibhis tv asav upaiti saṃkleśam abhūtaparikalpajaiḥ ||).  See Kano 2016: 227.

178

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

opinion that outer dependent arising is neither unconditioned nor conditioned, or Nāgārjuna endorsing dependent arising while negating arising from self and so forth. Similarly, the Tibetan bKa’ gdams pa and bKa’ brgyud master ‘Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal (1392– 1481) explains that ‘unconditioned’ means not to be artificially (Tib. ‘phral du) conditioned by adventitious causes and conditions. For him such an ‘unconditioned,’ yet momentary luminosity or buddha-nature remains as long as space exists.⁵¹ Another school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Jo nang pa, maintains a clear-cut distinction between dependent arising and an ultimate transcendent truth, which does not belong to space and time. The ultimate truth of buddhahood or buddha-nature, therefore, is not subject to dependent arising. In his Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho, Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292– 1361) thus maintains that the ultimate Buddha (i. e., non-dual wisdom) is free from momentariness,⁵² while his heart disciple Sa bzang Mati paṇ chen (1294– 1376) goes one step further and claims, on the basis of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, that unconditioned means not being subject to the three times.⁵³ For Dol po pa, everything, including the kāyas of a Buddha have an ultimate aspect that does not belong to time, and thus not dependent arising: That the permanent Buddha and the liberation of the Buddha are form, that even space is the form of the Buddha, and so forth—the meaning of such statements must be understood

 See Mathes 2008: 333.  Dol po pa: Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho 14217–19: “Even though [the verse RGV I.5a]: ‘[Buddhahood] is unconditioned and without effort [in its activity]’ and other [passages] teach that the ultimate Buddha is not conditioned, the underlying purport is that he is free from moments.” (‘dus ma byas shing lhun gyis grub | ces pa la sogs pas mthar thug gi sangs rgyas ‘dus ma byas su gsungs pa yang skad cig dang bral ba la dgongs pa yin no |).  Sa bzang Ma ti paṇ chen: “Nges don rab gsal” 552–3: “Buddhahood is unconditioned since in the beginning, middle, and end it has the nature of being free from conditioned phenonema, which arise, abide, and pass out of existence; as has been said in the [Mahā]parinirvāṇa [mahā]sūtra: ‘A phenomenon that abides in permanence does not belong to the three times. Likewise, the Tathāgata does not belong to the three times either, and is therefore permanent.’” (sangs rgyas nyid thog ma dang dbus dang mtha’ mar ‘dus byas kyi chos skye ba dang gnas pa dang ‘jig pa rnams med pa’i rang bzhin can yin pa’i phyir ‘dus ma byas pa ste | mya ngan las ‘das pa’i mdo las | rtag tu gnas pa’i chos ni dus gsum la (em., text: las) ma gtogs te | de bzhin gshegs pa yang de dang ‘dra bar dus gsum la ma gtogs pa de bas na rtag pa’o zhes gsungs pa ltar ro). My thanks to Dr. Hiromi Habata, University of Munich, for locating the quotation from the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra. It is from the 22nd fascicle of the Tibetan translation of Dharmakṣema’s Chinese translation (Peking bKa’ ‘gyur no. 787, vol. nyu, 10a1–2) and thus not part of the Tibetan translation from the Sanskrit and Fǎxiǎn’s Chinese translation, both of which cover the first ten fascicles only (see Habata 2007: xl).

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

179

in the context of forms etc. being explained [on the level] of suchness or as forms etc. beyond the three times and the threefold world.⁵⁴

Such a strict distinction between a transcendent ultimate and dependent arising led the Jo nang pas to restrict the perfect nature to its unchanging aspect. There being no room for the perfect nature of being unmistaken in an atemporal ultimate, it was subsumed as ‘pure dependent’ (dag pa gzhan dbang) under dependent nature.

Conclusion Departing from its original meaning of explaining the causal nexus underlying rebirth, the tenet of dependent arising led in mainstream Mahāyāna to the idea of all-unity. It could be shown that this was already the case in the proto-Madhyamaka Śālistambhasūtra, which included the entire world by adding an external dependent arising. In it external dependently arising processes were described as being independent of cognitive processes and intention. This latter distinction cannot be explicitly found in Madhyamaka anymore. In the 26th chapter of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna presents dependent arising more traditionally only as the twelve links starting with ignorance. Dependent arising is also equated with dependent designation, which suggests cognitive elements in the whole process. On the other hand, there is no “thing as such” which would serve as the basis of designation. Even the elements, such as space, are included in dependent arising, because they depend on reciprocity of designation between the characteristic (lakṣaṇa) and the characterized (lakṣya). A possible exception to all this are, depending on their interpretation, the Tathāgatagarbhasūtras and the early parts of the Ratnagotravibhāga. Based on these texts, the Tibetan school of the Jo nang pa exempted a transcendent ultimate buddhahood or buddha-nature (both are ontologically the same for the Jo nang pas) from dependent arising. This doctrinal move was considered controversial by mainstream Tibetan Buddhism, though.

 Dol po pa: Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho 14217–19: sangs rgyas rtag pa dang sangs rgyas kyi thar pa gzugs yin pa dang nam mkha’ yang sangs rgyas kyi gzugs yin | zhes pa la sogs pa’i don ni […] de bzhin nyid kyi gzugs sogs dang | khams gsum dan dus gsum las ’das pa’i gzugs sogs zhes pa la sogs pa ’chad par ’gyur pa’i skabs su rig par bya […].

180

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

Bibliography Primary Literature (Indian) DhDhVV: Dharmadharmatāvibhāgavṛtti. Klaus-Dieter Mathes (Ed.). See Mathes 1996: 69 – 98. [The numbers following the acronym refer to the line numbers of my edition.] PP: Prasannapadā. Louis de La Vallée Poussin (Ed.) [Bibliotheca Buddhica 4]. Contained in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1992. MA: Madhyamakāvatāra. Li Xue Zhu (Ed.). China Tibetology 2012, no. 1, 1 – 16. MABh: Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya (Tibetan translation). Louis de la Vallée Poussin (Ed.) (Bibliotheca Buddhica 9). Reprint (first published in 1907 – 12). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1992. MAVṛ/MPS: Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti or Madhyamapratipadāsiddhi (Tibetan translation). D: sDe dge bsTan ‘gyur 4072, sems tsam, vol. hi, 102a5–120b1. MAV: Madhyāntavibhāga, see MAVBh MAVṬ: Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā. S. Yamaguchi (Ed.). Nagoya: Librairie Hajinkaku 1934. MAVBh: Madhyāntavibhāgabhāṣya. Gadjin M. Nagao (Ed.). Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation 1964. MMK: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Ye Shaoyong (Ed.). Beijing: Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature 2011. RGV: Ratnagotravibhāga. See RGVV RGVV: Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā. Edward H. Johnston (Ed.). Patna: The Bihar Research Society 1950. [The manuscripts A and B on which Johnston’s edition is based are described in Johnston 1950:vi–vii. See also Bandurski et al. 1994:12 – 13.] LS: Lokātītastava. Christian Lindtner (Ed.). See Lindtner, Nagarjuniana, 128 – 38. ŚSS: Śālistambhasūtra. Ross Reat (Ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1993. SNS: Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra (Tibetan translation from the Kanjur). Étienne Lamotte (Ed.). Louvain (Belgium): Bureaux du Recueil 1935. SRS: Samādhirājasūtra. P. L. Vaidya(Ed.). Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Learning 1961.

Primary Literature (Tibetan) Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan. Jo nang ri chos nges don rgya mtsho. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang 1998. Sa bzang Ma ti paṇ chen ‘Jam dbyangs Blo gros rgyal mtshan. Theg pa chen po’i rgyud bla ma’i bstan bcos kyi rnam par bshad pa nges don rab gsal snang ba. In: Sa skya pa’i mkhas pa rnams kyi gsung skor, vol. 4, 1 – 520. Kathmandu: Khenpo Abbey 1999.

Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity

181

Secondary Literature Bandurski 1994. Frank Bandurski, Untersuchungen zur buddhistischen Literatur. By Frank Bandurski, Bikkhu Pāsādika, Michael Schmidt and Bangwei Wang. [Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden. Beiheft 5]. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen 1994. Brunnhölzl 2011. Karl Brunnhölzl, Prajñāpāramitā, Indian “gzhan stong pas”, and the Beginning of Tibetan gzhan stong. [Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 74]. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien 2011. Burton 1999. David Burton, Emptiness Appraised: A Critical Study of Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy. Richmond UK: Curzon Press 1999. Frauwallner 2010. Erich Frauwallner, The Philosophy of Buddhism (Die Philosophie des Buddhismus). Translated by Gelong Lodrö Sangpo with the assistance of Jigme Sheldron under the supervision of Prof. Ernst Steinkellner. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2010. Habata 2007. Hiromi Habata, Die zentralasiatischen Sanskrit-Fragmente des Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra: Kritische Ausgabe des Sanskrittextes und seiner tibetischen Übertragung im Vergleich mit chinesischen Übersetzungen. [Indica et Tibetica 51]. Marburg: Indica et Tibetica Verlag 2007. Kano 2016. Kazuo Kano, Buddha-nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and the Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. [Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91]. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien 2016. La Vallée Poussin 1911. Louis de la Vallée Poussin, Madhyamakāvatāra, Introduction au traité du milieu de l’ācārya Candrakīrti avec le commentaire de l’auteur. Traduit d’après la version tibétaine. In: Le Muséon 12 (1911). MacDonald 2009. Anne MacDonald, “Knowing Nothing: Candrakīrti and Yogic Perception”. In: Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness. Eli Franco in collaboration with Dagmar Eigner (Eds.). [ÖAW, philosophisch-historische Klasse 794]. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press 2009, 133 – 68. MacDonald 2015. Id., In Clear Words: The Prasannapadā. 2 vols. [ÖAW, philosophisch-historische Klasse 863]. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press 2015. Mathes 1996. Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Unterscheidung der Gegebenheiten von ihrem wahren Wesen (Dharmadharmatāvibhāga). [Indica et Tibetica 26]. Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag 1996. Mathes 2000. Id., Tāranātha’s Presentation of trisvabhāva in the gŹan stoṅ sñiṅ po. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.2 (2000): 195 – 223. Mathes 2008. Id., A Direct Path to the Buddha Within. Go Lotsāwa’s Mahāmudrā Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga. [Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism]. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2008. Moriyama 2013. Shinya Moriyama, Ratnākaraśānti’s criticism of the Madhyamaka refutation of causality. China Tibetology 20/1 (2013): 53 – 66. Reat 1993. Ross N. Reat, The Śālistambhasūtra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1993. Rospatt 1995. Alexander Rospatt, The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness. [Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien 47]. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 1995.

182

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

Salvini 2015. Mattia Salvini, “Language and Existence in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: Preliminary Reflections”. In: Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. Allies or Rivals? Jay L. Garfield, Jan Westerhoff (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015, 29 – 71. Schmithausen 1971. Lambert Schmithausen, Philologische Bemerkungen zum Ratnagotravibhāga. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 15 (1971): 123 – 77. Seyfort Ruegg 1981. David Seyfort Ruegg, The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz 1981. Shulman 2008. Eviatar Shulman, Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination. Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 297 – 317. Takasaki 1966. Jikido Takasaki, A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra) Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism. [Rome Oriental Series 33]. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente 1966. Walser 2008. Joseph Walser, Nāgārjuna in Context. Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2008.

Dennis Hirota

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran After we have realized [the significance of jinen 自然 (“becoming-so-of-itself”)], we should not be forever talking about it. If we continuously discuss jinen, that no self-working is true working will again become a problem of self-working (calculative thinking). —Shinran

Wilfred Cantwell Smith opens his lecture “Thoughts on Transcendence” with a broad assertion of an inherent and universal human capacity: My thesis is that there have been throughout history and across the world a general human awareness of transcendence; and a general human propensity to perceive it, and to express and to nurture the awareness of it, in and through specific forms.¹ Building on such perspectives, the work of Bernhard Nitsche develops an effort to formulate the parameters of a typology of the “religious diversity of transcendental concepts” – concepts of what he calls the “immeasurable reality we live in.” In particular, Nitsche adopts a broad “anthropological approach,” drawing out the implications for religious apprehension of the fundamental dimensions of human existence in the world. He focusses on a tripartite scheme of personal, social, and natural worlds, reminiscent of phenomenological patterns. Pure Land teachings offer a range of symbols and imagery that might be classified in this way. In this essay, however, I seek to delineate what is distinctive in the thinking regarding the awareness of transcendence in the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist thinker Shinran (1173 – 1263). While he may be seen as defining one “specific form” of such apprehension in the anthropological modes delineated by Nitsche, he further offers a particular model of a dynamic transformation of awareness whereby religious conceptions of transcendence become genuine, or become pervaded by the genuinely transcendent and inconceivable. In his delineation of a shift in understanding of religious symbols, he may offer an example of a boundary or limit type for any anthropological approach to the investigation of religious awareness.

 Cantwell Smith 1990: 32. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-014

184

Dennis Hirota

Shinran’s Standpoints I suggest Shinran as a limit case because of his stance in the superposition of two, apparently incompatible horizons of thought, and because of the thoroughness with which he pursues each in his explorations of religious existence. It is precisely at its wholeness, where each horizon draws into a completely binding circle, that coincidence with the other become possible. Further, it is this coincidence that gives rise to the shift that Shinran identifies as genuine religious engagement. One standpoint is the fundamental Mahāyāna Buddhist conception of wisdom or awakening as nondiscriminative and nondual. Here, truth and reality are not distinguished. In addition, subject and object – or wisdom and emptiness – are one. As stated in a passage quoted by Shinran: “True and real wisdom is wisdom that is itself true reality. Because true reality is formless, true wisdom is no-knowing” (Chinese Pure Land master Tánluán (jap. Donran 曇鸞) [476 – 542]).² Further, the karmically conditioned and the unconditioned or uncreated are nondual. Here: “Because [unconditioned dharma-body] is no-knowing, it never fails to know all things”.³ If transcendence indicates the eternal, it is simultaneously never apart from the temporal; the vectors of transcendence and immanence, nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, are always inseparable and interpenetrating. There is no monolithic “ultimate” reality that stands apart from the multiplicity of the world. The second standpoint of Shinran’s religious thought is the acute self-awareness of inexorable ignorance – of utter immersion in attachment to the ego-self, in the delusional discrimination of things of the world, and consequently in the pain of afflicting passions (skt. kleśa, jap. 煩悩 bonnō). The Pure Land Buddhist tradition emerged amid a deepening recognition of temporal and moral distance from the presence of the awakened Buddha, and it gradually developed this insight into a religious anthropology articulated as a full-fledged view of historical and cosmic devolution. In the East Asian Pure Land tradition, the dimension of self-reflection is expressed as practitioners’ consciousness of the tenaciousness of their own incapacitating absorption in and involvement with the world as they imagine it. In Shinran, this mode of thought questions any innate apprehension of the genuinely transcendent and severs any final continuity between human aspirations and transcendent reality. It reaches a level at which even the kind of “gen CWS I: 165.  Ibid.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

185

eral human awareness of transcendence” that Smith speaks of appears suspect. We may be reminded here of the functioning of “the alien work of God” in Luther or Karl Barth’s harsh denunciations of “natural religion,” including Japanese Pure Land tradition. In Shinran, however, to be human is to be embedded in a physical, social and cultural world, in a history, and in false, discriminative thought. There is an interfusion of personal, communal, and environing worlds (Heidegger speaks of Selbstwelt, Mitwelt, and Umwelt in his early Phenomenology of Religious Life). The discriminative subjectivity and perception that characterize ignorance and give rise to egocentric craving and attachment belong to the very condition of human existence. They permeate even the realm of ostensibly religious aspiration and resolve. As Shinran says: We are full of ignorance and blind passion. Our desires are countless, and anger, wrath, jealousy, and envy are overwhelming, arising without pause; to the very last moment of life they do not cease, or disappear, or exhaust themselves.⁴

The two, seemingly discordant and even contradictory, standpoints in Shinran – nonduality on the one hand, and finitude, conditionedness, and incapacity, on the other – inform his exposition of the Buddhist path and his treatment of transcendence. Given his comprehensively negative assessment of human capacities for overcoming the distortions and delusions of egocentricity, how can genuine transcendence be apprehended and attained? And what significance can it hold for finite, fallible human existence? In the following, I will discuss the conceptions of transcendence in Shinran’s thought in relation to these two questions, which he treats in terms of stages of engagement and the interaction and infusion of the two dimensions sketched above.

Modes of Apprehending Transcendence in the Worlds of Human Existence In Shinran’s writings, three interrelated modes of apprehending transcendence are articulated: transcendent reality as form, as formless, and as dynamic. This triadic pattern applies even to those elements that assume the most concrete conceptualizations in the tradition: the Buddha Amida, his buddha-field known as the Pure Land, and the birth there of practitioners. While conceptual form (Buddha, Vow, Name, etc.) may in itself communicate a compelling intima-

 CWS I: 488.

186

Dennis Hirota

tion of reality, it is when a conventional one-dimensional, substantialised or objectified understanding is overcome that genuine apprehension arises. At the same time, Shinran does not necessarily reject any of these modes of apprehending transcendence. In Shinran’s delineation of genuine apprehension, the three dimensions or aspects all coexist simultaneously. Moreover, rather than disparate states, they are dimensions of reality that seamlessly flow into and mirror each other. The simultaneous apprehension of all three dimensions arises in the person touched by transcendent reality. Thus, on the one hand, Shinran seeks to avoid all reification of conceptions of transcendence, whether framed in terms of an inner self, of personhood and interpersonal relationship, or of cosmology. Any such conception, as comprehensible to human consciousness, may easily become assimilated into ordinary awareness and incorporated into the world of substantial objects of attachment or aversion in the endeavour of shoring up the existence of the ego-self. On the other hand, the Buddhist significance of the Pure Land teaching is precisely as a path to awakening that recognizes the inability of human beings to achieve the stilling of discriminative mental activity and eradication of delusive thinking. In considering Shinran’s treatment of the different modes of conceiving the basic Pure Land symbols, we find a deepening or opening up of awareness in their interrelationships. Viewed in this way, the three modes have the character of three stages. Here, the movement from the first mode to the second is crucial, while the third may be seen as a comprehensive or mature apprehension that emerges in Shinran near the end of his long life. Below, I will comment briefly on fundamental elements of the Pure Land teaching, considering the different modes of apprehension.

Formlessness and Form Regarding conceptions as form in the Pure Land sūtras, transcendent reality is indicated in terms of subjectivity (buddha-wisdom; the awakening of aspiration for enlightenment [bodhicitta]; the Primal Vow the “three minds” of sincerity, trust, and aspiration), of personhood and interpersonal relationship (Amida Buddha, Śākyamuni Buddha, enlightened beings and buddhas throughout the cosmos), and of cosmological environment (Amida’s buddha-field, the Pure Land). Amida may be conceived in the manner of a person who established a bodhisattva vow, attained awakening, and now embodies the working of enlightened wisdom-compassion. The transcendent as person in the Pure Land path is conceived as Amida Buddha, the Buddha of immeasurable light and life. His name is found in scores

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

187

of Mahāyāna sutras, and the Sūtra of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Muryōjukyō, hereafter the Larger Sūtra) narrates in detail the bodhisattva career of Amida, from initial encounter with the dharma as a secular king, through the “causal stage” of bodhisattva vows and eons of practice, to the final attainment of buddhahood. Regarding his aspiration and resolve as a bodhisattva, for example, it states: No thought of greed, anger, or harmfulness arose in his mind; he cherished no impulse of greed, anger, or harmfulness. He did not cling to objects of perception—color, sound, smell, taste. Abounding in perseverance, he gave no thought to the suffering to be endured [in arduous practice]. He was content with few desires, and without greed, anger, or folly. Always tranquil in a state of samadhi, he possessed wisdom that knew no impediment. He was free of all thoughts of falsity or deception. Gentle in countenance and loving in speech, he perceived people’s thoughts and was attentive to them. He was full of courage and vigor, and being resolute in his acts, knew no fatigue.⁵

Another basic sūtra of the East Asian Pure Land tradition, the Sūtra of Contemplation on the Buddha Immeasurable Life, provides a description of Amida in the splendor of his buddhahood, ostensibly as an object of contemplative practice: [Amida] Buddha’s body is in height as many yojanas as six hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Ganga River sand. There is a twist of white hair between his eyebrows, curling gently to the right like five Sumeru mountains. The Buddha’s eyes are pure like the waters of the four great oceans; the blue and white are clear and distinct; and like Mount Sumeru, the pores of his body emit rays of light.⁶

Statues and painted images of Amida were and continue to be common in Pure Land temples as objects of worship and practice. Further, Amida’s buddha-field, the Pure Land, is depicted in sutras as a place, located along the coordinates of our cosmos, westward beyond the bounds of this world and informed by the awakening of Amida Buddha. The Sūtra of Immeasurable Life describes the Pure Land’s palaces, jewel-formed trees, pools with golden-sands and limpid waters, birds, and so on. The bodhi-tree of the Buddha of immeasurable life is four million miles in height . . . . Its branches and leaves spread two hundred thousand miles in the four directions. It is formed naturally of a composite of all kinds of gems. . . . Further, the halls, living quarters, palaces and storied pavilions, all adorned with the seven precious substances, appear miraculously of themselves. Covering them is a jewel-canopy composed of pearls, moon-radiant manijewels, and various other gems. Everywhere about the buildings, both inside and out,

 CWS I: 95 – 96.  Yamada 1984: 57.

188

Dennis Hirota

there are ponds for bathing . . . . Each is of dimensions—in length, breadth, and depth—of perfect symmetry. They are brimming with pure and fragrant waters possessed of the eight excellent qualities and have the taste of nectar.⁷

Further, birth into Amida’s realm from this world is described as being borne on a lotus blossom by bodhisattvas and emerging there from the flower. Nevertheless, while employing an array of concrete, often hyperbolic Mahāyāna Buddhist imageries and concepts (the bodhisattva path of eons of practice; innumerable celestial buddhas; ornate imagery of buddha-fields throughout the cosmos, etc.), the Pure Land teachings follow basic Mahāyāna thought in taking the transcendent to be formless, completely beyond conceptual understanding (jap. 不可思議, fukashigi). Reality cannot be grasped by discriminative, discursive thought or language. It is emptiness, or nirvāṇa, or dharma-nature. Here, Amida, his Vow, and his buddha-field, while standing at the very horizon of conceptuality, are in fact rooted in and manifest inconceivable formless reality. Thus, while affirming the sūtra narrative of Amida as the fulfilment of the enactment of the bodhisattva-path – marked by the establishment of the Vow, performance of practice, and attainment of buddhahood – Shinran also emphasizes an enframing context. He states: Amida Tathāgata comes forth from suchness and manifests various bodies—fulfilled, accommodated, and transformed.⁸

To convey the true nature of the Pure Land, usually depicted in sūtras and imagined in paradisial terms, Shinran selects phrases from the scriptural tradition that indicate the transcendence of conceptual grasp: The Larger Sutra states, “Land of immeasurable light” and “Land of all-knowing wisdom.” The Treatise [on the Pure Land by Vasubandhu] states, “It is infinite, like space, vast and boundless.”⁹

Further, regarding birth in the Pure Land, depicted in scriptural literature as entrance into an eternal life of heavenly delight, he again is selective: Concerning birth [in the Pure Land], the Larger Sutra states, “All receive the body of naturalness (jinen) or of emptiness, the body of boundlessness.”¹⁰

 CWS I: 208 – 209.  CWS I: 153.  CWS I: 203.  Ibid.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

189

In other words, while Amida may be conceived in personal terms based on his “biographical” narrative of aspiration and praxis as a bodhisattva, ultimately he must be seen as emerging within the horizon of human history and conceptuality from the transcendent. It is not simply that Buddha is a human who attains buddhahood, but that buddhahood assumes the human form of becoming Amida.

Beyond Formlessness and Form The model for the active emergence or manifestation of the transcendent is expounded in the Pure Land tradition by Tánluán (jap. 曇鸞) (476 – 542), in a passage quoted by Shinran: All Buddhas and bodhisattvas have dharma-bodies of two dimensions: dharma-body as suchness and dharma-body as compassionate means. Dharma-body as compassionate means arises from dharma-body as suchness, and dharma-body as suchness emerges [into awareness] out of dharma-body as compassionate means. Those two dimensions of dharma-body differ but are not separable; they are one but cannot be regarded as identical.¹¹

Through the use of parallel phrases, Tánluán implies a symmetry of reciprocal but contrary movement between the emergence of form and the apprehension of formlessness. Although Shinran’s teacher Hōnen (jap. 法然) (1133 – 1212) rarely cites Tánluán in his writings, the Chinese master is a major influence on Shinran, who includes extensive quotations from him in Teaching, Practice, and Realization. In the following passage from a late statement in Japanese, we can see Shinran’s adoption and elaboration of Tánluán’s thinking: Supreme Buddha is formless, and because of being formless is called jinen. Buddha, when appearing with form, is not called supreme nirvāṇa. In order to make it known that supreme Buddha is formless, the name Amida Buddha is expressly used; so I have been taught. Amida Buddha fulfills the purpose of making us know the significance of jinen. ¹²

While reflecting the thinking behind Tánluán’s notion of the twofold dharmabody, Shinran’s elaborated version goes beyond the balanced dimensions of formless reality, on the one hand, and its manifestation, on the other, to focus  CWS I: 165.  http://shinranworks.com/hymns-in-japanese/hymns-of-the-dharma-ages/on-jinen-honi/.

190

Dennis Hirota

on the dynamic moment of self-revelation and apprehension of the formless itself. Through setting forth a mode of apprehending transcendence as dynamic, Shinran seeks to acknowledge and affirm the conceptions as form and as formlessness, while avoiding any reification or objectification. To accomplish this, Shinran, late in life, employs the term jinen (jap. 自然).

Transcendent Reality as Dynamic Transcendent reality is essentially a dynamic act or event in process, characterized in particular as nondiscriminative wisdom pervading and transforming the existence of sentient beings, whose awareness is characterized by ignorance. Shinran states, for example, regarding the goal of nirvāṇa, “ascending to and attaining the supreme great nirvāṇa is without limit”¹³, and further, regarding birth in the Pure Land, When persons attain this [supreme] enlightenment, with great love and great compassion immediately reaching their fulness in them, they return to the ocean of birth-and-death to save all sentient beings.¹⁴

For Shinran, it is not Amida Buddha as personal savior who is the central conception in the Pure Land path, nor is the Pure Land of bliss conceived as the highest focus of aspiration. While the symbols of Amida and Pure Land provide the most concrete objects of piety, it is the Vow that more closely indicates the centre of Shinran’s religious thought. This is because the Vow retains the character of dynamic action and resists reification and objectification. Thus, in his major hymn, he states: “the moment one thinks on Amida’s Primal Vow,/One is naturally brought to enter the stage of the definitely settled”¹⁵. It is mindfulness of the Vow that is central in the practitioner’s awareness. Late in life, Shinran settled on a term that he found could be used to express the dynamic quality of reality that he sought to convey to practitioners. In his writings in Japanese in particular, he adopts the term jinen as a synonym for formless reality. Jinen occurs frequently in the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, commonly in an adverbial usage meaning that something occurs “of itself” or “by itself,” without external agency or influence. Shinran defines jinen by analysing its two characters:

 CWS I: 497.  CWS I: 454.  CWS I: 71.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

191

Ji 自 means “of itself”—not through the practicer’s calculation. It signifies being made to become so. Nen 然 means “to be made to become so”—not through the practicer’s calculation, for it is through [the working of] the Tathāgata’s Vow.¹⁶

In Shinran’s thought, the Pure Land and Amida, which are both in essence the light of wisdom, stand at the horizon of human apprehension, being at once conceivable form and simultaneously beyond conceptual grasp. Nevertheless, it is not the contrary poles of formless, inconceivable reality and conceptual forms accessible to beings that are fundamental. Rather, he emphasizes the twofold dynamic – the manifesting of itself as form in the world by inconceivable reality and the apprehending of the formless in and as form in the world. It is as this interfused, unitary dynamic that reality realizes itself and that beings attain the true and real. Thus, he adopts the term jinen, which he further expounds with reference to the Vow: Jinen signifies being made to become so from the very beginning. Amida’s Vow is, from the very beginning, designed to bring each of us to entrust ourselves to it—saying “Namuamida-butsu”—and to receive us into the Pure Land; none of this is through our calculation.¹⁷

In his writings, Shinran applies jinen to indicate the dynamic behind crucial occurrences at various stages of the Pure Land path, such as attaining shinjin, entering the stage of nonretrogression, or being born in the Pure Land and attaining full enlightenment or supreme awakening. Each of these events is the emerging or realizing of transcendent reality, which cannot be reified or fixed as an abstraction. In employing the expression jinen, Shinran seeks to indicate with a single term both of the two, interfused dimensions of reality: transcendent, inconceivable reality (suchness, nirvāṇa, dharma-nature, etc.) and dynamic unfolding of awakening in beings. Regarding the former aspect, he states: “Supreme Buddha is formless, and because of being formless is called jinen”¹⁸. Regarding the latter aspect, he states: “Jinen signifies being made to become so [i. e., to entrust ourselves, attain birth in the Pure Land, become filled with compassion, etc.] from the very beginning”¹⁹. We can see this same effort to fuse the realm of transcendent reality and the realm of existence in the world in another expression from late in Shinran’s life.    

CWS CWS CWS CWS

I: I: I: I:

427. 427. 428. 427.

192

Dennis Hirota

In the East Asian Pure Land tradition, the term Other Power (jap. 他力, tariki) had long been used to indicate the working or influence of Amida’s Vow. Shinran, however, appears to have found it imprecise and in need of clarification, perhaps because Other Power is a contrastive term paired with self-power (jap. 自力, jiriki), suggesting a dualism or reciprocity of self and Other. During the same period that he adopted jinen to indicate transcendent reality as dynamic activity, he redefined the implications of Other Power by borrowing and reinterpreting a phrase from Hōnen: Hōnen said, regarding Other Power, “no working is [true] working.” “Working” [that is negated] connotes [a practitioner’s] calculative thinking. Since the calculation of a person seeking birth in the Pure Land is self-power, it is termed “working”. Other Power is entrusting ourselves to the Primal Vow and our birth becoming firmly settled; hence, it is altogether without one’s own working.²⁰

Hōnen employed rhetorically striking, somewhat paradoxical phrases to convey his teaching effectively to his listeners. Shinran’s explanation no doubt differed from Hōnen’s usage, but possesses its own precision, as may be seen from a collaborative statement: “Other Power means to be free of any form of calculation”²¹. In other words, the falling away or becoming free of calculative thinking is itself the unfolding of reality. This occurrence Shinran speaks of as jinen.

Transcendent Reality as Practice I have argued that for Shinran, transcendent reality is the unitary event of emergence and apprehension. The goal of the Pure Land path is its occurrence. Further, although Shinran’s treatise Teaching, Practice, and Realization is commonly read as discursive doctrinal argumentation and systematization, particularly within the Shin scholastic tradition, I believe it is understood more coherently as Shinran’s phenomenology of this unitary event. The essential nexus of the twofold dimensions of reality may be seen throughout Shinran’s discussion of the elements of the Pure Land path; as an example, I will take it up in the remainder of this article in relation to the element of practice (jap. 行, gyō). Although Japanese Pure Land Buddhism is often assumed, because of its rejection of self-power, to lack a positive conception of practice, it is crucial in Shinran’s thought. At the beginning of the Chapter on Practice Shinran states:

 CWS I: 525.  CWS I: 537.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

193

The great practice is to say the Name of the Tathāgata of unhindered light (無碍光如来). This practice, embodying all good acts and possessing all roots of virtue, is perfect and most rapid in bringing to perfect fulfillment [birth into the Pure Land]. It is the treasure ocean of virtues that is suchness or true reality (真如一実の功徳宝海).²²

We find in these opening sentences the hallmarks of Shinran’s reflections on transcendent reality in relation to Pure Land practice. He begins by clearly declaring his standpoint within the Pure Land tradition as developed by Hōnen: practice in the Pure Land path is saying the nembutsu (jap. 念仏), the Name of Amida: The nembutsu is superior and other practices are inferior. This is because into the name flow all of Amida’s uncountable virtues … all the merits and virtues of Amida’s inner enlightenment … all the merits and virtues of his outward activities.²³

As Hōnen asserts, the Buddha has selected vocal nembutsu the act in accord with the Vow and made the Name the embodiment of his virtues. At the same time, however, rather than adopting a framework of relative efficacy and superiority among practices like his master Hōnen, Shinran equates [saying] the Name with “suchness” (jap. 真如, shinnyo) or “true reality” (jap. 一実, ichijitsu) itself. This assertion manifests a thinking not seen in Hōnen, and it raises various questions. I will focus on two: How is it that the nembutsu, as the “treasure ocean of virtues,” can be said to be true reality? What is the nature of a person’s engagement with the Name, when the Name is said to “embody all good acts and possess all virtues”? In Notes on Once-Calling and Many-Calling, Shinran gives an extended commentary on a kanbun-like phrase of his own composing that employs expressions similar to those used at the beginning of Chapter on Practice. I quote it at some length here and will take it as a starting point for commenting on our two issues: The eighty-four thousand dharma-gates (i. e., the various teachings of the Buddha) are all good practices of the provisional means of the Pure Land teaching; they are known as the “essential” or provisional gate. … [T]hrough this “essential” or provisional gate, the Buddha teaches and encourages all sentient beings to enter the great treasure ocean of true and real virtue—the Primal Vow, perfect and unhindered, which is the One Vehicle (本願一乗円融無 碍真実功徳大宝海). Hence, all good acts of self-power are called provisional ways. ! ! !

 CWS I: 13, translation modified.  Senchakushū 1998: 76.

194

Dennis Hirota

“Unhindered” (無碍) means that the Primal Vow cannot be obstructed or destroyed by blind passion and karmic evil. “True and real virtue” is the Name. The wondrous principle of true reality or suchness (一実真如) has reached its perfection [in the Primal Vow; hence, this Vow] is likened to a “great treasure ocean” (大宝). True realitysuchness is the supreme great nirvāṇa. Nirvana is dharma-nature. Dharma-nature is Tathāgata. With the words, “treasure ocean,” the Buddha’s nondiscriminating, unobstructed, and nonexclusive guidance of all sentient beings is likened to the all-embracing waters of the great ocean. From this treasure ocean of oneness (一如宝海) form was manifested, taking the name of Bodhisattva Dharmākara, who, through establishing the unhindered Vow as the cause, became Amida Buddha. For this reason Amida is the “Tathāgata of fulfilled body.” Amida has been called “Buddha of unhindered light filling the ten quarters.” This Tathāgata is also known as Namu-fukashigikō-butsu (Namu-Buddha of inconceivable light) and is the “dharma-body as compassionate means.” “Compassionate means” refers to manifesting form, revealing a name, and making itself known to sentient beings. It refers to Amida Buddha. This Tathāgata is light. Light is none other than wisdom; wisdom is the form of light. Wisdom is, in addition, formless; hence this Tathāgata is the Buddha of inconceivable light. This Tathāgata fills the countless worlds in the ten quarters, and so is called “Buddha of boundless light.” Further, Bodhisattva Vasubandhu has given the name, “Tathāgata of unhindered light filling the ten quarters.”²⁴

The Nembutsu as True Reality In Shinran’s auto-commentarial passage, not only is the name identified with true reality, but further, it is essential to the very nature of reality. As we have seen, the crucial point for Shinran is that transcendent reality is fundamentally dynamic. It cannot be conceptually grasped or reified as a substance that acts or possesses qualities such as compassion, but is rather the acting itself. Further, in line with basic Mahāyāna conceptions of wisdom or awakening as nondiscriminative and nondual, reality is inseparable from that which is falsely apprehended by discriminative thought. We see both of these aspects of dynamic and nonduality in Shinran’s tendency to conflate the Name and light, and light and mindfulness, in the working

 CWS I: 486 – 487.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

195

of the Primal Vow.²⁵ The nembutsu is accessible form manifested to awaken awareness of reality; light is at once apprehensible form and formless. Both Name and light stand at the horizon of human apprehension, the Name providing conceptual form and functioning as the summons or call of formless reality to beings, and light pervading and thereby transforming all within the world-horizon. While in his auto-commentary Shinran draws on the notion of the “twofold dharma-body” or dual dimensions of reality, his teaching of Name and light offers a less abstract and structural, more intimate insight into the lived experience of the Pure Land Buddhist. Late in life, Shinran appears to have favoured, as a version of the Name, Vasubandhu’s confessional lines of verse: “I take refuge in the Tathāgata of unhindered light filling the ten quarters.” Central to Shinran’s image of light for wisdom-compassion or the working of the Primal Vow is not only the notion of all things in the world being illumined, but of the “unhinderedness” by which the light of wisdom pervades and transforms blind passion and karmic evil. It is in this that “true reality or suchness reaches its perfection.” In “manifesting form, revealing a name, and making itself known to sentient beings,” wisdom or reality realizes itself. From a comparative theological perspective, the question arises of the significance of the Name and its necessity as that form taken by formless, transcendent reality. In order to consider this question, we must turn to our second topic of engaging the nembutsu.

Engaging the Name For Shinran, genuinely engaging the nembutsu requires a radical shift in awareness. There must be a falling away of the conventional instrumentalist paradigm of practice as acts that a person endeavours in for the purpose of achieving a goal, such as disciplining or calming the self, achieving good, cultivating virtues, or accumulating merit toward enlightenment. Shinran writes in a letter:

 See CWS I: 327: [Amida’s] light shines everywhere ceaselessly; Thus Amida is called “Buddha of Uninterrupted Light.” Because beings hear [and apprehend] this power of light, Their mindfulness is enduring and they attain birth. hear: entrust themselves to Amida’s Vow. The constant, enduring mind of entrusting that arises out of hearing this dharma. See also CWS I: 373: The Name of the Tathāgata of unhindered light and the light that is the embodiment of wisdom dispel the darkness of the long night of ignorance and fulfill the aspirations of sentient beings.

196

Dennis Hirota

The Sutra of the Treasure Name states: “The nembutsu of Amida’s Primal Vow is not our practice, it is not our good; it is simply keeping the Name of the Buddha.” It is the Name that is good, the Name that is the practice.²⁶

In doctrinal terms, the change in awareness regarding the nature of practice is reflected in a scriptural hermeneutical dimension that Shinran alludes to at the beginning of the auto-commentarial passage above: “[T]hrough this “essential” or provisional gate [Śākyamuni’s expositions of the various practices], the Buddha teaches and encourages all sentient beings to enter the great treasure ocean of true and real virtue—the Primal Vow.”²⁷

More concretely, the collapse of common, substantialist presuppositions regarding the agency and subjectivity of the self is itself, in Shinran’s view, an “entry” into the “ocean of light” that is Tathāgata (dynamic reality) or wisdom or the working of the Vow, so that “Other Power means to be free of any form of calculation”.²⁸ Here practice, which remains central to Shinran’s thinking about the Pure Land path, may be said to be enactment or embodiment rather than endeavour. Shinran also speaks of “dwelling”: “The heart of the person of shinjin already and always resides in the Pure Land”.²⁹ Practice, for Shinran, is not the performance of designated acts, but life in the world pervaded by a doubled awareness. The following lines are among the best known of Shinran’s own writings: The light of compassion that grasps us illumines and protects us always; The darkness of our ignorance is already broken through; Still the clouds and mists of greed and desire, anger and hatred, Cover as always the sky of true and real shinjin. But though light of the sun is veiled by clouds and mists, Beneath the clouds and mists there is brightness, not dark.³⁰

The imagery of these lines, which Shin Buddhists regularly chant from memory, is concrete and seemingly easily visualized. Nevertheless, if one attempts to make a sketch of the content, one may find it surprisingly puzzling. As long as one continues to assume that shinjin is fundamentally a personal, subjective     

CWS CWS CWS CWS CWS

I: 555. I: 486. I: 537. I: 528. I: 70.

Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

197

attitude of commitment or trust, it is impossible to grasp Shinran’s image of “the sky of true and real shinjin,” with the person of nembutsu standing beneath, amid the shadows of clouds and mist. Similarly, the assumption that saying the nembutsu is in essence a person’s avowal of such an “inner” attitude is also amiss. In seeking to communicate the nature of saying the nembutsu or of realizing shinjin, Shinran is at points led into apparent inconsistencies. Thus, he states that the Name is the Buddha’s call to beings, and also that it is beings’ response in gratitude. He states that when one realizes shinjin, one is grasped by the Amida’s compassionate light, and also that when one is grasped by the light, one realizes shinjin. The point is that seeking to cast the Pure Land path into the conceptual logic of cause and result or of subject and object cannot succeed, for at its core is the emerging or apprehending of the dimension of the formless. The image of the “sky of true and real shinjin” evokes the horizon or outer bound of the world of our thinking and perception. As we have seen, the Name also stands at this point, as the formless emerging to “make itself known to sentient beings.” The light of Amida is said by Shinran to be both form and formless – “light is the form taken by wisdom”³¹ and “wisdom is the form of light”³²; unhindered by karmic evil and blind passions, it fills the world, just as the Name reverberates throughout the cosmos in the buddhas’ praise, and as dharma-body as dharma-nature fills the mind of all beings, becoming shinjin. Practice in the Pure Land path is the hearing and saying of the Name as the horizon that manifests a world that is the world that we knew – the self-andworld that continues in the grip of our delusional attachments and afflicting passions – but that now is at the same time illumined as saṃsaric and also transformed, pervaded by transcendent reality.

Bibliography Cantwell Smith 1990. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Thoughts on Transcendence. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 42(1) (1990): 32 – 49. CWS I = The Collected Works of Shinran. Dennis Hirota et al. (transl.), The Collected Works of Shinran. Kyoto: Jōdo Shinshū Hongwanji-ha 1997. The quotations in this article are sometimes modified.

 CWS I: 462.  CWS I: 486.

198

Dennis Hirota

Yamada 1984. Meiji Yamada (translation director), Sūtra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life. Kyoto: Ryukoku University Translation Centre 1984. Senchakushū 1998. Senchakushū English Translation Project (transl. and ed.), Hōnen’s Senchakushū. Honolulu: University of Hawa‘i Press 1998.

James L. Fredericks

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person: Henri de Lubac’s Encounter with Pure Land Buddhism Henri de Lubac (1896 – 1991), the French Jesuit theologian, in a letter to his friend and fellow Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote that his recent work was just “peanuts about subjects which are really outside my competence.”¹ De Lubac was referring to his publications on Buddhism. In fact, these publications display the remarkable erudition and attention to detail that was characteristic of de Lubac’s work in Christian theology. They also offer many insights into the similarities and differences in teachings and practices that distinguish Christian faith and Pure Land Buddhism. De Lubac’s writings on Buddhism are largely overlooked today. There are multiple reasons for this. The importance of his publications on the theology of grace, ecclesiology, Christian mysticism and Medieval Biblical exegesis are of such brilliance that the works on Buddhism are lost in the glare. In addition, almost all of his work on Buddhism pre-dates the Second Vatican Council and its landmark call to Catholics to engage those who follow other religious paths in “dialogue and collaboration.”² At times, some of de Lubac’s comments on Buddhism seem dated to the extent that they are overly apologetic if not dismissive. On the other hand, de Lubac’s response to Buddhism anticipates the work of comparative theologians today. His approach to Buddhism may have been over-determined by the Catholic apologetics of his day, but his study of the dharma also prompted him to think in new ways about his Christian faith. In addition, de Lubac anticipates comparative theology today by taking great pains, in his treatment of Buddhist texts, to clarify similarities as well as differences with Christian doctrine recognizing theological significance in both. This paper is devoted to but one of de Lubac’s insights into the differences that distinguish Christianity from Buddhism. The essay will document de Lubac’s interpretation of Pure Land Buddhism in light of the centrality of “personhood” in Christian thought. I will provide a short account of Christianity’s affirmation of the divine as a persona. Subsequently, I will investigate several of de Lubac’s texts in which he addresses this issue in regard to Buddhism. But first, I want to

 Valensin/Solages/de Lubac 1972: 422.  See Nostra Aetate, 2. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-015

200

James L. Fredericks

begin with a short introduction to the life and work of Henri de Lubac and how he came to write on Buddhism and on Pure Land Buddhism in particular.

De Lubac’s Study of Buddhism Henri de Lubac S.J. must be counted among the most influential Catholic theologians of the past century. He is rightly associated with the Nouvelle Théologie and its efforts at ressourcement ³ before the Second Vatican Council (1962– 1965). He was also a major contributor to the Council itself. De Lubac was appointed to the faculty of the Catholic University of Lyon in 1929. In this position, he published a series of influential, and at the time, controversial books on church history, medieval exegesis, modern atheism and the theology of grace.⁴ He would hold his position in Lyon, with two interruptions, until 1960. The first interruption was the result of the Second World War. De Lubac was a member of the French resistance and had to flee the University to avoid arrest by the Vichy authorities. Then, in 1950, under pressure from members of the Roman curia who were concerned with his theology of grace and the church, de Lubac’s Jesuit superiors removed him from his position at the University in Lyon and rusticated him to Paris from 1950 – 1958. De Lubac’s standing in the Vatican improved with the election of Pope John XXIII in 1958. The pope brought de Lubac to Rome in 1960 to assist in the preparatory work for the Second Vatican Council. After the Council, de Lubac continued to publish, teach and edit in Lyon. In an extraordinary gesture of esteem, Pope Paul VI made de Lubac a member of the College of Cardinals in 1983. During the early 1950s, de Lubac published in rapid succession three books on Buddhism. Aspects du Bouddhisme (1951) is an anthology of essays on various topics, including Buddhist ideas about compassion. La Rencontre du Bouddhisme et de l’Occident (1952) is a comprehensive historical study documenting the reception of Buddhism by secular scholars in the West and the church.

 The Nouvelle Théologie refers to the theological movement initiated and championed by de Lubac, his fellow Jesuit Jean Daniélou and others starting around 1935. These theologians sought to rescue Catholic theological thinking from the rigidity and narrowness of the established neoScholastic theology by means of a return to the sources of Catholic theology in scripture, patristic theology and medieval theology.  Among his most important contributions are Catholicisme (1938), Corpus mysticum (1944), Le Drame de l’humanisme athée (1944), De la connaissance de Dieu (1944) and Surnaturel: Études historiques (1945). In addition to these monographs, de Lubac was a founding editor of the series Sources Chrétiennes.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

201

Amida (1955), which is technically volume two of Aspects du Bouddhisme, explores Pure Land Buddhism in India, China and Japan in depth. The sudden appearance of these three monographs within four years has contributed to the widely held view that de Lubac turned to the study of Buddhism only as a result of his troubles with Roman authorities. In fact, he was forbidden by his religious superiors to write on Christian theology but told expressly that writing on Buddhism would be acceptable. De Lubac’s interest in Buddhism goes back to class lectures he began to give in 1930. Shortly after joining the faculty in Lyon, de Lubac’s dean asked him to teach a course on the “history of religions,” a subject in which he had no training and for which there was a paucity of resources available to him in Lyon. A comparison of his publications on Buddhism reveals that his interest moved gradually from early Buddhism to Mahāyāna and finally to a fascination with Pure Land Buddhism in Japan.⁵ Before looking at de Lubac’s reflections on Buddhism, a number of preliminary observations are in order. First, as a Catholic theologian, de Lubac was trained in the languages of his trade. He had a command not only of classical and medieval Latin, but also Biblical Hebrew, classical and Biblical Greek, and the modern European languages. He had no training whatsoever in Pali, Sanskrit, classical Chinese, Japanese Kanbun or Tibetan. Second, de Lubac also was enormously learned in the history of Christian doctrine, especially in its patristic and medieval periods. But this only highlights his complete lack of formal training in the history, doctrines, texts and exegetical methods of Buddhist tradition. In this area, de Lubac was a gifted autodidact, and nothing more. This means that he was dependent on the available scholarship in Buddhist studies of his day. In his writings on Buddhism, he carefully cites well known European scholars,⁶ and Japanese scholars in translation.⁷ In addition, de Lubac responds to Buddhist teachings by placing them in conversation with Christian, especially Catholic, theology and spirituality,⁸ and materials generated by Catholic and Protestant missionaries to Japan.⁹ On the other hand, in Paris starting from 1950, de Lubac had access to the Bibliothèque Nationale and the

 De Lubac 1989a: 29 – 31.  Including Paul Mus, Étienne Lamotte, Paul Demiéville, Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Mme Rhys Davids, Edward Conze, Charles Eliot, and George Sansom.  For example, Shun Ōsumi, Shūgaku Yamabe, Nakamura Hajime, Junjirō Takakusu, Masaharu Anesaki, Masamaru Inaba, Gesshō Sazaki, and D.T. Suzuki.  For example, patristic figures such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, medieval figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Catherine of Genoa as well as figures from the École française of Catholic spirituality such as François Fénelon and Pierre de Bérulle.  Including Alesandro Valignano and Francis Xavier.

202

James L. Fredericks

Bibliothèque de la Musée Guimet (a research facility associated with a museum dedicated to Asian art and history). In Paris, de Lubac also had access to the Hōbōgirin, which he cites often, a Franco-Japanese encyclopedia of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.¹⁰ Third, to my knowledge at least, there is no record indicating that de Lubac ever met a Buddhist of any lineage, let alone that he studied the pertinent texts with a Buddhist scholar competent in this regard. Fourth, de Lubac’s renderings of proper names and technical terminology in the Roman alphabet do not always conform to contemporary orthography, at least in English. As a result, we are sometimes required to guess about that to which he is referring. Despite all of this, de Lubac’s erudition is noteworthy for the precision of its detail and the ambition of its scope. He offers many insights whose value endures today. My position is that his theological assessment of the Buddhist tradition is of interest not only for its insight but also for its short-comings. The majority of de Lubac’s work on Buddhism was completed before the Second Vatican Council (1962– 1965) and its call to Catholics to engage in dialogue (as opposed to apologetics and polemics) with those who follow other religious paths. As a result, de Lubac’s writings on Buddhism offer a curious mélange of academic insight, genuine admiration before the depth of spiritual insight he found in Buddhist tradition and, at the same time, what may seem today now some fifty years after the Council, statements that are unfair, unnuanced or, by today’s standards, unacceptably dismissive. De Lubac first began to study Buddhism in 1930. After being approached by his dean at the Catholic University of Lyon to teach a course on the “history of religions,” de Lubac began to prepare lectures on theories on the origin of religion (with much attention to Henri Bergson), comparative mysticism, the mystery cults, Auguste Comte’s positivist philosophy of religion and Buddhism. Buddhism quickly became his most passionate interest. In his Memoire, he reports, I have always had a certain attraction to the study of Buddhism, which I consider to be a very great human fact, all at once for its originality, its spread in various forms across space and time, its spiritual profundity.¹¹

Later, de Lubac had the opportunity to hear the Buddhist scholar Paul Mus lecture on the celebrated stupa at Borobudur. The presentation impressed de Lubac considerably. An interest in Buddhist art would remain with him as his engagement with Buddhism developed over many years. Jèrome Ducor in a review ar See Demiéville 1929.  Memoire 1989a:30.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

203

ticle on de Lubac’s work on Buddhism, argues that the lecture on Borobudur marks the point where de Lubac’s first original thinking about Buddhism in relationship to Christianity begins.¹² After twenty years of teaching Buddhism (1930 – 1950), de Lubac had published only three articles on the subject. In the years after his exile from Lyon starting in 1950, however, this would change dramatically. Within five years, de Lubac published three books on Buddhism. Aspects du Bouddhisme (1951) anthologized the articles on Buddhism that had already been published and included much comparison with patristic sources, de Lubac’s specialty.¹³ La Rencontre du Bouddhisme et de l’Occident (1952) was based on his class notes augmented by extensive research at the Bibliotèque Nationale and the Bibliotèque de Musée Guimet.¹⁴ His third book is what concerns us most in this essay. In 1955, de Lubac published a monograph of over three hundred and fifty nine pages devoted to Pure Land Buddhism, entitled Amida. ¹⁵ Despite his plans to expand La Rencontre based on additional materials, Amida would be de Lubac’s last book-length treatment of Buddhism.¹⁶ De Lubac’s last publication on Buddhism is based on an address he gave in 1971 in Paris to the Secretariat for Non-Christians Religions (now the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue) entitled, “Foi et dévotion dans l’amidisme.”¹⁷

The Divine Persona of Christian Faith The central importance of “person” as a category within Christian doctrine must not be underestimated. So basic is the Christian affirmation of God as a persona that many Christians are taken aback when confronted with what they consider the impersonal character of Buddhist teachings regarding ultimate reality such as nirvāṇa and dharmakāya. Certainly this was the case with Henri de Lubac. In Islam, the revelation of God takes the form of a sacred book. This is not the case with Christianity. Christians often speak of the Bible as “the word of God,” but this is misleading and certainly should not be understood in the same way the Qur’an is the word of Allah. The words of the Christian Bible, writ-

 Ducor 2008: 82– 83.  See De Lubac 1951.  See De Lubac 1952.  See De Lubac 1955.  De Lubac 1989a: 31.  The essay was originally published in the Bulletin of the Secretariat in 1972. De Lubac included this essay in a collection of essays: De Lubac 1989.

204

James L. Fredericks

ten by human beings, do not constitute revelation as such, but rather bear witness to the revelation of God. Thus, the literature found in the Christian scriptures constitutes “testimony” (or more accurately, two “testaments” to the revelation of God within human history. In addition, Christian faith can recognize the presence of God in the sacred groves and holy mountains of Shinto. Likewise, Christian contemplatives can affirm the numinous quality of the “original naturalness” (jinen) and “true suchness” (shinnyo) of all things as extolled in the lineages of Tendai, Shingon, and Zen. But, for a Christian, such things as these constitute the revelation of God only in a derivative sense. In Christian tradition, revelation in the fullest sense of the word has been given in the form of a persona—the person of Jesus Christ. The roots of this Christian affirmation lead back to the Jewish encounter with God in the deserts of the Middle East. Narratives in the Hebrew Scriptures generate a discourse about the divine as a complex personality who commands, comforts, promises, grows jealous, angers, regrets and repents. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob refuses to forget his covenants and intrudes upon the solitude of the prophets. Some Biblical scholars have argued that the etymology of the name “Israel” means to struggle with this elusive persona. ¹⁸ In Christian tradition, the revelation of the living God as a transcendent persona reaches its summit in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians affirm the humanity of this first century Palestinian Jew as the Incarnation of the God of the Jewish people. In the words of contemporary Catholic theology, the humanity of Jesus is the sacramental mediation of the Mystery of God’s presence within the finitude of history. This doctrine, however, is easily misunderstood. The teaching is that God is present and at work within the world not inside a human being, such that the divinity of Jesus is hidden behind or obscured by Jesus’ historical finitude. The doctrine of the Incarnation means that God is present and at work within the world as the historical finitude of an actual human person. This has important consequences for appreciating the centrality of persona as a category for Christian faith. God is not found by bracketing Jesus’ finite personhood. This would presume that his divinity is available unmediated by this personhood. In language more familiar to Buddhists, Jesus’ personhood is the form in which God has become present within the world and has no presence independent of this form. The doctrine of the Incarnation leads to several implications regarding the centrality of personhood as a category for Christian thought. First, the Incarnation of God in the personhood of Jesus of Nazareth is in keeping with the char-

 See Terrien 1978 and Miles 1996.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

205

acter of the Jewish experience of God as a Deus absconditus atque praesens (a God that is hidden, yet present). But this “hiddenness” should not imply that God is obscured by the personhood of Jesus. The divine presence is mediated by this finite personhood. Thus, the personhood of Jesus functions as a symbol of God in the proper sense: the person of Jesus is not a “mere symbol” or “token” of a God that is absent, but the ambiguous revealment and concealment characteristic of all true symbols. Thus the doctrine of the Incarnation means that God is simultaneously present and hidden as the humanity of Jesus. This means that an irony lies at the heart of the Incarnation: God has come to be present within the world in the form that is at once the most intimate and most distant to ourselves as persons: our own humanity. Second, the personhood of Jesus as the symbolic basis of the Christian God understood as a Deus absconditus atque praesens takes us a long way toward understanding how both kataphatic and apophatic language about God is demanded by Christian faith, as Bernard Nitsche has suggested. Kataphatically speaking, the mystery of God is accessible and available to us in the personhood of Jesus because we, ourselves, are persons whose freedom arises only by being bound to the finitude of the world. But this very personhood demands that in Christian discourse about God, katáphasis must be matched dialectically by apóphasis. Third, the doctrine of the Incarnation means that there is an intrinsic relationship between the God of Christian faith and the Christian theological understanding of the human person. The Christian theology of God must be correlated with a Christian theological anthropology. Here again the category persona is of paramount importance. The experience of God’s transcendent personhood illuminates the theological meaning of human being as personhood and the human person in its world-bounded finitude is the starting point for a properly Christian understanding of God. In contemporary Catholic thought, the locus classicus for this correlation is found in the work of Karl Rahner who thinks of the human person as a transcendent freedom (Geist) that is inseparable from the finitude of its worldly existence. The human person is, therefore, a “spirit in the world” (Geist-im-Welt) and the transcendent must always be correlated with our finite personhood.

The Buddhist Teaching of Anātman This brief treatment of the centrality of the category persona for Christian theism is intended only for providing a context for better appreciating de Lubac’s critique of Pure Land teachings regarding Amida Buddha.

206

James L. Fredericks

In the opening chapter of Aspects du Bouddhisme, the first of his three books on Buddhism, de Lubac compares Buddhist compassion (karuṇā) and Christian charity (caritas).¹⁹ He is greatly impressed by Buddhist teachings, stating forthrightly that Buddhist compassion is “very close to Christian charity,” in that karuṇā is not a “superficial altruism” and that the principle of “merit transfer” is an “excellent practice.”²⁰ In addition, de Lubac is deeply affect by the hymns of Asaṅga and Śāntideva on the bodhisattva’s practice of compassion, commenting, “we encounter here the summit of Buddhism and one of the summits of humanity.”²¹ A discussion of compassion in light of the goal of pudgalanairātmya (the realization of the “non-self” anātman) leads de Lubac to the issue of personhood in Buddhism. In de Lubac’s view, Buddhist assertions regarding the “insubstantiality of the individual” distinguishes Buddhist compassion from Christian charity. In Aspects du Bouddhisme, he writes, The essential thing, the thing that places an abyss between Buddhist charity and Christian charity, is that in Christianity the neighbor is loved for himself while this issue does not arise in Buddhism. Buddhist benevolence does not address this; it is unable to address the being itself.²²

My translation of the original French is quite literal. The phrase, “the being itself” (l’ȇtre mȇme), in my view, refers to the substantial being of the neighbor as a person. In other words, de Lubac is asserting that the fulness of Christian charity, understood properly, arises as a response to the innate dignity of the human person which must be seen as an ontological quality of personhood itself. De Lubac criticism, then, arises from the fact that, since Buddhism does not have a substantive understanding of our personhood, the Buddhist practice of compassion is quite different than the practice of Christian charity. Later in this same chapter, de Lubac develops the distinction he has begun to draw between Buddhism and Christianity by an appeal to the Christian teaching that all human beings are created in the imago dei (the image of God). Through the divine image, which is at the root of man, all men participate in the eternity of God. This resemblance is the basis and the definitive solidity of their being….

   

De De De De

Lubac Lubac Lubac Lubac

refers to “Buddhist compassion” and “Buddhist charity.” 1951: 27. 1951: 25. 1951: 36 – 37.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

207

In Catholic thought, the human being enjoys an enduring dignity because human personhood is a reflection of the transcendent personhood of God. Since this is the case, an inalienable dignity accrues to the human person. Buddhism, in contrast, seeks to deconstruct the reality of human personhood as an illusion or insubstantial construct (anātman). He writes, But in Buddhism, there is nothing of this. Since in the depths of his being there is no ontological solidity (solidité) deriving from a Creator; since he is nothing but a mass of component parts, with no inner unity, therefore there is nothing in the human being that can call for, or make possible, any ultimate love.²³

The Buddhist notion of a human being lacks the “unique foundation” enjoyed by the Christian conception of a human being as a persona created in the imago Dei and that “all the insufficiency, and in fact all the falsity of Buddhism comes in the final analysis from this.”²⁴ Here, de Lubac is putting his finger on a key difference separating Buddhism from Christianity. The Christian notion of the human being as a person must always be correlated with the transcendent personhood of God made elusively present in the one person of Jesus Christ who is both human and divine. In addition, de Lubac also recognizes that Buddhist thought exhibits its own correlation. The non-substantiality, or what de Lubac calls the absence of “ontological solidity,” of the human person corresponds to the non-substantiality and ephemeral character of what is ultimately real in Buddhist tradition, the dharmakāya. The “nonself” (anātman) is one of the three “marks of existence” and thus characteristic of all human beings because, like all other things, the human person is but a temporary construction of parts which are empty of substantial existence.

The Personhood of Amida Buddha Aspects du Bouddhisme was published in 1951, but the text is actually a compilation of materials de Lubac had been developing since he first began lecturing on Buddhism in the 1930s. The somewhat global assessment of Buddhism we find in Aspects does not reflect his later study of Pure Land Buddhism, especially Amida, published in 1955. What can be said of his response to the Buddhism of the Pure Land, especially the thought of Hōnen and Shinran, the two great masters of this form of Buddhism in Japan?  De Lubac 1951: 41.  De Lubac 1951: 53. Ducor 2008: 89 – 91.

208

James L. Fredericks

Reflecting on the days he spent in the bibliotèques of Paris in the early 1950s, de Lubac writes in his Memoires that Pure Land Buddhism was “a subject to which I was attached with love.”²⁵ Moreover, during these years in Paris, he came to realize that the thought of Hōnen and Shinran presented Christianity with a formidable opportunity “to examine some of the most profound spiritual problems from which some members at least of this generation have become distracted.”²⁶ Among these “profound spiritual problems” which no longer hold the attention of “this generation,” surely the question of faith must be included. For example, de Lubac expresses his special respect for the Jōdoshinshū branch of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism noting that “the great sect founded by Shinran is distinguished above all, we have seen, by its exclusive cult of Amida, the radicalism of its faith, its passionate negation of every kind, of every shadow of ‘self-power.’”²⁷ Here, I must ask what de Lubac might have understood by the “radicalism” of Shinran’s “faith.” To my knowledge, nowhere in his writings on Pure Land Buddhism does de Lubac use the term shinjin 信心, let alone reflect on it at any length. Shinjin is commonly translated into Western languages as “faith,” and de Lubac consistently speaks Shinran’s doctrine of “foi.”²⁸ This being the case, we cannot be certain that he is aware that, in Shinran’s case at least, the term shinjin is freighted with doctrinal subtleties that complicate his treatment of Jōdoshinshū teachings considerably. Reflecting his Christian and specifically Catholic background, de Lubac presumes that “faith”(foi) entails an encounter of two personae, the one divine, the other the personhood of the creature wounded by sin.²⁹ Shinran, in contrast to de Lubac’s presuppositions about faith, associates shinjin with the complex phenomenon of “hearing the Primordial Vow” (mon) which brings about the arising of the “mind of Amida” in the Pure Land practitioner.³⁰ The point to be taken here is that de Lubac is

 De Lubac, 1989: 32.  De Lubac 1989a: 32. This citation is classic de Lubac. Much of his writing on ecclesiology and the theology of grace was directed at the increasing secularization of Europe and the complicity of bad Catholic theology in unwittingly promoting this secularization.  De Lubac 1955: 269.  Moreover, de Lubac has been criticized for the lack of attention he gives to the Pure Land practice of “faith.” See Ducor 2008: 103 – 104.  The decades prior to the Council, the time when de Lubac was researching Pure Land Buddhism specifically, was a time of theological ferment in European Catholicism. Catholic theologians were rethinking Christian faith in terms of the psychology of personal encounter. See for example Schillebeeckx 1987.  See for example, Shinran’s use of the “fulfillment passage” in the Larger Pure Land Sutra. See CWS: 80, 111, 229, 296 – 297, 312, 474, 640.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

209

placing on Shinran an expectation about “faith” that arises out of his contemporary Catholic perspective, but is actually foreign to Shinran’s understanding of shinjin. In Amida, de Lubac first raises the issue of personhood, divine and human, by way of a discussion of artistic depictions of Amida. In Chapter eleven of Amida, de Lubac describes a Chinese fresco of Amida gathered with other buddhas and bodhisattvas in a dharma assembly in the Pure Land.³¹ Amida is preaching to the assembly. A quick comparison is made to Origen’s reflections on Christ instructing the saints in heaven after their deaths. Then de Lubac makes some comparisons with Christian art, including a mosaic of the glorified Christ in the church of Saint Pudenziana in Rome. In the mosaic, the resurrected Christ is enthroned between heaven and earth, in glory, surrounded by his Apostles.³² In comparing the two works of art, he observes that this “singular masterpiece” of Christian art “differs in style and composition” from the fresco of Amida in his Pure Land. Similarly, the figure of Amida and the figure of Christ differ in their meaning. Of Christ glorified, de Lubac comments, “we know the message of Christ, which is summarized in Christ himself.” As noted above, the personhood of Christ itself is the ultimate content of Christian revelation. But in regard to Amida preaching to those who have been reborn in the Pure Land, de Lubac writes, He [Amida] no longer applies himself to hold within him the mind of his listeners, he no longer tells them that the spirit of awakening is concentrated in the spirit of faith, he no longer asks them for an act of devoted trust in his person: that is all accomplished, and has borne its fruit. But they are not at the end for all that. Now that they are here assembled in his mystical school, he delivers to them a teaching whose object goes beyond him. He makes way for the Doctrine.³³

In this passage, de Lubac is trying to imagine what is very little discussed among contemporary Pure Land scholars and ministers today: the activity of Amida within the Pure Land and what happens after our rebirth there. In this regard, de Lubac is focussing on the earliest teachings of the Pure Land tradition. Amida’s “Pure Land in the West” (Sukhāvatī) is a place where there are no defilements (kleśa). Therefore, once we are reborn there, becoming a fully enlightened Buddha will be effortless. In a footnote, de Lubac suggests that we think of Ami-

 De Lubac 1955: 263 – 264. Presumably, de Lubac saw a facsimile of this fresco at the Musée Guimet.  For images, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Pudenziana  De Lubac 1955: 264.

210

James L. Fredericks

da’s Pure Land as a kind of “purgatory,” to the extent that it is, to be precise, only a penultimate goal.³⁴ Commenting on the Chinese fresco, de Lubac observes that, in the Pure Land, where all defilements are overcome by Amida’s infinite merit, Amida no longer invites us to entrust ourselves to his compassion. Rather, he instructs us in the profundities of the dharma itself. This comment, tellingly, leads de Lubac back to the question of Amida’s personhood. He notes that, for the “Amidist” with philosophical training, Amida is not a savior-figure, but a “manifestation of the absolute.” This is not the case for an ordinary believer, who continues to look on Amida as a person, not a manifestation in form of the impersonal transcendent absolute. In contrast, the educated practitioner, when regarding “paradise and its Buddha, does not distinguish one from the other.” Citing a certain Bonze Mochizuki, de Lubac reminds his readers that “The Paradise of the Pure Land is Amida himself, who is essence, time, space, absolute wisdom.”³⁵ But following this emphasis on difference, de Lubac goes on to make several positive correlations with Christian tradition in regard to Pure Land Buddhism’s identification of Amida and the Pure Land. Turning to the neo-Platonic theology of Alexandria, he refers to Origen’s notion of the autobasileia, in which the Kingdom of God is identified with Christ as a persona. He also mentions Clement’s Stromites to the effect that “The Savior is our gnosis and spiritual Paradise.” He also turns to medieval mysticism, mentioning Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293 – 1381), who wrote, “All Heaven is found in Christ, because Christ is himself this Kingdom of which He is King, himself the Tree of Life, himself the living Paradise,” and Hadewijch, a Flemish mystic of the 13th century, who wrote, “Christ enthroned in the heavens is one with those heavens.³⁶ Proceeding dialectically, de Lubac then observes that these similarities hold within them deeper differences. In Christian tradition, heaven is absorbed into God, not the reverse. The Christian notion of personhood cannot be subsumed into anything impersonal. This point will eventually bring with it important repercussions for de Lubac’s understanding of the personhood of Amida. To make his point about Christianity, he cites Nicetas Stethatos, the Byzantine mystic of the 11th century, who preached that the “paradise of God” has been taken up into the “God of paradise.” For Buddhism, at least in de Lubac’s reading of the tradition, the reverse is the case. “It is the Buddha who, in so far as being

 See De Lubac 1955: 263, footnote 48. His comparison is rather misleading. Unlike Purgatory, the Pure Land is not a place of punishment or even a place for the expiation of sin.  See de Lubac 1955: 265. Note 53.  De Lubac 1955: 265.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

211

distinct and personal, is absorbed into an Absolute, which transcends all knowledge….” The “Dharma King” (dharmarāja) is absorbed into the realm or sphere of the dharma (dharmadhātu).³⁷ In support of this interpretation, de Lubac refers us to several ancient Buddhist sources. He also cites a Japanese Buddhist art historian, Noritake Tsuda, who holds that “ordinary folk (le populaire) honor Amida as the Lord of the Pure Land, situated far away in the West, while those not content with such fantasies understand that the personhood (personnage) of Amida is but a symbol or the incarnation of Light and Eternity.” In Christianity, in contrast, “the personalism of the Christian faith is affirmed and triumphs.”³⁸ For the Christian, Eternity is one of the names of God, like Truth or Justice; for the Buddhist, and for the Amidist himself, it does not turn out thus, even when these names appear interchangeable with the name of a Buddha: for the meaning of the relationship is otherwise. “No original Buddha! No unique Buddha!” This cry of Asanga, the leader of the mystical Yogacara school, is that of Amidism as well. “No creator God!” Amidism repeats after its two Indian patriarchs, Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu.³⁹

De Lubac is interpreting Buddhist tradition propelled by presuppositions that go very deep into Christian religious discourse. The views he is expressing at this point in his treatment of Buddhism very much reflects the centrality of personhood for Christianity. Beyond all metaphysical and ontological construals of Being, the God of Christian theism is a transcendent “Thou.” De Lubac eventually draws these comparisons and reflections to a conclusion, That is why, when he pronounces the sacred name (nembutsu), the inner attitude of the thoughtful Amidist is not the same as that of the Christian in prayer, and the words of prayer and invocation, which we have used like everybody else, express this attitude only in a very approximate manner.⁴⁰

In a footnote, de Lubac quotes Hajime Nakamura as follows, “The authentic devotee of the nembutsu does not pray: he expresses his joy and gratitude. To pray to Amida would be contrary to his Vow.” He also quotes “Bonze” Kemyo Kawasaki, “The Buddhist asks nothing of Buddha: his prayer is an act of faith, of homage, an effort to purify his consciousness . . .”⁴¹ These comments are, for de

    

De Lubac 1955: 266. De Lubac 1955: 266. De Lubac 1955: 266 – 267. De Lubac 1955: 267. See De Lubac 1955: 267. Note 64.

212

James L. Fredericks

Lubac, in keeping with the status of Amida as a manifestation of the Pure Land itself. De Lubac summarizes the discussion of the personhood of Amida in chapter eleven of Amida by saying, “We have to do with two spiritual universes which do not meet.”⁴² King Dharmakara may be a person like ourselves. But ultimately, Amida is a “personification of a cosmic principle” in which his personhood is “not sublimated but abolished.”⁴³ And this leads to a more far-reaching conclusion: “Thus the fact imposes itself on us: to the degree that we enter into the underlying doctrine of Amidism, we see disappearing into it all truly essential differences from the other forms of Mahāyāna, while the gap between Christianity and it becomes wider in proportion.”⁴⁴ Facile comparisons of Shinran’s Pure Land teachings with certain Protestant forms of Christianity are too facile. There are fundamental differences separating Buddhism and Christianity. This is amply demonstrated by de Lubac’s treatment of the question of personhood.

Amida and the Doctrine of the Three Bodies In chapter eleven of Amida, de Lubac enters into the question of the personhood of Amida by means of an inquiry into “faith” Then, once again reflecting his Christian theological presuppositions, he moves immediately to the question of “the true relationship between Amida and his faithful”⁴⁵ concluding that this relationship is not a properly interpersonal relationship because Amida is not truly a persona. In the following chapter of Amida, de Lubac raises the question of Amida’s personhood again, this time by means of an inquiry into the status of Amida in accordance with the doctrine of the three bodies of the Buddha (trikāya). As was the case with his understanding of Pure Land “faith,” de Lubac’s understanding of this doctrine, while impressive, is not without problems.⁴⁶ Briefly stated, the teaching is as follows. Buddhas have three “bodies.” The nirmanakāya, or appearance body [ōjin 応身], is the physical body of a Buddha manifesting within space and time as a visible form. The saṃbhogakāya, or the bliss body of the Buddha [hōjin 報身], reflects the rise of devotional movements dedicated to various savior Buddhas, such as Kannon Bosatsu and Jizō. Amida is     

De De De De De

Lubac Lubac Lubac Lubac Lubac

1955: 1955: 1955: 1955: 1955:

267. 267. 268. 267 ff. 281.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

213

also an example of saṃbhogakāya. The third body of the Buddha is the dharmakāya, or dharma body [hōsshin 法身] of the Buddha. This body of the Buddha is the ultimate reality of all things as empty of enduring substance. As such, it is inconceivable and unimaginable. The dharmakāya is a “body” that is formless and unconditioned. Strictly speaking, it is beyond the duality of the personal and impersonal, but it certainly is not a transcendent Thou as with the God of Christian theism. Citing the Hōbōgirin, de Lubac notes that the principle Pure Land patriarchs (docteurs) appeal to this teaching to clarify the status of Amida. These patriarchs have established a “hierarchy”⁴⁷ among the three bodies. The saṃbhogakāya and the nirmāṇakāya are manifestations in form of the formless dharmakāya. In commenting on this “hierarchy,” de Lubac does not seem to understand that the dharmakāya, as formless, has no independent existence apart from the world of form, in keeping with the dialectics of the Prajñāpāramitā literature. The use of the term “hierarchy” would seem to indicate that he thinks of dharmakāya as a transcendent absolute, as in “the One beyond being” (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας) of the neo-Platonists. This will not be without consequences for his overall criticism of Pure Land teachings on the status of Amida as a persona and consequently on the relationship between Amida and his devotees. In chapter twelve of Amida, after introducing the doctrine of the three bodies, de Lubac reflects on Shinran’s appropriation of Tánluán’s view of the dharmakāya. Tánluán distinguishes between dharmakāya as emptiness (what de Lubac refers to as le corps d’essence) and dharmakāya as skilful means (le corps de moyen).⁴⁸ As skilful means, the dharmakāya, which is perfect compassion as well as complete emptiness, has the power to take form, in fact, any form, in order to benefit sentient beings, although de Lubac does not develop Tánluán’s point beyond stating the distinction between dharmakāya as emptiness and dharmakāya as skilful means. Following the Chinese patriarch, Shinran teaches that, ultimately speaking, Amida is the dharmakāya as skilful means manifest as saṃbhogakāya, a celestial Buddha, for our benefit. De Lubac is careful to note that Shinran emphasizes the skilful means aspect of the dharmakāya “to the highest degree possible” without losing “the invisibility and ineffability of the dharmakāya considered as emptiness [essence].”⁴⁹

 De Lubac 1955: 280.  De Lubac 1955: 280. De Lubac’s footnote directs the reader to the Hobogirin.  De Lubac’s use of the French word essence is problematic. For better or worse, I have translated it as “emptiness” in conformity with what is today a universally accepted translation of kū 空. What de Lubac might have understood by the term corps de essence is unclear.

214

James L. Fredericks

Following this, de Lubac makes what is for him a decisive point: “At the moment in which he [Amida] rejoins the dharmakāya, he ceases to be the personal Amida and all his particularities disappear.”⁵⁰ Therefore, in Pure Land Buddhism, The sphere of the personal never exceeds the sphere of sensible appearance. This is as true of the personality of the Buddhas as it is of our own feeble personhood and it is as true of Amitabha Buddha as it is of the others [Buddhas].⁵¹

The personhood of Amida is merely apparent. De Lubac could have added that the personhood of Amida is merely provisional, although this also brings with it difficulties. In effect, de Lubac thinks of Pure Land teachings on Amida as a kind of Docetism. In its various versions, Docetism is an early Christian heresy regarding the person of Jesus Christ which held that Christ merely appeared (dokein) to be human, when in fact, he was divine and therefore could not be human. Most importantly, Christ only appeared to die on the cross. This teaching was condemned because, among other things, it effectively rejects the humanity of Jesus as the symbolic or sacramental mediation of the divine presence within the finitudes of space and time. And analogously, Amida only appears to be a person, when in reality this personhood is but the “skilful means” of the dharmakāya taking form as saṃbhogakāya. ⁵² Ultimately, the personhood of Amida is absorbed by the formlessness of the dharmakāya, which de Lubac understands as a “trans-categorical beyond,” a term suggests by Bernard Nitsche in this volume.

Conclusion: Amida and Christian Theism In his last lecture on Buddhism, entitled “Foi et dévotion dans l’amidisme,”⁵³ de Lubac pulls away from the details of specific texts to offer an overall assessment of Pure Land Buddhism and Christianity. In a passing remark, he also offers a critique of Pure Land Buddhism that he did not include in his earlier publications. Toward the end of his lecture, he notes,

   

De Lubac 1955: 281. De Lubac 1955: 279. De Lubac raised the issue of Docetism initially in De Lubac 1951: 129 – 130. Anthologized in: De Lubac 1989b.

The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person

215

The personalism of the Christian faith asserts itself to the final climax of mystical ardor and thought: Eternity, like Truth and Justice, is one of God’s names. God is a mystery of supreme density; he is the invaluable nucleus; He is the hidden Being par excellence, because he is the personal being par excellence – and, for the one who approaches him, he is the personalizing being.

In the final comment in this citation, in which de Lubac speaks of God as “the personalizing being,” de Lubac has provided yet another example of the correlation between the Christian affirmation of God as a persona and the Christian vision of what it means to be a human person. The God of Christian faith is an elusive presence, a Deus absconditus atquae presens, or, as de Lubac writes, a “hidden Being.” This is because “he is the personal being par excellence.” And to this, de Lubac adds what may be the most valuable insight into Christian faith he comes to as a result of his study of Buddhism. De Lubac realizes that the one who approaches this transcendent persona in faith undergoes a radical restoration: our personhood, the image and likeness of God, has been wounded by sin and is now being restored through the grace of Christ. Redemption is a restoration of our original personhood within us by the God who is not only “a mystery of supreme density” but also the “personalizing being.” Shinran and the other docteurs of the Pure Land lineage did not envisage shinjin, and rebirth in the Pure Land as a restoration of a primordial personhood lost in the Fall into sin. In regard to the personhood of God and Amida, at least, the Christian and Pure Land paths differ in a significant way. The encounter with Amida in the working of shinjin is no different than the arising of the emptiness of the self (anātman) as proclaimed by the Buddhist tradition from its very beginnings.

Bibliography Nostra Aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Proclaimed by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965. See: http://www.vatican. va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/ documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-ae tate_en.html. CWS: The Collected Works of Shinran. Dennis Hirota (transl.), The Collected Works of Shinran. Kyoto: Jōdo Shinshū Hongwanji-ha 1997. De Lubac 1989a. Henri de Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits. Namur: Culture et Vérité 1989. De Lubac 1989b. Id., Theological Fragments. San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1989. De Lubac 1951. Id., Aspects du Bouddhisme I. Paris: Éditions de Seuil 1951. De Lubac 1952. Id., La Rencontre du Bouddhisme et de l’Occident. Paris: Aubier 1952. De Lubac 1955. Id., Aspects du Bouddhisme II. Paris: Éditions de Seuil 1955. De Lubac 1989. Id., Theological Fragments. San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1989.

216

James L. Fredericks

Demiéville 1929. Paul Demiéville [Ed.], Hōbōgirin: Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Bouddhisme. Tokyo: Maison franco-japonaise 1929. Ducor 2008. Jérôme Ducor, Les Écrits d’Henri de Lubac sur le Bouddhisme. Les Cahiers Bouddiques 5 (2008): 81 – 110. Miles 1996. Jack Miles, God. A Biography. New York: Vintage 1996. Schillebeeckx 1987. Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God. New York: Sheed and Ward 1987. Terrien 1978. Samuel Terrien, The Elusive Presence. San Francisco: Harper and Row 1978. Valensin/Solages/de Lubac 1972. Auguste Valensin, Bruno de Solages, Henri de Lubac, Lettres intimes de Teilhard de chardin. Paris: Aubier Montaigne 1972.

Joseph S. O’Leary

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality The project of the twin conference held at the Katholische Akademie Schwerte, in June–July 2016 was an instance of comparative theology on the grandest scale, in that it addressed Buddhism and Hinduism, in their entirety, from the vantage of basic questions of Christian theology, namely, the questions of divine transcendence, divine personality, and monotheism. It is by no means guaranteed that these are the most helpful questions to put to the Eastern traditions, but they well reflect the characteristic worries of Christians in dialogue with them. As the discipline of comparative theology develops, it may be expected that such Christian questions will increasingly be sublated into larger ones, reflecting the current evolution of religious consciousness. I believe that we are entering a new regime of truth in which the agenda is set not by any given tradition but by the topology of interreligious space. Each traditional horizon is judged and located in terms of that emergent space. While each tradition will continue to be faithful to its historical identity and claims, it will also bend to the new interreligious economy, just as religions were obliged in recent centuries to bend to the pressures of modernity (notably in its undeniable scientific aspects from Galileo to Darwin). This interreligious space was envisioned by a minority of thinkers beginning with the “Oriental Renaissance” of the early nineteenth century, and became a more substantial presence in the mid-twentieth century, when the Christian response was an attempt to confine it within the horizons of a “theology of religions” (in the age of Vatican II). Today, religious pluralism has become not only normal but normative – not only de facto but de iure, to use the terms of the Vatican’s effort to resist this development, in Dominus Iesus (2000). The reshaping of all religious horizons in the space created by the contemporary encounter of religions (an encounter facilitated by current scientific, historical, anthropological, and philosophical awareness) has precipitated a situation on which traditional theologies are struggling to catch up. Comparative theology is the effort to bring theology into harmony with this situation. It opens up to new examination the question of the nature of religious truth.¹

 See O’Leary 1996. O’Leary 2015. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-016

218

Joseph S. O’Leary

Many object that this mutation in religious culture is a formula for reckless relativism and voids traditional dogmatic claims of all substance.² It certainly implies the necessity of conceiving a new way of presenting those claims. Since religious claims always imply a reference to the ultimate or transcendent, to something that cannot be mastered by normal human conceptuality, they do not lend themselves to any simple black-and-white doxographic oppositions. In asserting that these claims are true, we must also bear in mind the subtlety of the notion of truth as well. Full realization of both these aspects places us in a new relationship with our religious partners, as we share a mature, seasoned awareness of where our religions have come from and what future paths for their development are opening up. Within this broad awareness there is plenty of room for difference and debate, but in the style that has already been tried out in intraChristian ecumenism, where theological flexibility allows the emphasis to fall much more on what unites than on what divides. As the dialogue of traditions matures, what is most vital in each tradition should come to the fore with new persuasiveness, while matters lower on the “hierarchy of truths” recede. That is why I am confident that theologians who jettison such central doctrines as the Trinity and the Incarnation will find themselves drawn back to a new appropriation of these doctrines as their authentic bearing becomes clearer in the process of comparative theology. Naturally, the vast range of fundamentalist reactions, both hard and soft, will be with us for a long time. But encouragement for the educational task this entails can be found in the words of Pope Francis, who sees all of us, be we Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist, as moving together in fraternal solidarity to the Kingdom of God. He said this at the Casa Santa Marta on 10 October 2014 at a memorial for his friend the evangelical Anglican bishop Tony Palmer, wryly interjecting “this is a theological disaster!”

Problems with a Personal God Christians believe in the personal transcendent God of monotheism, defined by Vatican I in the following terms: One true and living God, creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intelligence and will and every perfection, who, while being one singular, utterly simple, and incommunicable spiritual substance, is to be preached as really and essentially distinct from the world, most blessed in himself

 See Magliola 2014, reviewed by O′Leary 2015 and D’Arcy May 2015.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

219

and from himself, and ineffably exalted above everything that exists or can be conceived beside him.³

It is unsurprising that John Henry Newman wrote: Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and borne in upon our minds with most power.⁴

Theologians seek to overcome the metaphysical aspect of this dogma by stepping back to the biblical and experiential events or phenomena underlying it, and they often balk at such tenets as “utterly simple,” which seems to owe more to Plotinus than to Scripture, or the Aristotelian “most blessed in himself.” Nonetheless it is evident that for Christians the reality of an infinite transcendent God is borne in upon the mind with great power. That power is increased by the personal character of this God, which also adds to the discomfort or dissatisfaction many feel with monotheism today.⁵ Buddhism and Hinduism, in contrast, believe in an impersonal absolute, which does not transcend the world as its creator but is rather present as the ultimate “unconditioned” reality. One may envisage various ways of resolving the clash between the stark emphasis on transcendence in the three monotheisms on the one side and the all-enveloping immanentist mentalities of the Eastern religions on the other. Some rewrite metaphysics to make God an immanent being, which empties itself to become world, or which is identified with the inner creative process of the universe – indeed the possibilities of revisionist metaphysics are endless, but they leave untried the Heideggerian path of overcoming metaphysics by stepping back to its ground. Another possibility is to stress that all our language about God belongs to the conventional rather than the ultimate level. While the conventions for constructing ultimate reality in Buddhism and Hinduism differ radically from those of Judaism and Christianity, the clash between them is that between two human traditions, both of which validly and effectively open up to ultimate gracious reality in different styles. Refutation

 Denzinger 1954: 491. Sancta catholica apostolica Romana Ecclesia credit et confitetur, unum esse Deum verum et vivum, creatorem ac Dominum coeli et terrae, omnipotentem, aeternum, immensum, incomprehensibilem, intellectu ac voluntate omnique perfectione infinitum; qui cum sit una singularis, simplex omnino et incommutabilis substantia spiritualis, praedicandus est re et essentia a mundo distinctus, in se et ex se beatissimus, et super omnia, qui praeter ipsum sunt et concipi possunt, ineffabiliter excelsus.  Newman 1994: 215.  See Sloterdijk 2007: 179. On the problem of thinking of a transcendent principle as a person see O’Leary 2011: 117– 29.

220

Joseph S. O’Leary

of one by the other is not feasible, nor is a fusion of the two; rather the tension of their difference must be kept open, so that each can be challenged and stretched by the other. Refutation and fusion are impossible, for great religious traditions are not a congeries of propositions that can be compared in some neutral, objective space. Rather as total economies of meaning, opening up the mind to ultimate mystery, they are established, in their dynamic unfolding, at such a depth, humanly, spiritually, metaphysically, and historically, that one cannot excavate from them isolated theses to be set in clear opposition. For instance, if one picks the thesis, “God is personal,” one discovers that it is a thesis that makes no sense except within the vast web of biblical and church tradition, and that its sense cannot be resumed in cut-and-dried propositions. I was asked to speak on (divine) personality in light of the tetralemma, a logical figure that plays an important role in the Madhyamaka school. But a tetralemma can deal only with the propositions it orders and reviews. The personal God-language of scripture and tradition is more event than proposition; to address God as “Thou” is already to step outside the world of discourse that can be parsed in terms of propositions. As an exercise, the attempt to apply the tetralemma to theses on divine personality or impersonality may yield no more than inane scholastic pirouettes. Yet in Nāgārjuna the tetralemma clears the ground for apprehension of ultimate reality as empty, so perhaps it can serve equally to put our God-propositions in their place and free us for encounter with the living God. Lavoisier’s famous reply to Napoleon, “Sire, I don’t need that hypothesis” is one that we meet on the plane of religion itself when dialoguing with Buddhists (or Daoists or Confucianists). The hypothesis of God simply does not arise. At least in East Asian Buddhism transcendence in anything like the sense it has in connection with the creator God or supreme being of Christian belief is not an issue at all, and for a personal divinity we can look no further than the characterization of the five “transcendent Buddhas” (skt. dhyāni buddhas) of Vajrayāna and Shingon Buddhism (Vairocana, Akṣobhya, Amitābha, Ratnasaṃbhava, and Amogasiddhi) in their personal character as embodiments of the dharmabody (skt. dharmakāya), the ultimate essence of buddhahood. But even if Vairocana embodies and represents that absolute truth and liberating reality, free of duality and at once transcendent and immanent, which constitutes the essence of all Buddhas,⁶

sophisticated Buddhist reflection will not work in the direction of confirming a transcendent, personal, monotheistic status for this figure, but rather in the di Nitsche 2015: 136.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

221

rection of explaining that personal aspect as a “skilful means” (skt. upāya). A personal God is just as remote an idea for Buddhists as a transcendent one. In any case, before asking about divine personality and transcendence in other traditions, we need to consider the plurality of conceptions of these within our own tradition, and the tensions that attach to them. Here the application of Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma can sound the hollow spots in our language of God as person, checking to see what can validly survive when the impossibilities of most of what we say about God have been brought to light. Within monotheistic discourses divine personality is far from being an unproblematic matter, and in wrestling with its enigmas one might easily find oneself developing tetralemmas, to the effect that God is personal, impersonal, both, and neither, or neither personal, impersonal, both, nor neither. Tetralemmas have historically been a favoured weapon of sceptics, and they can subject our theological notions to quite a rattling. Two other Buddhist notions, those of conventional truth and of skilful means, can come to the help of a troubled Christian discourse, putting together again what tetralemmas rip apart, and teaching us how to reassess and redeploy our personalistic language. Apart from religious ideas, we can analyze closely and concretely the movement of transcending at the level of self, other, and world: the self in its existential facticity, as a being “condemned to freedom” (Sartre), is obliged to actualize itself in self-decision, or fail to do so in a flight from decision; the face of the other calls me to generous response, and can always be met by a selfish avoidance; as to the world, things, the cosmos, I can open up to them in their being or shut them out through a materialistic or technocratic reductionism that remains forgetful of being or blind to being. In matters of ultimate concern our thought is less at ease. Should the self embrace an ultimate self as its fulfilment, or does that ultimate reality annul the self, or is the self from the start, including the divine self of Brahman or of the One, a delusive formation to be transcended in impersonal nirvāṇa? Feuerbach would say that the God who declares “I am who am” (Ex 3: 14) is no more than a massive projection of the human ego. Is the other who calls on my compassion, puncturing narcissistic self-enclosure, the truer image and likeness of a personal God, whom I can address as Thou? But if the other is as illusory and empty as I am, just an occasion for the exercise of compassion, in view of empty wisdom, then the supreme reality cannot be Thou or a Person at all. Again, is the ultimate reality the perfection of being, being itself subsisting (ipsum esse subsistens), manifest in the world as its supreme law? Or is the world itself delusive, a flimsy dependently arising fabric, and even in Christian terms destined to vanish in a final conflagration? Thus Buddhism troubles even

222

Joseph S. O’Leary

our basic orientation to self, other, and world, and locates the object of ultimate concern very elusively. If personhood is favoured or identified within the kataphatic approach, the possibility and legitimacy of referring to a person according to the grammatical roles of the speaker (I: protopersonal; Thou: hyperpersonal; He/She/It: transpersonal) can be put to the test. If, however, the impersonal side is preferred, the question emerges of whether a further differentiation needs to be made. Under the term ‘impersonal,’ motifs of nature (e. g. source, light, breath) and abstract concepts (e. g. energy field, abyss) can frequently be differentiated.⁷

Applying these remarks of Bernard Nitsche to Mahāyāna Buddhism I come up with the surprising result that Buddhism is neither protopersonal, hyperpersonal, nor transpersonal. All beings are treated equally, all are lacking in substantive being, they are “empty” (skt. śūnya) and “non-self,” (skt. anātman) and buddhas and bodhisattvas apply their benevolence and compassion equally and non-discriminatingly to them all. The form of “personality” that emerges most strongly here is the “we” of the Saṅgha. All buddha-fields are creations of community. As John Makransky states, the opening question of the Vimalakīrti sutra on buddha fields provides a kind of ecclesiological organizing theme of the sutra that goes hand in hand with the theme of non-duality: the understanding that one’s awakening to non-dual liberation cannot be separated from the awakening of multitudes of other beings, and that this reality must be worked out relationally in countless concrete actions of compassionate responsiveness and confrontation, which are then depicted in numerous dialogues and encounters throughout the rest of the sutra.⁸

The suspension of fixed ideas of personal identity liberates one into a universal community with all living beings, and enables one to interact with them healingly. Makransky’s challenge to reread the sūtra in a personalist key might dilute the paradoxical force of the non-self doctrine. It might also warrant a more personal reading of ultimate reality in Mahāyāna. “Would you agree,” Nitsche asks, “that there is a correlation between the ultimate dimension and human self-understanding in self-relation, social relations and world relations?”⁹ Let’s say there is a consubstantiality of Buddha, dharma and saṅgha, so that the Buddhist wisdom, enacted in compassion, produces a glowing buddha-field  Bernhard Nitsche, text distributed to conference participants after the conference, and referred to as “Dimensions of Human Existence”, printed in this volume pp. 5 – 8 for the quoted passage, cf. ibid., p. 5. “Dimensions”.  Makransky 2017: 438 – 9.  Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 8.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

223

which takes the form of a perfect community, in mutual interdependence, disencumbered of rigid conceptions of self and other. A differentiation of self-, social and world relations is eschewed.

Ultimate and Conventional Religion is rooted in a reaching out of the human spirit to a region of ultimate concern, and it is a very murky matter until concretized in some historical formation. Even when ensconced in a well-formed religion, such as some branch of Christianity or Buddhism, the human spirit may still question after ultimacy in a way that unsettles the conventions of the concrete tradition, whether in a contemplative way or in an intellectual one. The tensions thus generated are what keep theology going and are also a motor for the spiritual renewal of traditions. Established religions will give definition to the object of ultimate concern. But the ultimacy of the object unsettles any definition, showing it up as limited and conventional. The very personalized and anthropomorphic God of Jewish, Islamic and Christian Scripture comes into tension with the demands of ultimacy when efforts to define his attributes make “him” increasingly less anthropomorphic and make his personal nature seem problematic. Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, infinity, and utter simplicity, and the identity of all these attributes with the divine being itself, which is being in its fulness and the ground of all finite being, are qualities difficult to square with the idea of God as a Person. Here is a tension within our thinking of God that lies deeper than the Athens-Jerusalem tension. Should we go further along the path of thinking of the divine in impersonal categories? Could we redefine divinity as a nirvāṇic ultimate reality, fundamentally empty of all the qualities we spontaneously project onto it? The One of Plotinus and its avatars within Christian theology, and the Brahman without qualities (skt. nirguṇa brahman) in Vedānta provide ample basis for such a redefinition. They exemplify an amphibology between the metaphysical (doctrines of divine simplicity, ineffability, infinity, and so on) and the phenomenological (descriptions of the divine as apprehended in mystical or contemplative awareness). In the study of religion¹⁰ the phenomenological has taken the upper hand. Thanks to Kant and phenomenology, we are less prone to inquire into the ontological thing in itself behind the phenomenon, but prefer to remain with the phenomenon itself as a sufficient delivery of the real that cannot be effectively

 Examples here are the approaches of Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade.

224

Joseph S. O’Leary

supplemented with further conceptual or deductive ratiocination. Even Christian theology is less prone to define God in himself than to say that God is found only in the event of revelation (Barth, Bultmann) and the “divine milieu” (Teilhard de Chardin) this event discloses. Within that phenomenology of divine presence, the status of its personal dimension is called in question: should it be demythologized or treated as a “skilful means” as we reach back, with Eckhart, to a godhead behind the personal God (as Creator or Trinity)? The highly personal language of Scripture could then be seen as a set of expedient devices for opening the mind to the nirvaṇic dimension. But any proposal of finding a functional equivalence between nirvāṇa and God stumbles on the flimsy and conventional status of our talk on both of these. It should be borne in mind that the concept of the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) is not itself unconditioned. All such concepts are makeshift constructs for pointing to something that is also attested experientially but that eludes definitive formulation. The unconditioned is beyond historical, linguistic, and cultural pluralism and perspectivism, but it is attested, or indicated, across a great plurality of historical languages, and cannot be invoked to suspend the play of these languages. Nirvāṇa is “not dependent on the chain of dependent origination and thus is not subjected to perishability,”¹¹ but our languages constructed in view of attesting this reality are dependently co-arisen and are perishable. They are formed and perish in scholastic theological controversy; a given language may hold prominent authority for centuries or even for as long as a religion lasts, but even this apparent stability masks the great pluralism of the ongoing work of interpretation that places the old language in a new way in each successive age. The very concept of God is subject to this relativizing impact of linguistic reality. (If all our language is conventional, I am asked,¹² how can we speak of ultimate reality at all? My answer is that ultimacy is an adjectival quality of certain phenomena, which simply manifest themselves; the phenomena are borne in upon our mind with power, though any language we use of them is a historically situated convention.) Moreover, the early Buddhist statements about the transcendent and unconditioned nature of nirvāṇa, somewhat like the definitions of divine transcendence put forward by Vatican I, are at a distance from the phenomenological ground of the Buddhist tradition. Indeed, according to Eviatar Shulman, even such basic tenets as non-self, dependent origination, and the Four Noble Truths, are later theoretical crystalizations, which “originate from one fundamental vi-

 Cf. Nitsche, Prepatory Notes of the Conference. See also Schmidt-Leukel 2016: 170 – 79.  Rivera 2017: 350.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

225

sion that focusses on the arising and passing away of conditioned, mental events,”¹³ and like all such formations they bring the risk of distortion and forgetting. Nitsche observes that nirvāṇa for early Buddhism “marks a space of otherness of death-less life, which is different from earthly reality of suffering and as ultimate reality signifies final life and final happiness” opposed to the world of suffering and impermanence as “unique absolute reality (skt. paramaṃ ariyasaccaṃ ).”¹⁴ It retains this status in Mahāyāna Buddhism, but with the amazing twist that saṃsāra itself, rightly viewed, is empty just as nirvāṇa is. Ultimacy attaches then less to a transcendent nirvāṇa than to the empty thusness (skt. tathatā) of this saṃsaric world, so that nirvāṇa becomes an immanent presence, still unconditioned, ineffable, inconceivable, yet more vividly present and close at hand. This overcomes the dualistic-sounding texts in the Pāli Canon on “deathless” nirvāṇa, which offer more encouragement to those seeking a transcendent ultimate reality in Buddhism. The notion of nirvāṇa tends to be played down in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, or to be transformed into more immanentist notions such as satori, or universal buddha-nature.

Recourse to the Tetralemma As we try to raise our notion of a personal God to a nirvāṇic level of awareness, we may find ourselves floundering in the language of negative theology. If we are of a logical cast of mind, we may attempt to sort out our thinking by having recourse to the tetralemma. This systematic arrangement of possible positions seems to have emerged independently and spontaneously in ancient India and ancient Greece, two cultures with a keen interest in abstract logic. After asking “is God a person?” and “is God not a person?” one’s discontent with these unsatisfactory questions may prompt one to play with the further questions, “is God both?” and “is God neither?” Is this mere idle cogitation, in the absence of any substantial insight? Desultory deployment of tetralemmas is liable merely to undercut the conviction with which we use any of the propositions canvassed. Tetralemmas work well only when we clearly define each of their “horns”; they are not in themselves arguments, but rather serve to arrange arguments and to ensure their exhaustiveness.

 Shulman 2014: xiv.  Cf., Nitsche, Prepatory Notes of the Conference.

226

Joseph S. O’Leary

The actual arguments that Nā gā rjuna deploys against self-existence (skt. svabhāva) often seem jejune and sophistical, and it is not clear how they might be carried over to refutations of substantialist conceptions of divine being, presence, or personhood. One is the argument from the “three times”: a goer cannot exist, because he does not exist on the path that has been traversed or the path that has yet to be traversed, and the present path has no existence apart from the other two. A cause cannot produce an effect after it has ceased to be, but neither can it be simultaneous with the effect, nor can the effect come into being independently of or prior to the cause (MMK [=Mūlamadhyamakakārikā] 20. 6 – 15).¹⁵ Again, “if the cause is empty of the effect, how will it produce the effect. If the cause is not empty of the effect, how will it produce the effect?” (20. 16). Here the argument moves from time to the plane of logical relations of dependence. Causal relations cannot occur either if there is unity or if there is separateness of cause and effect (20. 19 – 20). Mutual implication is another argument: there is no goer without the act of going (or no father without a son), so the goer cannot be established as having independent existence. The mutual implication may be that between two notions, such as North and South. Thus, present and future do not exist since they depend on the past (MMK 19. 1– 3). Likewise one could develop an argument along the same lines in order to demonstrate a problem with other such triads: best, worst, and middling, for instance, and singularity, duality, and plurality. Buddhapā lita adds that the same reasoning would undermine the real existence of such pairs as near and far, earlier and later, cause and effect, and so forth.¹⁶ Causes and effects are both notionally and existentially dependent on one another. They therefore cannot exist from their own side, irrespective of the existence of one another. Moreover, they also depend for their existence on us, because it is our cognitive act of cutting up the world of phenomena in the first place which creates the particular assembly of objects that constitutes a causal field, which then in turn gives rise to the notions of cause and effect. This entails that the causal field, cause and effect are empty of svabhāva.“¹⁷

More elaborate is the fivefold analysis exemplified by MMK 10. 14: “Fire is not in fuel, fire is not elsewhere than where fuel is, fire does not possess fuel, fuel is not in fire, and fire is not in fuel.” and by 22. 1: “The Tathā gata is neither identical with the skandhas nor distinct from the skandhas; the skandhas are not in him

 For the following translation of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā see Siderits/Katsura 2013.  Siderits/Katsura 2013: 210.  Westerhoff 2009: 98.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

227

nor is he in them; he does not exist possessing the skandhas. What Tathā gata, then, is there?” Śaṅkara, who was familiar with Madhyamaka, was unfazed by such arguments. Brahman was quite beyond the world of mutual implication that they presuppose (just as nirvāṇa is in Buddhism). The scholastic tenet that though finite beings depend utterly on the Creator, he has no “real relation” to them likewise exempts God from a reference to something other than himself that would make him vulnerable to the sort of arguments Nāgārjuna marshals. However, the notion of God as a Person may be exposed to these arguments, since a Thou must imply a relation to another. The tetralemma is not an argumentative weapon of this kind but proceeds at a meta-level, surveying all possibilities. The concrete argument against each of the possibilities has to be provided. Thus MMK 25 provides arguments against nirvāṇ a as an existent (4– 7), an absence (8 – 10), both (11– 14), and neither (15 – 16). The tetralemma, in its negative guise, assures the exhaustivity of the negation, in that arguments against all four possibilities have been found. In its rare positive guises it can be seen as celebrating the variety and fulness of the Buddha’s teaching devices. Note that the tetralemma on nirvāṇ a does not abolish it but rather brings out its transcendent mode of reality and presence. Can such arguments be brought to bear on God with similar effect, that it, as showing various series of ways in which God cannot be conceived, so as to allow the true mode of divine presence to emerge? Notice that tetralemmas involve logical contraries. The second of the four lemmas must be the apparent logical contradictory of the first. Otherwise the tetralemma would lack bite altogether – as if one were to say, “sometimes I wear white, sometimes red, sometimes both, and sometimes neither.” The third and fourth members play with the danger of a breakdown of classical logic – with the idea that something may be both true and false, or neither true nor false. Aristotle stumbled on something of the sort in the case of future contingents: it is neither true nor false nor both to say, “There will be a sea-battle tomorrow.”¹⁸ Tetralemmas are merely idle nonsense unless they bring to light a real problem with the proposition to which they are applied. The problem is likely to be a failure of a presupposition. It is neither true, nor false, nor both, nor neither to say that Jones has stopped beating his wife, since he has never done so. Tetralemmas would then be fruitful only when applied to a whole field of discourse in which such false presuppositions are rife, and are clung to so stubbornly that

 Aristotle De Interpretatione ch. 9. For an English translation see https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/interpretation/.

228

Joseph S. O’Leary

a mere denial, “Jones would never beat his wife,” is insufficient to correct them. In Buddhist teaching, because of beginningless ignorance (skt. avidyā) we all labour under false presuppositions about the nature of reality. This affects all our propositions, and when the erroneous presupposition is refuted for one proposition we immediately reassert it in another form. The tetralemma is a method for hunting down the false presupposition wherever it may lodge. For Nāgārjuna all our propositions are invalid insofar as they presuppose the idea of substantial existence, svabhāva, which is shown to have no applicability to any of the topics analyzed in turn in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: causality (skt. pratyaya), motion (skt. gatāgata), clusters (skt. skandhas), elements (skt. dhātus), desire (skt. rāga-rakta), the conditioned (skt. saṃskāra), object and agent (skt. karmakāraka), what is prior (skt. pūrva), fire and fuel (skt. agni-indhana), prior and posterior parts (of saṃ sāra) (skt. pūrva-apara-koṭi), suffering (skt. duḥkha), the composite (skt. saṃskāra), conjunction (skt. saṃsarga), the existent and nonexistent (skt. svabhāva-asvabhāva), bondage and liberation (skt. bandhana-mokṣa), action and fruit (skt. karma-phala), self (skt. ātman), time (skt. kāla), the causal assemblage (skt. sāmagrī), arising and dissolution (skt. saṃbhava-vibhava), the Tathā gata (skt. tathāgata), false conception (skt. viparyāsa), the Noble Truths (skt. āryasatya), Nirvā ṇ a (skt. nirvāṇ a), the twelvefold chain of dependent co-arising (skt. dvādaśāṅga), views (skt. dṛṣṭi). Whatever flimsy, provisional, functional reality any of these items may have can be upheld only on the basis of emptiness (skt. śūnyatā), not of self-existence (skt. svabhāva). The tetralemmas deployed by Nāgārjuna are not artificial constructs aiming at logical thoroughness and going beyond the needs of everyday life. They are used as carefully aimed strategies for practical effect. When Nāgārjuna declares, No entity arises in any of the four possible ways: (a) from itself, (b) from a distinct cause, (c) from both itself and something distinct, or (d) without cause. (MMK 1. 1)¹⁹,

this strikes a practical blow to free our mind from causal enchainments. Jan Westerhoff has clarified the logic of Nāgārjuna’s use of the tetralemma – the claim “that some proposition holds, that it fails to hold, that it both holds and fails to hold, that it neither holds nor fails to hold,”²⁰ as well as the negation of all four positions – by drawing on the distinction between two forms of negation, assembling (skt. prasajya) or exclusion (skt. paryudāsa). “The number seven is not green” is a paryudāsa negation, which presupposes the validity of speaking of numbers in terms of colour, but “it cannot be said that the number  Siderits/Katsura 2013: 17.  Westerhoff 2009: 67.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

229

seven is green” is a prasajya negation, which implies no positive account of the number seven but merely disqualifies this entire way of speaking about it. One cannot say that the number seven is green, nongreen, both, or neither, since the category “green” has no applicability at all here. Westerhoff is able to explain Nāgārjuna’s arguments within the framework of classical logic without drawing on dialetheism or paraconsistent logic or rejecting the Law of the Excluded Middle. Nāgārjuna is flexible in his handling of the tetralemma: All is real (tathya), or all is unreal, all is both real and unreal, all is neither real nor unreal; this is the graded teaching of the Buddha. (MMK 18. 8)

Here the notion of conventional truth should be invoked; all four possibilities could be denied at the level of ultimate truth, but they serve well as conventional skilful means in teaching, with the fourth possibility being the highest. “It is empty” is not to be said, nor “It is non-empty,” Nor that it is both, nor that it is neither; [“empty”] is said only for the sake of instruction. (MMK 22. 11)

Here the conventional status of the four possibilities is underlined as they are measured against the ultimate. There is no contradiction between affirming the four (conventionally) and denying them (ultimately). If we do not invoke the theme of the two truths, conventional and ultimate, we have here what looks like a bundle of contradictions. The dexterous application of the tetralemma depends on skilful handling of the two registers. Though some treat the two truths as just a pedagogical afterthought, it should rather be seen as the unspoken governing horizon of the entire MMK. Things are affirmed on the conventional level only to be denied on the ultimate level. To be sure, Nāgārjuna does not make things easy for his readers by keeping this theme in reserve until the 24th of the 27 chapters of his treatise: The Dharma teaching of the Buddha rests on two truths: conventional truth (lokasaṃvṛtisatya) and ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). Who do not know the distinction between the two truths, they do not understand reality in accordance with the profound teachings of the Buddha. The ultimate truth is not taught independently of customary ways of talking and thinking (vyavahāra). Not having acquired the ultimate truth, nirvāṇa is not attained. (MMK 24. 8 – 10)

230

Joseph S. O’Leary

Conventional truth is linked with conceptualization and ultimate truth with the quiescence of conceptualization. This halting of cognizing everything, the halting of hypostazing (skt. prapanca), is blissful. No Dharma whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone. (MMK 25. 24)

Is God personal, impersonal, both, or neither? Is he all four or none of the four? I am not sure how profitable these questions are (and I think it is good to remain unsure), but they do seem to have some roots in the tradition of negative theology – which itself is a line of thinking that may not be very profitable. Negative theologians would not hesitate to ask if God is, or is not, or both, or neither. In so doing, are they merely playing with conceptual counters, rather than deepening apprehension of a concrete phenomenon? The One of Plotinus is beyond being, and it is in the lower realm of the Nous that being and intelligibility and conceptual grasp reside. Of the One we feel we cannot securely say that it is or that it is not. We might begin by affirming that the One in its pure simplicity is supreme reality, that nothing more supremely is. Then we might go on to stress that the One in its infinite power is so different from anything we can conceive of as being that it becomes more appropriate to say that it is not, that it is beyond being. Then we come to a more reflective or dialectical position that unites the two affirmations: though the One is so powerfully and universally present, as the very heart of reality, that we must affirm it to “be” in a supreme way, yet it is so completely other than anything else we know as being that we are prompted to say equally that it “is” not. Then we see that both the language of being and that of non-being are inapposite and that the One cannot be well spoken of in such terms. All four positions could be affirmed as part of a “graded teaching” leading one to a subtle insight into the nature of the One. And then one could go on to deny all four positions: it cannot be said that the One is, or is not, or both is and is not, or neither is nor is not. That would lead to a ninth position, of silence before the ultimate. Plotinus was an authentic mystic and his thought has a hypnotic hold on his hearers. But even he may get lost in empty conceptual play, hypostatizing abstractions. Many theologians would agree that God, as infinite being, is a “nothing” over against all finite determinations. But to work out consistently and thoroughly what this means for our language about God and for the status of all the concepts, images, and names that we deploy quite liberally in speaking and thinking about God, we cannot ignore the elaborate reflections of negative theology nor those of Buddhism and Vedānta in their dealings with ultimate reality. While “new atheists” in their sub-Voltairean cockiness go on and on about

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

231

“an old man with a beard in the sky” theologians such as Paul Tillich in their search to be “honest to God” (John A. T. Robinson) or to rethink God after the death of God (a task currently devolving on philosophers such as John Caputo and Richard Kearney) seek to tune in to ultimacy in a way that produces novel conceptual formations – God as the possible (retrieving the cogitations of Nicholas of Cusa on this theme) or a God without being (Jean-Luc Marion). In these efforts to descry the nature of ultimate gracious reality the old traditions of negative theology are taking on a new complexion commensurate with the consciousness of our age. Can the machinery of the tetralemma save these efforts from vagueness and confusion? Nicholas of Cusa had an affection for tetralemmas, probably influenced by the logical gyrations of Plato’s Parmenides and its reverberations in Neoplatonic argumentation, or perhaps he had read Sextus Empiricus who recounts how sceptical philosophers used tetralemmas. When he uses the concept of the absolutely Maximum in thinking of God, he clearly sees that this idea “is beyond both all affirmation and all negation”.²¹ The mobility of God is vouched for by the language of Scripture (Wisdom 7: 24; 8: 1; Ps. 18: 5; 147: 15; Heb 4: 12). Divine immobility is affirmed by Aristotle (Metaphysics XII, 6). That the first principle is both static and in motion is held by Pseudo-Dionysius (De divinis nominibus V), while Proclus (Platonic Theology II, 1) holds that it is neither static nor in motion.²² It is not hard to imagine Cusanus saying: God is being, non-being (beyond being), both being and non-being, neither being nor non-being. But ultimately his tetralemmas testify to the supreme reality of God, being in a supereminent sense. When he calls God supreme posse (potentiality) it is only to underscore the dynamic power of divine being. If there is a hierarchy among the four members of Nicholas’s tetralemmas, such that the fourth is the most adequate, the position to be attained in a graded teaching, then biblical language risks being relegated to a merely metaphorical register, suitable for beginners, for the “simple.” For orthodox Christianity the

 “Therefore, opposing features belong only to those things which can be comparatively greater and lesser; they befit these things in different ways; [but they do] not at all [befit] the absolutely Maximum, since it is beyond all opposition. Therefore, because the absolutely Maximum is absolutely and actually all things which can be (and is so free of all opposition that the Minimum coincides with it), it is beyond both all affirmation and all negation. And it is not, as well as is, all that which is conceived to be; and it is, as well as is not, all that which is conceived not to be. But it is a given thing in such way that it is all things; and it is all things in such way that it is no thing; and it is maximally a given thing in such way that it is it minimally” (De docta ignorantia I, 4,12).. See Hopkins 1981: 9.  Nikolaus von Kues 1967: II, 292.

232

Joseph S. O’Leary

end-result of negative theology must be that we hear the biblical word anew. Tetralemmas must end not in a pure mystical silence but in this renewed act of hearing the Word. Indeed negative theology becomes an abstract intellectual game to which only the cross of Christ can put a wholesome stop. Silence, like that of Vimalakīrti, can put a stop to it, enacting a nirvāṇic quiescence of fabrications. But the bodhisattva redescends from silent wisdom to engaged compassion, and demonstrates that the one is impossible without the other. The Cross likewise points into ultimate silence and at the same time engages with the realm of flesh and the struggles of history. In both religions the play of negative theology ends with a concrete soteriological Gestalt. We can say, “God is a person” (the Bible tells us so), and “God is not a person,” since God cannot be confined to our conceptions of personhood; we can say that God is then “at least” personal, as Tillich claimed²³, so both personal and supra-personal, and finally we can say that this language best refers to God when it confesses its inadequacy, so that we can say, “God is neither personal nor impersonal.” Then we can negate all four horns of the tetralemma on the premise that the word “person” is ultimately inapplicable to God in any way. A Nāgārjunian negation of the four possibilities would focus on person as self-existent. It would say that “person” is not the sort of thing that can be said of God just as “yellow” is not the sort of thing that can be said of the number seven. But is God not supremely self-existent in Christian theology? We can speak of God as empty of attributes and determinations, nirguṇ a like the brahman of Vedāntism, but only to reaffirm that God is the fulness of being and reality, like the Vedantic sat-cit-ānanda (being-consciousness-bliss). That Vedantic triad is alluringly impersonal – evoking a being, consciousness, bliss, released from the constrictions of personhood. The affinity with trinitarian theology has often attracted theologians. If God is personal, it is in such a way that God is known in three “persons” – as Father, Logos, Spirit – and, as the full-fledged fourth-century trinitarian doctrine affirms, objectively subsists in three “persons.” The original Greek expressions for “persons” here, namely prosōpa (“presentations,” originally “masks” through which an actor sounds, personare), hypostaseis (“subsistences”) and tropoi tēs hyparxeōs (“modes of subsistence”), are remarkably impersonal. In speculative Trinitarian theology the three “persons” are expounded within a chain of impersonal concepts, alongside the one substance, two processions (figured by Aquinas as processes within the divine mind), four relations, and five notions. Aquinas asks if “person” can be said of God. His answer: “‘Person’ signifies what is most perfect in all nature, that is,

 Tillich 1959: 131– 2.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

233

a subsistent individual of a rational nature [Boethius’s definition of person]. Hence, since everything that is perfect must be attributed to God, forasmuch as His essence contains every perfection, this name ‘person’ is fittingly applied to God; not, however, as it is applied to creatures, but in a more excellent way” (Summa theologica I, q. 29, a. 3).²⁴ God must enjoy in the fullest degree the perfection of personhood. Thomas’s dry Boethian definition of personhood and his very impersonal account of the divine processions does not exhaust his thought on the subject. Elsewhere he deepens the notion of personhood by rooting it in the dynamic being (lat. esse) of the subject, and whenever esse raises its head we know that Aquinas is in his element.²⁵ The final purpose of a tetralemmic critique should be to tunnel a way back from high theology, which seems to strip God of all recognizable anthropomorphic qualities, to the language of Scripture, which powerfully places us in relation to a personal God, who becomes doubly or triply personal when he draws near to us in his incarnate Word and in the Paraclete. If we say that “God is both personal and impersonal” we use a teaching device that opens the mind to a fuller sense of the divine. But does it not run into outright contradiction? Sometimes Nāgārjuna refutes the third horn simply by a summary declaration that something cannot be A and not-A (e. g. MMK 25. 14) without contradiction, or by saying that it combines the weaknesses of the already refuted first and second horns. But perhaps we may say that what is affirmed at the conventional level is refuted at the ultimate level, so that having affirmed the four possibilities we must go on to negate them. But does affirmation of the fourth horn – “God is neither personal nor impersonal” – not already constitute a sufficient negation? Not quite, because it is still a positive statement about divine personality. Having broadened our understanding of God to the point that we affirm him to be both personal and impersonal, we then realize that we have stretched these concepts to breaking point and make the leap to a new insight about how God relates to them – he transcends both. The negative tetralemmas state that we cannot say that God is personal (given the sheer inadequacy of such language), or impersonal (given the impossibility of relating in prayer and praise to an impersonal reality), or both (because it carries over the weaknesses of the two claims it unites), nor neither (because that still entails reference to the now quite discredited language of person).

 For an English translation see Summa Theologica, 158.  See Clarke, 1993.

234

Joseph S. O’Leary

The tetralemmas have thoroughly relativized and destabilized anything we might want to say about God as personal or impersonal. This leaves us with two alternatives. Do we continue to talk of God in personal terms, but with the disillusioned consciousness that we are using a “mere” skilful means for pointing to the ineffable? Such theological nominalism might seem a tidy resolution of our quandaries. All goes on as before but inwardly undermined by a sense that it is merely a set of metaphorical gestures. But to call personal God-language a skilful means is not to downgrade it at all. Far from being a dilution of this truth, a skilful use of mere metaphors for the simple, skilful means is the supreme expression of Buddhist truth, its effective incarnation. A bodhisattva abounds in skilful means, or himself becomes a living skllful means, in order to bring the Buddhist truth to bear on suffering beings of all kinds for their healing and deliverance. So even if we say that to speak of God as personal is conventional language and a skilful means, we may be saying that this, paradoxically, is the highest way of speaking of God. Having successively affirmed and denied all eight positions on divine impersonality we find ourselves in a ninth position of silent adoration. As good bodhisattvas we must return from the ultimate to the conventional, from silence to speech, but a speech that is now charged with new power since it emerges from silence. Here we find ourselves listening anew to a divine word and speaking in response to it, in personal terms. But this is not a falling back into the inadequacies already unmasked. It is more in the nature of what Ricœur calls a “second naivety” or a restored immediacy. We now use the personal language in fuller awareness of how it functions savingly. In a sense we have moved beyond the “quiescence of fabrications” that Nāgārjuna links with nirvāṇ a. Indeed after the climactic chapter on nirvāṇa, Nāgārjuna himself adds two chapters on conventional Buddhist doctrine, which could be read as showing how Buddhism is effectively taught when one redescends from the ultimate to the conventional. The claim that without resort to conventional truth ultimate truth cannot be communicated (MMK 24. 8 – 10) might mean that it is in the very breakdown of conventional discourse – the quiescence of its fabrications – that ultimacy emerges. But then in a reflux the bodhisattva compassionately takes up the broken language as the skilful means for leading others to nirvāṇic insight. Maybe biblical language ultimately breaks down when it has done its job, like a raft that can be thrown away when it has ferried us across the stream (or a Wittgensteinian ladder). The Bible in fact stages such breakdowns within its pages, as new images of God overcome earlier ones, up to the pregnant utterances of John declaring that “God is spirit” (Jn 4: 24), “God is light” (1 Jn 1: 6), “God is love” (1 Jn 4: 8, 16) – not metaphysical definitions but namings of an enveloping revelation-event.

The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine Personality

235

The bodhisattva will re-emerge from silence in order to teach others by the skilful deployment of conventional language, both personal and impersonal. But over against this Buddhist economy of apóphasis and katáphasis, Christians give a primacy and authority to the biblical word, which enjoins not only that one take up afresh the conventions of I-thou language in addressing God and listening to God, but that one throw oneself totally into this language and the mode of living that it entails. Buddhism also harks back to the buddha-vacana, to the voice of the Buddha encountered in the Scriptures, which has four effects: the encourage, console, strengthen, and illuminate. But this is an encounter with a teacher, not with an object of adoration. Or even if in Mahāyāna sūtras it becomes an encounter with the ultimate dharmakāya, it is still only one modality of such encounter, and is not given the supreme status that Scripture has for Christians. Sūtras in general do not loom as large as authorities as Scripture does, and do not play as central and indispensable a role in Buddhist practice as Scripture does in Christian worship and prayer. It may not be possible to bring the biblical encounter with the living God entirely under the rubric of conventional truth and skilful means. The Buddha could easily describe himself as a skilful means, and indeed refers the disciples to his teaching rather than to himself. “Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves, and do not rely on external help” (Mahāparinibbāṇa sutta). The tetralemma serves apophatically to purge our religious language, but perhaps it can also help us to recover the power of scriptural language with new appreciation. It may restore some degree of an autonomy like that of the Buddha to our dealing with Scripture, giving new weight to the statement that “the letter kills; it is the spirit that gives life” (2 Cor 6:3), but interpreting “spirit” not as some irrational force but as a movement of discernment schooled in Buddhist abstention from reification and fixation.

Bibliography Clarke 1993. William Norris Clarke, SJ, Person and Being. [Aquinas Lecture]. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 1993. Denzinger 1954. Heinrich Denzinger (Ed.), Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum. 30th edition. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder 1954. Hopkins 1981. Jasper Hopkins (trsl.), On learned Ignorance (De Docta Ignorantia) by Nicholas of Cusa. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press 1981. Magliola 2014. Robert Magliola, Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Nourish the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter. Kettering: Angelico Press 2014.

236

Joseph S. O’Leary

Makransky 2017. John Makransky, Buddhist Nonduality, Paschal Paradox: A Christian Commentary on the Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa). Four Perspectives – III. Horizons 44 (2017): 434 – 9. May 2015. John D’Arcy May, review of Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Nourish the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter by Robert Magliola. Buddhist-Christian Studies 35 (2015): 238 – 241. Newman 1994. John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua, Ian Ker (Ed.). London: Penguin 1994. Nikolaus von Kues 1967. Nikolaus von Kues, Philosophisch-theologische Schriften, Ed. Leo Gabriel (Ed.). Vienna: Herder 1967. Nitsche 2015. Bernhard Nitsche, “Personale Elemente und göttliche Tranzendenz im Mahāyāna Buddhismus: Eine christliche Exegese oder Eisegese? “ In: Buddhismus und Komparative Theologie. Klaus von Stosch, Hermann-Josef Röllicke, Daniel Rumel (Eds.). Paderborn: Schöning 2015, 135 – 159. O’Leary 1996. Joseph S. O’Leary, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press [1st 1996]. Reprint, Eugene: Wipf & Stock 2016. O’Leary 2011. Id., Christianisme et philosophie chez Origène. Paris: Cerf 2011. O’Leary 2015. Id., Conventional and Ultimate Truth. A Key for Fundamental Theology. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 2015. O’Leary 2015. Id., review of Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Nourish the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter by Robert Magliola. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 42 (2015): 395 – 398. Rivera 2017. Joseph Rivera, review of Conventional and Ultimate Truth by Joseph S. O’Leary. Reviews in Religion & Theology 24 (2017): 346 – 50. Schmidt-Leukel 2016. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Nirvāṇa as ‘Unconditioned’ (asaṃskṛta) and ‘Transcendent’ (lokottara) Reality. The Japan Mission Journal 70 (2016): 170 – 79. Shulman 2014. Eviatar Shulman, Rethinking the Buddha: Early Buddhist Philosophy as Meditative Perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2014. Siderits/Katsura 2013. Mark Siderits, Shōryū Katsura, Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way: The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Boston: Wisdom 2013. Sloterdijk 2007. Peter Sloterdijk, Gottes Eifer: Vom Kampf der drei Monotheismen. Frankfurt: Insel 2007. Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Volume I Part I. New York: Cosimo 2007. Translation originally published 1911. Tillich 1959. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press 1959. Westerhoff 2009. Jan Westerhoff, Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press 2009.

II Hinduism

Brad Bannon

Potters, Human and Divine: Manifesting Śaṅkara’s Īśvara through Pedagogy, Playdough, and Personhood I am well aware that none of these ideas can have come from me – I know my own ignorance. The only other possibility, I think, is that I was filled, like an empty jar, by the words of other people streaming in through my ears, though I’m so stupid that I’ve even forgotten where and from whom I heard them.¹

There is a story I heard long ago, but because of my ignorance, I have forgotten whence it came. In this story, a teacher asks a young girl what picture she is drawing. The girl responds, “I am drawing a picture of God.” The teacher laughs mindlessly² and says, “No one knows what God looks like!” Without pausing from her task, the young girl responds, “They will in a minute.” Teachers who are convinced that they have nothing to learn from their students are likely to find their presumption confirmed. Socrates argues that there is no room for hierarchy or hegemony in the quest for truth; a true philosopher is neither a teacher nor a student, but a lover of wisdom, eager to learn from anyone wise enough to question. A good teacher is not one whose jar is full, but one whose jar is large enough to be empty, who knows one’s own ignorance and who is, therefore, ever eager to listen. The story of the little girl, despite its simplicity and brevity, illustrates three points I seek to establish in this chapter, alliteratively addressed through Plato and pedagogy, playdough and potters, personhood and possibility. Our thoughts about God – and even our very ability to think about transcendence – are determined by our human interactions and the contexts within which we contemplate transcendence. Bernhard Nitsche challenged the contributors of this anthology to reflect upon the “dimensions of human existence as dimensions of the hermeneutics of transcendence.”³ Because of the simple fact that transcendence transcends worldly existence, the “little world” in which we think about transcendence shapes our thoughts about that “other world.” Guided by Nitsche’s insights, I argue in the first section of this chapter that the classroom is a microcosm (“little world”) wherein the personal, interperso Plato, Phaedrus 235c–d.  Plato, Republic 518a.  In the following referred to as Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence” (in this volume pp. 5 – 8). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-017

240

Brad Bannon

nal, and embodied dimensions of human existence establish (for good or ill) the epistemic structures by which we contemplate that which transcends these dimensions. I further argue that the transient, liminal nature of the university classroom links personhood and transcendence with ethics. Though prompted by Nitsche’s guiding questions, my argument is grounded in Plato’s dialogues on education and inspired by the teaching philosophies of Paolo Freire and Bell Hooks. The story of the little girl’s drawing of God (imago Dei) foreshadows a classroom scenario I describe in section two regarding my experiences teaching Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta and nondual understandings of God (Īśvara). The scenario attempts to consider from a student’s perspective the well-known metaphor of clay from Chāndogya Upaniṣad VI. 1. My argument is fourfold. If we expect undergraduate students to understand the clay metaphor, then we must endeavor, as much as possible, to meet them where they are and think through the metaphor from their perspective. Thinking through the metaphor in this way – and genuinely listening to our students – deepens our understanding and makes us better readers of Śaṅkara. The best way to understand the role, place, and ontology of God (Īśvara) within Śaṅkara’s nondualism is by emulating, as much as possible, the pedagogical context advocated by Śaṅkara himself. The materiality of the clay metaphor and the intimate context of a dialogue between father and son exemplify and particularize my thesis that the physical and interpersonal dimensions of human existence determine how we think and interpret that which transcends these dimensions. Stated plainly: We interpret Śaṅkara’s “potter” differently when we and those around us have playdough in our hands than we do when sitting alone, silently clutching Śaṅkara’s written word. The embodied, intersubjective pedagogical context manifestly reveals the inherent relationship between nondual ontology (ātman-brahman), God (Īśvara), and ethically responsible action (dharma). The teacher’s response to the little girl in the story above provides a counterexample of the epistemic humility necessary for contemplating transcendence and undermines the value of subjective diversity. In the third section, I affirm Bernhard Nitsche’s intuition that the intersection of personhood and existential horizon motivate and “support the process of lending importance to different interpretations.”⁴ Guided by Nitsche’s insights, I conclude on a comparative note, rethinking the personhood of Śaṅkara’s Īśvara in light of Nicholas of Cusa’s theology of possibility and actuality. As potters in the transient “little world” of the

 Cf. Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 5 (printed in this volume 5 – 8).

Potters, Human and Divine

241

classroom, students are “led out” (ēducāre) of this cavernous microcosm to actualize dharmic possibilities.

Plato and the Classroom as Microcosm Personhood and the Hermeneutics of Transcendence The story above recounting an encounter between a teacher and a little girl’s imago Dei (image of God) exemplifies the primary thesis I seek to advance in this essay: The classroom is a microcosm (“little world”) wherein the particular subjective, social, and embodied dimensions of personhood determine the particular possibilities for interpreting transcendence. The little girl’s drawing is a subjective, kataphatic theological expression of transcendence. Her speech and drawing within the classroom mark an interpersonal and material context through which the epistemic structures of transcendence manifest. Failing to understand this, the teacher laughs.⁵ Insofar as theology is a human discourse (logos) about God (Theos), it is necessarily a discourse about human intellect and knowledge (epistemology). Because transcendence transcends human knowledge and experience, the particular dimensions of human existence determine the hermeneutics of transcendence. This is far from a novel insight. It is, after all, the logical basis and motivating force behind all apophatic discourse. However, this intuition entails a point that is sometimes (perhaps frequently) forgotten: While asserting that the divine transcends all human knowledge and worldly experience, one must not overlook the fact that each human person has a different history of knowledge and experience and will, therefore, interpret transcendence as that which transcends his/her particular knowledge and experience of the world. This insight can be expressed in other words that seem to describe the fact of religious diversity in our world: While human persons frequently describe the divine as that which transcends all human knowledge and worldly experience, they nevertheless understand the divine in widely diverse ways for the simple reason that the particular socio-cultural dimensions of human knowledge and experience determine the epistemic possibilities by which to contemplate transcendence. Simply put: We think transcendence differently because we live in different “little worlds.” Restated yet again in subjective  As I address later, the teacher’s laughter calls to mind Socrates’ ridicule of ridicule within the context of education (Plato’s Republic 518a).

242

Brad Bannon

terms: I understand transcendence as that which transcends all my knowledge and all my experiences of the world. Hence, even though my definition of God or the divine remains constant, my understanding of God or the divine is as dynamic as this transient world in which we live, move, and have our being. This is, I believe, why Bernhard Nitsche challenged the contributors of this anthology to reflect upon the “dimensions of human existence as dimensions of the hermeneutics of transcendence.”⁶ If we aspire to move beyond a purely subjective understanding of transcendence in order to think transcendence from an/ other’s perspective, then we must take seriously the existential condition of this other in terms of material and interpersonal environment. Insofar as theology is a human discourse about a divine reality which transcends particular human knowledge and experience of the world, then any study of theology is at best fruitless (and at worst solipsistic) if it fails to take account of the particular dimensions of human existence whenever possible.

Plato’s Cavernous Classroom Given this, I argue that it is both reasonable and beneficial to take the classroom as an object of reflection. The classroom is a microcosm – a “little world” – wherein theology, epistemology, and ethics manifest in and through the subjective, social, and embodied/environmental encounters of human persons. The transient nature of the classroom (typically 75 minutes, twice a week for a dozen weeks) reflects the hermeneutic spiral of transcendent reflection and living in the world whereby any discussion of transcendence becomes practical, fruitful, and thus intrinsically valuable. As a microcosm wherein discussions of transcendence are both transformative and transient, the classroom might be allegorically compared to a cave, set apart from the everyday world of becoming. The “Allegory of the Cave” is perhaps the most famous pericope within Plato’s broad body (platýs) of pedagogical dialogues.⁷ Sometimes overlooked, however, is the fact that Socrates offers this allegory as a means to “compare the effect of education and the lack of it on our [human] nature.”⁸ It addresses, on the one hand, the challenge of turning students from the everyday world of transient human existence towards intellectual reflection on transcendence. On the other

 Cf. Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence” (in this volume pp. 5 – 8).  Plato, Republic, Book VII. Presuming familiarity, I refrain from recounting the allegory here.  Plato, Republic, 514a.

Potters, Human and Divine

243

hand, it also addresses the challenge of turning back from intellectual reflection on transcendence to the actual world of human existence. Without the former, one acts without teleological purpose. Without the latter, one will “refuse to act.”⁹ Socrates eschewed writing, insisting that the love of wisdom (philosophy) demands intersubjective discourse.¹⁰ To have a fruitful discourse about transcendence, each dialogue partner must know “where” the other is coming from. This is illustrated by Socrates’ cave allegory. Confusion and disorientation abound when one turns from the darkness of the everyday world to the light of transcendent discourse, but also when one turns from transcendent introspection to transient existence. Any teacher who ridicules students is ridiculous, explains Socrates, but would be all the more so if he/she unwittingly “laughed at a soul that has come from the light above.”¹¹ Socrates asserts: “Education isn’t what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes.”¹² Rather, “the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body.”¹³ In Plato’s cavernous classroom, the subjective, interpersonal, and embodied dimensions of human existence are the very dimensions by which one interprets transcendence. Etymologically, “education” entails “leading one out.” To lead students out toward a particular transcendental light (whether Platonic or Christian or Advaitin), one must first lead students to the particular cave from which to emerge. The physical classroom is a “little world” wherein the inextricable relationship between personhood and transcendence are made manifest, but it is also a liminal and transient space wherein ethics are performed. It is, therefore, a political venue. The classroom fails to be an edifying context for learning about transcendence if it is a space wherein the diversity of human existence is ignored or ridiculed. Every classroom is a microcosm wherein ethics are learned through praxis, regardless of academic subject.¹⁴ While true in a math or physics classroom, it is all the more so when ethics and transcendence are the very topic of discussion. The logic of this assertion can be stated quite simply: Because ethics pertains to both praxis and the transcendent discourse of what ought to be done, students learn ethics both from the words uttered by professors, but also (and

 Plato, Republic, 519c.  Plato, Phaedrus.  Plato, Republic, 518b.  Plato, Republic, 518b.  Plato, Republic, 518c, emphasis added.  See Freire 1972 and Hooks 1994.

244

Brad Bannon

especially) through our teaching praxis. Ethics and transcendence are learned by students in every classroom insofar as every teacher normatively models what ought to be done in and through subjective, interpersonal, and embodied praxis. The classroom, therefore, is an inherently political space. One misses Plato’s point, I think, if one interprets his “philosopher king” as a governor with a diploma. The classroom is political because it is a “little world” wherein the dimensions of personhood epistemically structure transcendence. To suggest, as Bernhard Nitsche has, that the subjective, social, and embodied dimensions of human existence are the dimensions of the hermeneutics of transcendence necessarily implies that our embodied discourse about transcendence (in both content and form) is the very means by which the conditions of human existence are either transcended or calcified.¹⁵ Like the inhabitants of Plato’s cavernous classroom, we and our students are “led out” to rejoin the world that was ever so temporarily transcended.

Pedagogical Possibilities It stands to reason, therefore, that if one desires to understand God or the Divine from the perspective of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, one must seriously consider the microcosm (“little world”) wherein the transcendent is presented for interpretation. It is widely accepted that a teacher should consider and model the Socratic method in order to enable students to interpret the transcendent ideas of Justice, Virtue, Beauty, or the Good within Plato’s dialogues. I argue that a teacher should likewise consider and model the traditional pedagogical methods of Vedānta and Śaṅkara’s paramparā, including the intimate, embodied relationship between guru and śiṣya, in order to interpret Īśvara, dharma, ātman, and brahman within Śaṅkara’s commentaries. While I think this argument is logically sufficient to justify my thesis above and my method below, I wish to bridge theory and method with a summary and three concrete examples. Human persons are subjective, social, and materially embodied. As Nitsche reminds us, these dimensions of human existence correspond, more or less, to the three grammatical points-of-view: I, Thou, and He/She/It. By definition, “transcendence” transcends these dimensions of personhood. Hence, it is necessarily true that the dimensions of human existence are the very epistemic means for contemplating transcendence. Because interpretations of transcendence vary,

 Cf. Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 5 ff.

Potters, Human and Divine

245

so too do the “little worlds” they transcend. Therefore, the pedagogical microcosm in which we discuss transcendence (pre)determines the hermeneutic possibilities for interpreting transcendence. Suppose, for example, that a teacher stands at the front of a classroom lecturing about God to students who are seated, motionless, and silent. Like passive receptacles, they await deposits of information revealed by authoritative instructors.¹⁶ This would be an ideal microcosm in which to think transcendence in terms of divine hierarchy, dogmatic decree, impassivity, and radical alterity. The same teaching praxis, however, is at least an obstacle (if not overtly antithetical) to a hermeneutic of transcendence in terms of liberation, creativity, empathy, possibility, and relationality. A dance class may be a more suitable “little world” from which to interpret the perichoresis of the Social Trinity. Similarly, insofar as epistemic humility is foundational to theology, ethics, and philosophy, then humility must likewise be a manifest feature of the human context in which these are discussed. Humility is noticeably absent from the story of the little girl recounted earlier. While the teacher’s assertion that “no one knows what God looks like” echoes the epistemic humility that motivates apophatic theological discourse and postmodern deconstruction, his/her laugh manifests a kataphatic praxis that precludes and thus betrays the very hermeneutic of transcendence to which he/she gives voice. The medium overwhelms the message. Insofar as epistemic humility founds a hermeneutic of transcendence, humility must, to that extent, shape every pedagogical method, regardless of venue: from the private confines of academic research to the university classroom to our prestigious conferences, colloquia, and written anthologies such as this one. For example: After successfully defending my dissertation on Śaṅkara and Nicholas of Cusa at Harvard, I felt confident in my grasp of Śaṅkara’s theological anthropology and I was (ironically) proud of my knowledge of Cusa’s learned ignorance. Borrowing Socrates’ metaphor, my jar of wisdom felt full. Thanks to my students, however, my jar is quite empty once again. This is not because I have forgotten some of what I once knew (though I certainly have), but because my jñāna is becoming vijñāna. ¹⁷ Through teaching, my ignorance is becoming learned. Socrates resounds: As the wise words of others flow into our ears, the jar grows ever larger.

 Cf. Freire 1972.  See BGBh 6. 8.

246

Brad Bannon

To illustrate how the particular dimensions of human existence structure particular hermeneutics of transcendence, we turn now to the pedagogical context of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta.

Playdough: Potters Human and Divine The Upaniṣads recount ancient dialogues between teachers and students. Some occur in especially intimate contexts, such as a conversation between husband and wife.¹⁸ In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, one finds an especially influential teaching given by a father to his son. While this level of trust and familiarity between guru (teacher) and śiṣya (student) are impossible to recreate in the university classroom, it is nevertheless important to draw attention to the intimate dimensions of this intersubjective discussion of transcendence, at least to eschew orientalism and promote epistemic humility, retracing faded lines between emic and etic perspectives. My assertion, however, is that we must go a step further. Since the classroom is a microcosm from which one thinks transcendence, then the “little world” from which one interprets the Chāndogya Upaniṣad should recreate, to a reasonable extent, the “little world” wherein Uddālaka teaches his son, Śvetaketu.

Playdough and Effects Uddālaka provides his son with a trio of metaphors concerning ontic distinctions within non-dual ontology. Since the three metaphors differ only slightly (clay, gold, and iron), I focus here only on the first. While the commentaries and discussions generated by this metaphor are decidedly extensive, the teaching itself is quite brief: Consider this example, my dear son: With one lump of clay, everything composed of clay may be intellectually grasped. The Being/Truth (satyam) that is simply “clay” is given a name – modification grasped by speech.¹⁹

The clay metaphor persists as one of the most effective and successful metaphors for teaching and thinking about nondualism. We know relatively little about Śaṅkara’s historical context and even less about the upaniṣadic authors, but it  BĀU II. 4.  ChU VI. 1. 3, my translation.

Potters, Human and Divine

247

seems reasonable to assume that young children in those contexts had some experience playing with wet mud or clay. Since my students are more familiar with playdough, I supply each student with a small container of playdough. Both the metaphor and the hands-on experience of playing with clay (playdough) enable students to grasp the relationship between the One and the Many without falling into the alluring trap of a part/whole metaphysics. A clay pot, after all, is not a “part” of clay; the clay pot is clay. The clay pot is not other than clay, but clay is not limited to this or that clay pot. While this concept is difficult to grasp, it becomes easier to understand when each student in the class is literally holding clay in their hands. First, they tear the clay into many parts and press them back together, thinking they have understood that the one is the many. This pūrvapakṣa is rebutted as they remember that their neighbors also have clay and there is more clay at the store. Before long, the students are able to distinguish between “clay” as that which they have in their hands, “clay” as a name (an English word), and “clay” as an abstract, immaterial idea which is one, and yet not altogether different from the many lumps of clay they are holding. I inevitably have a student ask, “so is it kinda like saying that every square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square?” This is no siddhānta, but it seems apt, so I answer affirmatively (“yeah, kinda”), and then clarify. Clay qua clay is unmanifest (avyākṛta), but clay qua clay lump or clay pot, etc., is manifest (vyākṛta) such that they can see it on their desk, hold it in their hands, smell it, and (as at least one student in every class decides to do to generate a laugh) taste it. Śaṅkara argues that it is illogical to suppose that notions of past causes (such as a lump) and future effects (such as a jar) should be independent of presently existing objects.²⁰ Insofar as transcendence transcends human knowledge and experience, it can only be thought within a particular world of human knowledge and experience. The singular, unmanifest “clay” and the many manifestations of clay (referred to by various names corresponding to various ontic modifications), are not two ontologically distinct realities, but simply the immanent, manifest being of the transcendent, unmanifest truth of that being. Because these are mutually constitutive, they are neither two nor one, and therefore serve to exemplify Uddālaka’s subsequent teaching, discussed below. Hence, Uddālaka sets the stage, so-to-speak, for his teaching on that which transcends human knowledge and experience by contextualizing that teaching within a particular epistemic framework of human experience. This exemplifies my thesis that the particular dimen-

 BĀUBh I. 2. 1.

248

Brad Bannon

sions of human existence determine the hermeneutic possibilities for transcendental thought. Importantly, the particular “little world” that Uddālaka’s trio of metaphors constructs highlights not only the transience of reality but also our causal role in that transience.

Potters and Causes In his next lesson, Uddālaka explains to his son that it is unreasonable to suppose that the existent universe arose from some nonexistent cause. In his commentary thereupon, Śaṅkara explains that one must distinguish between the efficient cause of material transformations, such as a potter (kulāla), and the material cause, such as clay. He offers an interesting allegory to explain this: Suppose one morning, you walk past a lump of clay that is being squeezed by a potter who desires to make pots.²¹ (As I point out (parenthetically) to my students, it is both interesting and significant that the lump of clay is the direct object of this sentence, rather than the potter). When returning home in the afternoon, you observe that the lump of clay has become pots and jars and other such things. Śaṅkara explains that in the same way that you might say “this jar and dish were nothing but clay this morning,” Uddālaka has said to his son, “In the beginning, dear boy, this [world] was simply what exists – one only without a second.”²² This and similar passages have generated voluminous and various interpretations. I argue that if we reflect on this teaching while literally squeezing clay in our hands, sitting in a room with other potters doing the same, then we are likely to interpret this non-dual teaching on transcendence differently than we would sitting alone, squeezing the pages of a book. To do so, moreover, takes seriously the pedagogical context as it is narrated in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. As Śaṅkara explains, the pre-existence of the effect, such as a clay jar, prior to its production by a potter is proved by the fact that the particles of clay belonging to the lump are perceptible in the clay jar.²³ The material cause of the clay jar is not the lump of clay that precedes it; the clay lump is merely an alternative effect of the same material cause, which is the clay itself.²⁴ Through the

 ChUBh VI. 2. 1: ghaṭādi sisṛukṣuṇā kulālena mṛtpiṇḍaṃ gatvā.  ChUBh VI. 2. 1.  BĀUBh I. 2. 1. This is often referred to as the satkāryavāda, the doctrine that effects pre-exist in their causes.  BĀUBh I. 2. 1.

Potters, Human and Divine

249

actions of the potter, the unmanifest clay, which was previously manifest as a clay lump, becomes manifest as a clay jar. In Śaṅkara’s commentary, a student poses a question: Does the clay jar exist before the potter shapes the clay into a clay pot? As I explain to my students, this is a thinly veiled way of asking whether “Brad” (jīva) existed prior to being born in this body. According to Śaṅkara, even though the clay jar does not exist in the same way as the potter who is engaged in its production, it is foolish to say that the clay jar is altogether nonexistent prior to its manifestation. He offers several straightforward reasons for this: (1) a person who desires (sisṛukṣuṇā) to have a jar is seen working to bring it about, (2) we do not see people striving to attain things they know to be nonexistent, (3) if the jar were nonexistent, then the Lord’s perception of the future jar would be false, and (4) because the jar exists in its future (potential) form.²⁵ This is an argument that is quite easy for students to follow, particularly when squeezing playdough in their hands. Surrounded by their peers, they endeavor to conceive some creative form to give to their clay. They will obviously be unable to bring into being an unmanifest form if they cannot imagine what they desire to make. Having begun class with a lump of playdough, they will end class with a lump of playdough, thus generating zero likes on Instagram. Such students become attached to inaction,²⁶ confessing, “I don’t know what to make.” Other students, however, conceive an idea and thus face a second challenge – a technical one. Like Śaṅkara’s Īśvara, they have a perception of an unmanifest future form and are desirous (sisṛkṣuṇā) of bringing it about. Having conceived this potential form, they must labour to give birth to that idea – to make manifest the transcendent form by transforming the material cause (playdough) in which that future effect has been perceived. My thesis, once again, is that insofar as transcendence transcends human knowledge and worldly experience, the particular experiential context in which one thinks about transcendence determines the hermeneutic possibilities of transcendence. Furthermore, in order to interpret God or the divine from the perspective of Śaṅkara’s reflections on Īśvara, one must consider the material and intersubjective environment most conducive to those transcendental possibilities. Hence, one should emulate, to a reasonable extent, the pedagogical context described by Śaṅkara and narrated by the Upaniṣads in order to establish the particular subjective, intersubjective, and embodied conditions most condu-

 BĀUBh I. 2. 1.  BhG 2: 47.

250

Brad Bannon

cive to Advaita’s particular interpretation of transcendence. In the pedagogical scenario I have described thus far, the students have become potters in a worldly sense and can therefore conceptualize Śaṅkara’s “potter” from an “everyday” (vyāvahārika) perspective. This is so not simply because they hold playdough in their hands, but because they have knowledge and experience of the two particular challenges mentioned above: (1) What is to be brought into being? and (2) By what means? The particular dimensions of human existence are, therefore, conducive to Advaita’s particular hermeneutic of transcendence.

Dharmic Playdough At this point, I ask my students to show and discuss their artefacts. What form have these undergraduate potters given to their clay? What function can these clay figures perform? To what purpose are they ideally suited? The material cause, as we have seen, is simply clay. The creations they have effected pre-existed in their material cause, but the forms, I remind them, are not intrinsic to the clay; hence, they must be accounted for. As seen above, Śaṅkara links these transformations in name and form (from clay lump to clay pot, etc.) to the potter’s desires.²⁷ Likewise, Uddālaka explains to his dear son that the primordial One became many due to its own thought and will.²⁸ Similar revelations arise in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Taittirīya Upaniṣad.²⁹ Since each student is a potter, desirous of effecting some transformation, then each must give account for what he/she has created, explaining its manifest dharma in relation to the unmanifest Dharma. The clay metaphor is effective for conveying the Mīmāṁsaka understanding of dharma. ³⁰ The dharma of a bowl is its being a receptacle for things like lentil soup and fruit loops whereas the dharma of a cup is its being a vessel for drinking chai or single-malt whiskey. From this, students are able to understand that dharma pertains to purpose, duty, and function, but is a necessarily flexible concept pertaining to a particular person’s talents, gifts, relationships, and (most

 ChUBh VI. 2. 1 and BĀUBh I. 2. 1.  ChU VI. 2. 3.  BĀU I. 4 and Taittirīya Upaniṣad II. 6.  The thesis that Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta is properly understood as Uttaramīmāṃsā (i. e., as a scholastic theology grounded in and continuous with Pūrvamīmāṃsā has been argued in Parpola 1981, Clooney 1990, Clooney 1993, Bannon 2015, to name a few, and is presumptively accepted by my argument. See also Bronkhorst 2007.

Potters, Human and Divine

251

importantly) context.³¹ Dharma, in other words, relates to form, function, and process (itikartavyatā) within a particular context. In fact, it is frequently the students themselves who raise the point that while it is possible to drink chai from a bowl and eat soup from a cup, these forms are better suited to function otherwise. Some students grow ever more attentive when realizing that they can use playdough and dharma to explain to their parents why they are switching majors. Like clay itself, the metaphor is malleable and relatable. Just as the dharma of a clay vase is to hold flowers, the dharma of a police office is to protect victims and stop perpetrators of injustice. The dharma of a nurse is to provide physical and emotional care for those who are ill or injured. From a Mīmāṁsaka perspective, dharma is inextricably linked to context. Material form matters, but so does spatial, temporal, and relational context. Francis Clooney explains: The Vedic “experience” does not contain unique elements different in essence from those of ordinary experience. The transcendence “occurs” when the performer finds himself in a world which accounts for his viewpoint without making him the center of the world… He himself is transcended because the event of the sacrifice is primary, its action the referent of all value and existence.³²

The “world” of a Brahminic yajña, is one in which the human person transcends egoism through a decentering. The human participant in the Vedic sacrifice is no more or less important than the other aspects of the event. The dharma of ghee, rice, mantra, deva, human participants, and lunar phase, etc., are inextricably linked to one another. The proper contextual arrangement of self, other, and environment, in which each is necessary and yet none is primary is precisely what makes the “little world” of the sacrifice dharmic. Moreover, transforming the mundane world by (re)arranging it for the sake of manifesting this Dharmic microcosm is what makes the yajña cosmogonic. Because one becomes the kind of person who is keenly attentive to the intersubjective dharmic relation between each and every element of the “little world” of the Vedic sacrifice, one becomes the kind of person who is likewise attentive to the intersubjective dharmic relations of the everyday (vyāvahārika) world.³³ Each element in the sacrifice has its own dharma; one who understands the yajña well will not only have cognitive knowledge (jñāna) of the dharma of each element of the sacrifice, but will

 See Clooney 1990, Chapter 4.  Clooney 1990, 149.  See Clooney 1990 on saṃskāra.

252

Brad Bannon

glimpse, through intellectual intuition and experience (vijñānānubhāva), the unprecedented (apūrva) and transcendent Dharma made manifest through the sacrificial event.³⁴ Obviously, the meaning and details of the foregoing explanation thoroughly evade my undergraduate students, most of whom have become preoccupied with their playdough. Nevertheless, they grasp the point that Advaita Vedānta is far from some abstract new age, philosophical system; it is an ancient theology deeply rooted in sacred texts, ritual performance, and ethics. They also (I hope) begin to recognize that our discourse about the ontologically nondual relationship between unmanifest clay and manifest clay figures is inseparable from our discourse about ethics and is directly pertinent to their own lives and existential angst. I typically do not attempt to explain to students the ontological significance of the verbs √bhū and √as or about the ontological difference between ghee at the dinner table and ghee within the yoni after it has been introduced into the sacrificial event. I do, though, ensure that they understand that in the same way that unmanifest clay is only made manifest in, through, and as the clay that they are shaping (and sometimes tasting) in their hands, unmanifest Dharma exists only as a possibility lest they give it shape through their actions and choices. Consistent with my thesis, the possibilities for thinking transcendence are conditioned by the “little world” from which this thinking emerges. Dharma’s transcendent, unprecedented (apūrva) nature is thought differently when holding playdough in a room filled with potters.

Karman and Īśvara What’s the point?³⁵ The Lord (Īśvara) is the potter – the one who shapes the clay into this or that form. Why would the Lord shape the clay into this/that form? This should now be evident. A bowl is better suited to perform some functions whereas a pot or cup or vase is better suited for other functions. The dharma of a bowl is to perform the function of being a bowl; the dharma of a cup is to perform the function of being a cup. Likewise, the dharma of a nurse is to per-

 The unprecedented nature of Dharma as that which is to be done establishes the authority of śabda as a pramāṇa. On this, see Śabara’s commentary on Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra I. 1. 1– 5. Regarding the diverse interpretations of apūrva within Mīmāṃsā, see Clooney 1990 and Jha 1978.  The classroom is an effective “little world” for reflections upon transcendence because students frequently (sometimes impatiently and prematurely) ask the “so what?” question. The empty jar grows ever larger.

Potters, Human and Divine

253

form the function of providing care for his patients (i. e., to meet the physical, medical, and emotional needs of his patients). The dharma of a police officer is to perform the function of justice (i. e., she should protect victims of injustice and arrest perpetrators of injustice). Hence, the Lord (Īśvara) shapes each person (each jīva, each man, woman, and child) in such a way that he/she is ideally suited to perform his/her dharma. Because dharma is inextricably linked to embodied context, the rigidity or malleability of clay may be an asset or a challenge, depending on the situation. Clay is malleable, but it can become rigid and dry over time. Our past actions (karmāṇi), past thoughts, experiences, and socio-cultural perspectives leave impressions (saṃskāras) which cause us to become set in our ways. Noting that the term karman is frequently misunderstood as deterministic, Harold Coward explains that karman is well described as a psychological predisposition: Through the use of your free will, you decide either to go along with the karmic impulse, in which case it is reinforced and strengthened, or to say no and negate it, in which case its strength diminishes until it is finally removed.³⁶

The benefit and detriment of this karmic impulse is effectively taught through the clay metaphor. For a clay cup to perform its duty, it must be fired and glazed. An archer like Arjuna should not be thinking about how to shoot an arrow when he’s on the battlefield, nor should Steph Curry shouldn’t be thinking about his technique when shooting a three-point shot. I would prefer a surgeon who sutures mindlessly over one who contemplates each stitch. But the transcendent and contextual nature of dharma require malleability due to the transient nature of human existence. Insofar as Īśvara is non-dual, the Lord must be transcendent and immanent: clay and potter.

Comparative Theology, and the Alterity of the Potter Who is this potter? This question is simply a restatement of the central, guiding question raised by Bernhard Nitsche and Marcus Schmücker at our conference in Schwerte. To ask who is this potter? is to ask how are we to think about God from a nondualist perspective? My assertion is that because the transcendent transcends the dimensions of human existence, it must be interpreted within particular dimensions of human existence. To extricate Īśvara from Advaita’s pedagogical context entails thinking Īśvara through a hermeneutic that no longer transcends  Coward 2008: 104.

254

Brad Bannon

the particular “little world” so carefully constructed by the Upaniṣads and Śaṅkara’s paramparā, but instead thinks Īśvara from (at best) a nonexistent view from nowhere or (at worst) a neocolonial “little world” that is dualist and occidental. I am certainly not suggesting that playdough solves the problem of intellectual colonialism. Neither am I suggesting that intellectual colonialism is a problem that is “solvable.” Rather, I am suggesting that if we admit a diversity of transcendental hermeneutics, then transcendental thought cannot be divorced from the particular microcosms such thoughts transcend. The alternative either objectifies human subjectivity ab initio or relativizes transcendence to a fixed, hegemonic (read: occidental) point of reference. The particular subjective, social, and material dimensions of human existence found the particular dimensions that any particular transcendence transcends. To the extent that a scholar is able to think transcendence from what Gayatri Spivak has called an “imagined subjectivity,” we not only mitigate reductive essentializations, but (speaking as a theologian) we faithfully seek understanding of that which transcends each particular dimension of human existence. Even if one is able to emulate, to some small extent, the pedagogical context of Śaṅkara’s teachings on Īśvara, this merely mitigates the challenge of attempting to think transcendentally from a non-dual perspective. Another obstacle, discussed earlier, confronts every teacher, especially in the humanities. Plato’s Socratic insight bears repetition: Education isn’t… putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes… the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body.³⁷

While I do think that one is better able to interpret Śaṅkara’s Īśvara while squeezing clay, desirous of manifesting some dharmic form, one must consider where students are coming from, lest “turning the whole body” be analogous to dizzying some blindfolded soul before turning them loose on a piñata. To turn a student’s eye, as Socrates suggests, a teacher must discern which way the student is facing. To do so, it is helpful to consider how Śaṅkara’s teachings on Īśvara are likely to be mis-understood by our students. The potter metaphor lends itself all too easily to preconceived, dualistic notions of God, particularly within the context of an American university classroom. While this obviously poses a pedagogical challenge, it also presents an opportunity for reflecting on transcendence and alterity. A nearly ubiquitous  Plato, Republic, 518b–c.

Potters, Human and Divine

255

feature of human persons which Bernhard Nitsche calls the dynamic of transcending. ³⁸ As Nitsche points out, some religious traditions regard the “unconditioned dynamic of human striving” in terms of “radical alterity,” while others reject this view.³⁹ The clay metaphor, especially within the pedagogical context, enables us to understand this erudite and abstract dynamic in a straightforward and concrete way. Clearly, the “potter” represents an instance of the unconditioned, transcending dimension of human striving. The pedagogical challenge, though, is to overcome students’ tendency to conceive of Īśvara without resorting to radical alterity. More simply, the problem can be described in terms of two common misunderstandings held by students: (1) The potter cannot be Īśvara because I am the potter, but God is radically other than myself; (2) If I am Īśvara (the “potter”), then Īśvara (“the Lord”) cannot be “God” because “God” is a word that can only refer to a radically other transcendent being. If we deny (or ignore) the problem, then we deny (or ignore) the fact that religious traditions differ from one another regarding the alterity of God or the Divine. ⁴⁰ Alternatively, the pedagogical problem itself presents a promising opportunity for reflecting on the “potter” in a manner that lends importance to different interpretations of transcendence, alterity, and existential purpose. Far from detrimental, this scenario highlights the pedagogical benefits of comparative theology. This is because the very thing that opens the metaphor to misunderstanding is precisely that which distinguishes many (not all!) Christian conceptions of God from Advaita’s conception of Īśvara. By teaching advaita in a comparative context, I encourage students to carefully consider the “potter” in two distinct ways. Rather than present one way as “correct” and the other as “incorrect,” as might be necessary if Advaita’s conception of Īśvara were my only pedagogical priority, I instead encourage students to try to think about the “potter” in both ways, emphasizing that one is distinctly Christian while the other is distinctly Advaitin. Moreover, the ability to think clearly about Īśvara in two distinct ways is emblematic of viveka (“logical discernment”), a traditional requirement of studying Advaita.

 Cf. Nitsche “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 7.  Cf. Nitsche “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 7.  The title of our conference, God or the Divine, accentuates the issue. If “God” must refer to a transcendent, wholly other being, then it has no place in a nondual ontology. The word “divine,” on the other hand, is readily accepted as a term that can signify self and other, immanence and transcendence. If this is the case, however, then the question God or the Divine? ceases to introduce a discourse on transcendence and is reduced to a discourse on semantics.

256

Brad Bannon

Personhood and Possibility Among his guiding insights and questions provided to the contributors of this volume, Bernhard Nitsche reminds us that various religious traditions conceive of the Absolute in terms of personhood while others describe it as impersonal. Though seemingly straightforward, it is anything but. Nitsche points out that from the impersonal approach emerge many questions and possibilities. He explains: The apophatic hiddenness extends beyond determinations such as being and non-being (Plato: epekeina tēs ousias). It describes a trans-categorical “beyond” and a pre-categorical “before,” which itself cannot be called personal or impersonal. In its strict beyondness, it is a complete emptiness of finite entities or concepts and a perfect and unfathomable completeness. It can thus, in a strict sense, not be called personal or impersonal, since logically it precedes any definition.⁴¹

While this is certainly a good point, it does not, on its own, provide us for a way to think about Īśvara in a manner that is consistent with Śaṅkara’s Advaita. Fortunately, Nitsche offers another possibility, which “is for the unconditioned to be imagined as a free activity, which is how it is unconditioned. And it is possible that these two perspectives are not separable in a strict sense, but should be seen as mutually complementary.” Śaṅkara’s advaita fits comfortably within this latter category. As Anantanand Rambachan argues elsewhere in this anthology, the tendency to privilege nirguṇa brahman over saguṇa brahman is misguided and problematically dualistic. The challenge to think about these two perspectives as mutually complementary is difficult, of course, but it is also utterly necessary lest advaita be yet again misunderstood as either monistic or dualistic. In order to think through this complementarity, I turn, once again, to a pedagogical context. Though it may seem counterintuitive or even absurd, an easy way to begin is by introducing students to Martin Heidegger’s identification of the ontological difference between Being and beings. As students can readily observe in the classroom, beings exist. Since beings exist, they must have come from some source. However, insofar as it is the source of beings, then it logically and necessarily follows that it is not a being. Hence, we quickly arrive at the paradox that beings must have a source which does not exist. I then propose that we think through the problem again, distinguishing between possibility and actuality. Assuming that our senses are properly function Nitsche “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 8.

Potters, Human and Divine

257

al, we can say that each being/entity in the room actually exists. If it actually exists, then it is obviously possible for it to exist. Since I love pizza, I then ask the students if any pizza actually exists in the room. They say no. I ask them if it would be possible for pizza to exist in the room. They say yes (and ask me to order one). I ask them if it would be possible for a square circle to exist. They respond with furrowed brows. This simple exercise (adapted liberally from Nicholas of Cusa’s Trialogus de possest) enables us to distinguish between three distinct ontological modalities: actualized possibility, possible possibility, and actual impossibility. More importantly, though, it enables us to think through Heidegger’s ontological difference in a manner that seems consistent with what Bernhard Nitsche describes as the mutual complementarity of the unconditioned as free act and the unconditioned as beyond being (epekeina tēs ousias).⁴² Furthermore, since boundless brahman (anantamātra)⁴³ is our aim, it is helpful to introduce language of infinity to this teaching scenario: I ask my students: Do you agree that the beings/entities in this (class)room actually exist and are a finite cluster of things in an infinite universe of actually existing entities. Yes. If that is the case, then, is it necessarily true that every entity that actually exists also exists as a possibility? Yes. Since the set of actually existing things in the universe is infinite, then the set of possible possibilities must also be infinite? Yes. And since we can imagine entities such as pizza that could possibly exist but do not actually exist, then the infinite set of possible possibilities must be larger than the set of actualized possibilities? Yes, but it will still exclude things that are actually impossible, such as square circles. In this light, we return to Heidegger’s ontological difference between Being and beings. Since beings exist actually, then they must have a source. Insofar as it is the source of actual entities, then it cannot be an actual entity. We can assert that the infinite set of possible possibilities is the source of actual entities, thus resolving the paradox of beings and their source, but doing so raises a new issue: What is the source of possibilities? The answer to this question, at least from an Advaitin perspective, must be Īśvara, the “potter.” As we have seen earlier, the material cause of clay pot is simply clay. The potter does not create clay ex nihilo. The potter forms and reforms material clay into various forms for some intended purpose/function which, as we have seen, is its dharma. The possible forms that the potter can give to the clay are limited by three factors: (1) the actual material limitations (e. g., I can

 Plato, Republic, 509b.  Māṇḍūkya Kārika I. 29.

258

Brad Bannon

only shape as many bowls as I have clay for), (2) the potter’s technical abilities (e. g., I am personally unable to replicate Michelangelo’s David, but a more talented sculptor perhaps could), and (3) the potter’s creative imagination. For example, actual lightbulbs abound today, but prior to Thomas Edison’s conception, the possibility of a lightbulb was unborn. I emphasize again the importance of the pedagogical context. As Bernhard Nitsche has urged us to bear in mind, the subjective, intersubjective, and bodily dimensions of human existence are the very dimensions from which we are able to think and approach transcendence. I contend that two of these three important dimensions are lost when transcendence becomes a mere topic of reflection through words on a page such as this one. The intellectual intuition (vijñāna) that emerges when thinking both the transcendence and immanence (read: unconditioned beyond being and unconditioned as free act) while literally and bodily giving form to clay is quite different from cognitive knowledge (jñāna) about Īśvara gained from reading words on a page. As already noted, while the familial intimacy of Chāndogya VI cannot be replicated in a university classroom (much less in a book), it should not be overlooked. Concluding his teaching about clay, Uddālaka turns to his son (who presumably loves and trusts his father) to utter the words tat tvam asi Śvetaketo. As I have written elsewhere, the intimacy of the vocative and the indexical nature of the pronouns (Thou art that, O Śvetaketu) open possible hermeneutics of transcendence that are ostensibly beyond the scope of possibility in a typical university classroom.⁴⁴ Likewise, in his commentary on another mahāvākya (“great saying”), Śaṅkara instructs his reader to gesture to the student’s physical body when uttering ayam ātmā brahma, This Self is brahman.⁴⁵ If radical alterity stands at one end of the hermeneutic spectrum of transcendence, then Advaita would seem to stand at the other. Transcendence is taught within a “little world” that is intimate, faithful, and embodied. As such, Nitsche’s hermeneutic category of mutual complementarity must be adapted to suit Advaita’s particular transcendental dynamic. Nitsche’s category of “the unconditioned beyond being” seems to correspond to the “unmanifest” (avyākṛta),⁴⁶ whereas “the unconditioned as free act” is somewhat analogous to the “manifest” (vyākṛta) insofar as a liberated soul acts without attachment desirous of the welfare of beings. Insofar as Īśvara qua “potter” is the efficient cause by which dharma is brought into being through dharmic action, these two transcen-

 Bannon 2014.  Bannon 2018.  Nirguṇa, pāramārthika, or other names would also suffice here.

Potters, Human and Divine

259

dental possibilities can be understood as not only mutually complementary, but mutually constitutive and non-dual. That these two are complementary should be clear. But what “little world” of human existence enables us to interpret Īśvara qua “unmanifest” and Īśvara qua “manifest” as mutually constitutive and non-dual? At the nexus of these two sits the potter, and thus the possibility of giving shape (or not) to ethics. A potter, as we have seen, faces three limitations: material, technical, and creative. These correspond, though not precisely, to the basic conditions of human existence: environment, self-understanding, and society.

Material Limitation and Environmental Dimension Ayam idam brahma. All this is brahman. ⁴⁷ Having been thrown into this world of becoming, we find ourselves within a social and natural world that we did not shape. This world is brahman and has brahman as its material cause, but brahman, like clay, is beyond all name and form. Hence, both oppressor and oppressed, both abuser and abused, are brahman. Their nature and potential are divine. Just as there is no part of a clay pot or clay bowl that is not clay, there is no part of an oppressor or oppressed that is not brahman. The names and forms, however, are transient, malleable, and dynamic. To the extent that I am a “potter,” I am free to oppress and abuse, consume and enjoy as I see fit. But to the extent that I have an intellectual intuition (vijñāna) of Īśvara qua the unconditioned beyond being, then my function, purpose, and duty (dharma) as potter is to give form to Dharma. Just as the pot and bowl can be reformed by a dedicated potter, so, too, can the oppressor and oppressed.

Technical Limitation and Subjective Dimension Aham brahmāsmi. I am brahman. ⁴⁸ Ayam ātmā brahma. This Self is brahman. ⁴⁹ Just as I find myself thrown into a natural and social world, I find myself to be an embodied subject. Though my true nature is the transcendent and universal Self of all beings, my cognitive, intellectual, emotional, and physical qualities are transient, malleable, and dynamic. These are not intrinsic to my inherent na-

 MU 2.  BU I. 4. 10.  MU 2.

260

Brad Bannon

ture (svabhāva) and thus can be molded, shaped, and reformed. Because I am a “potter,” I am ahaṃkara (“I-maker”), and thus free to be selfish and introspective, ignorant of my true nature. But to the extent that I have an intellectual intuition (vijñāna) of Īśvara qua the unconditioned beyond being, then my function, purpose, and duty (dharma) as potter is to give form to Dharma. As the potter standing at the nondual nexus of transcendence and immanence, I form and reform my embodied subjectivity, acting without attachment, desiring to hold the world and its people together (cikīrṣur lokasaṃgraham).⁵⁰

Creative Limitation and Intersubjective Dimension Tat tvam asi. Thou art that.⁵¹ The “little world” of the university classroom is markedly different from the context portrayed by the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, wherein a father looks his son in the eyes and says “you, my dear, are transcendent.” This moment cannot be replicated in the classroom. And yet, naming this etic limitation already, in some sense, enables us to transcend it. When teaching the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, I literally point to each student in turn, address them by name, and say “you are brahman,” or “you are Īśvara,” or “you are the potter.” I do so because the dimensions of human existence are the dimensions which epistemically structure transcendence. The transcendental nature of the non-dual Lord simply cannot be thought outside an intersubjective microcosm. However, each time that I have performed this ritualistic recreation of the Chāndogya’s microcosm, it seems to have a transformative effect. Each student becomes, in turn, the center of attention, a “thou” called into being, as if from a height. And yet the ritual decenters each of us such that the subjective, interpersonal, and embodied dimensions of human existence seem to become transcendent, rather than transcended. This, it seems to me, is a necessary condition of any “little world” from which to grasp Advaita’s particular transcendental hermeneutic. Led out (educare) from this cavernous microcosm, I am reminded of the story I once heard, though, due to my ignorance I cannot recall from whom, about a teacher who once laughed at a girl’s image of God. I laugh.

 BhG 3: 25.  ChU 6. 8 – 16.

Potters, Human and Divine

261

Bibliography Primary Literature Nicholas of Cusa, Trialogus de possest. Nicholas of Cusa. On Actualized Possibility (Trialogus de possest). Translated by Jasper Hopkins. Minneapolis: Banning Press 1986. Plato, Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Plato: Complete Works. Ed. John. M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett 1997. Plato, Republic. Translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve. Plato: Complete Works. John. M. Cooper (Ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett 1997. BhG/BhGBh: Śaṅkarācārya, Bhagavadgītā Bhāṣya. Prasthanatraya: With the Text and Commentary in the Original Sanskrit, Introductory Notes, Explanatory Notes, and Footnotes, Vol. 1. Third Edition. Translated by Vidyavachaspati Panoli. Calicut: Mathrubhumi 2003. BĀU/BĀUBh: Śaṅkarācārya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Bhāṣya. Prasthānatraya: With the Text and Commentary in the Original Sanskrit, Introductory Notes, Explanatory Notes, and Footnotes, Vol. 5. Translated by Vidyavachaspati Panoli. Calicut: Mathrubhumi 2008. ChU/ChUBh: Śaṅkarācārya, Chāndogya Upaniṣad Bhāṣya. Prasthanatraya: With the Text and Commentary in the Original Sanskrit, Introductory Notes, Explanatory Notes, and Footnotes, Vol. 4. Translated by Vidyavachaspati Panoli. Calicut: Mathrubhumi 2008. MU/MUBh: Śaṅkarācārya, Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad Bhāṣya. Prasthānatraya: With the Text and Commentary in the Original Sanskrit, Introductory Notes, Explanatory Notes, and Footnotes, Vol. 2. Translated by Vidyavachaspati Panoli. Calicut: Mathrubhumi 2006. Śabarasvāmi. Śabara-Bhāṣya. Translated by Ganganatha Jha. Oriental Institute 1933.

Secondary Literature Bannon 2014. R. Brad Bannon, Thou, That, and An/Other: Hearing Śaṅkara’s Indexicals and Finding Cusa’s Seeking God. Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 27/1 (2014): 48 – 61. Bannon 2015. Id., Apophatic Measures: Toward a Theology of Irreducible Particularity. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Divinity School 2015. Bannon 2018. Id., “Incarnational Speech: Comparative Theology as Learning to Hear and Preach”. In: How to do Comparative Theology. Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Karl von Stosch (Eds.). New York: Fordham University Press 2018. Bronkhorst 2007. Johannes Bronkhorst (ed.), Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta: Interaction and Continuity. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2007. Clooney 1993. Francis Xavier Clooney, Theology After Vedānta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press 1993. Clooney 1990. Id., Thinking Ritually: Rediscovering the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 7]. Vienna: Institute for Indology, University of Vienna 1990. Coward 2008. Harold Coward, The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought. The Central Story. Suny Press 2008.

262

Brad Bannon

Freire 1972. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder 1972. Hooks 1994. Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge 1994. Jha 1978. Ganganatha Jha, The Prābhākara School of Pūrva Mīmāmsā. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass [1st.] 1978. Nitsche “Dimensions”. In this volume pp. 5 – 8. Parpola 1981. Asko Parpola, On the Formation of the Mīmāṃsā and the Problems Concerning Jaimini, with Particular Reference to the Teacher Quotations and the Vedic Schools. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 25 (1981): 145 – 77. Rambachan 2006 A. Anantanand Rambachan, The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity. State University of New York Press 2006.

Godabarisha Mishra

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism Preliminaries Recent scholarship in Indian philosophy has most often taken Śaṅkara’s concept of advaita as theology based on revelation rather than pure philosophy upheld through personal experience or independent reason. In this approach, pure brahman is more than just pure-consciousness, it is also capable of love, causation and grace; but in such a way that its simplicity, plenitude and transcendence are not compromised. Some entertain the idea that even the highest brahman (parabrahman), which transcends the ordinary human mode of personhood, is not totally impersonal. The supreme reality freely chooses to be a world creator, etc. without undergoing any change. Śaṅkara is seen less as an ontologist than as a valuationalist, who measures everything in relation to the absolute value, that is, in relation to brahman. A basic claim in this interpretation is that Śaṅkara does not actually deny the existence of the world when he uses negations in describing it.¹ This approach appears to compromise the non-dualistic stance of the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, since in providing space for personalism and the like it risks falling a prey to Viśiṣṭādvaitic theism. The highest brahman (parabrahman) in Śaṅkara’s concept of advaita is not a super-person; rather it is supra-personal. The writings of Śaṅkara suggest that he strongly believed in theism, while his philosophy places the Ultimate principle beyond theism. Hence, we may say that Śaṅkara’s concept of advaita is neither a-theistic, nor theistic, but trans-theistic in nature. There are personalistic views advocated in other Vedāntic schools such as Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita Vedānta. Theism retains an important place in the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, but it is not the final standpoint. It may also be said that if the liberating knowledge in Advaita Vedānta is ultimately dependent on the self-disclosure of the Absolute Itself, which is the ātman of the seeker, then this self-disclosure should be the grace of the Ultimate brahman. If that is the case, brahman’s prasāda (grace) must be different from It, and that would land the concept of non-dualism in duality. There is another problem – how does this schema accommodate those who are born liberated,

 These views are presented in Malkovsky 2000: 16 and Mishra 2005: 611. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-018

264

Godabarisha Mishra

such as Vāmadeva or Sanatkumāra, and who do not require grace at all to become liberated? The tradition of Advaita Vedānta does not deny a grace-giving God, but that God is not the highest brahman (parabrahman). If brahman were to be endowed with the faculty of giving grace, then brahman would have to have a mind. That is not acceptable in Advaita Vedānta, as he would be like the God in Viśiṣṭādvaita, which accepts a God with knowledge, i. e., dharmabhūtajñāna. Advaita Vedānta does not talk of a supreme all-knowing God, but of an Ultimate that is knowledge itself. Nevertheless, the question may be asked as to why God created the world. The Advaitin’s answer would be a counter question – where is the world? There is no world, or no world different from brahman. The same is the case with a person of knowledge who asks: who needs liberation? From such a standpoint, there is no person who needs liberation, since all are ever-liberated. This is a profound or a naïve answer depending upon the person and his understanding of the reality. The Śruti-centric philosophy of this tradition is also a point that needs to be discussed and analysed. As Śaṅkara would view it, when the self is known, the authoritativeness of all authoritative means of knowledge comes to an end. What the scriptural text does is to take away misconceptions and that reveals the self-revealed (svataḥsiddha) brahman. This paper attempts to deal with the ontological status of the world in a nondualistic format and the relationality of transcendence as envisaged by Śaṅkara and post-Śaṅkara Advaitins.

Philosophy of Advaita – Salient Features The word “advaita” refers to a system of Vedāntic thought which believes in a non-dualistic ultimate reality. Śaṅkarācārya is one of the major exponents of this system. The philosophy he propounded was based on the following features. 1. the Vedas, i. e. Śruti, propound a reality which is without any characteristics, nirguṇa or nirviśeṣa. In other words, brahman (being) is the only reality. For other schools, however, reality is multifold. 2. Māyā, which is identical with avidyā (ignorance), is responsible for the appearance of brahman as God, jīva and the world. 3. The states of God (īśvara) and the soul (jīva) are illusory, while the essential nature of both is real. 4. The world is superimposed on brahman through māyā and it cannot be either real or unreal but is indeterminable, (anirvacanīya). 5. The direct knowledge (aparokṣa-jñāna) of the true nature of the jīva as brahman is the sole means to liberation. Śaṅkara holds that all action (karman) including devotion (bhakti) is a subordinate means to liberation and that it is by knowledge alone one can be liberated. 6. The liberation can be achieved here

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

265

and now; if knowledge comes then liberation is instant. It is not necessary that the person would wait till death to be liberated. The theistic schools who believe in pluralism consider God, world, and the soul to be distinct realities. Advaita Vedānta considers them as manifestations of brahman which is pure consciousness and non-dual. Māyā conceals the true nature of brahman and projects the world, soul and God. God and soul are complex entities having the sentient element called consciousness and the insentient element of māyā-avidyā as their characteristics. The essential nature of God is the sentient element of consciousness which is known as brahman and that of the jīva is known as ātman. The point of importance here is that though the states of being God and soul are illusory, their essential nature is real.² Both belong to the phenomenal world and have no ultimate reality. The individual self is brahman as limited by or reflected in avidyā (ignorance).³ The world is an illusory appearance of brahman through māyā like a rope-snake which is caused through ignorance. Hence no part of the world is real. For Advaita Vedānta, God is always aware of his essential nature as brahman and hence he is ever liberated. The jīva, who wrongly identifies with the mind, the body and the sense organs, is ignorant of its essential nature and undergoes transmigration. Hence Advaitins contend that this wrong identification which is produced by ignorance can be removed by the knowledge that is identical with brahman. From the above discussion it can be seen that the term “advaita” implies brahman which is devoid of duality, and also stands for the school that declares reality to be non-dual. Here I would like to refer to one more tradition of Advaita Vedānta which was prevalent as a non-orthodox school long before the advent of Ācārya Śaṅkara. The writer of Amarakoṣa refers to Buddha as advayavādin.⁴ A close study of the Māṇḍūkyakārikā reveals how Gauḍapāda was strongly influenced by the Buddha in formulating the tenets of advaita. In his commentaries, (bhāṣya) on Māṇḍūkyakārikā, authored by his grand preceptor Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara was not that vociferous in criticizing Buddha, whereas his criticisms became quite pungent in his commentary on the Tarkapāda of the Brahmasūtra, in which he says that the Buddha must have had hatred towards his subjects because of which he propagated contradictory views.⁵ Śaṅ-

 Hiriyanna (1975: 251) says: “The freed man is in and out of saṁsāra at the same time – empirically in it but transcendentally out of it.” Cf. Hiriyanna 1993: 373 – 74.  Raju 1985: 395  Amarakoṣa 1. 1. 27: ṣaḍabhijño daśabalo ’dvayavādī vināyakaḥ.  Brahmasūtrabhāṣya of Śaṅkara ad Brahmasūtra 2. 2. 32: […] api ca bāhyārthavāda-vijñāna-śūnyavāda-trayam itaretara-viruddham upadiśatā sugatena spaṣṭīkṛtam ātmano ’saṃbaddhapralāpitvam, pradveṣo vā prajāsu.

266

Godabarisha Mishra

kara hardly seems to appreciate the Buddha, simply because the Vedas were repudiated by him even though it was the Buddha who opened the doors of liberation to one and all. In any case Buddhist non-dualism must have influenced Śaṅkara and enabled him to give a logical shape to his thinking. Conversely, when we analyse the thinking of the Buddha, we find that he was strongly influenced by the Upaniṣads, even though he denied the authority of the Vedas. The individuality of a separatist Buddhist ideology beyond the Upaniṣads seems to have been questioned by Gauḍapāda, who held that the whole thinking of Buddha could be traced back to the Upaniṣads.⁶ He attempted a reconciliation between the Upaniṣads and Buddhism and showed how even the smallest of the Upaniṣads could be drawn on to comment on what Buddha said and on what he wanted to say and did not say. After Gauḍapāda, it was Śaṅkara who mostly reconstructed the concept of advaita, combining logic and Śruti while showing that Buddhism is neither logical nor liberative and Vedānta contains both without any inconstancy whatsoever.⁷ Hence the importance of and emphasis on the Upaniṣads is reiterated by Śaṅkara in his bhāṣya several times and comes down till today in an unbroken manner. The word “advaita” is commented upon by Śaṅkara in his Māṇḍūkyakārikābhāṣya⁸ but it was Madhusūdana who, with the opponents’ views in mind, defined this term in his Siddhāntabindu as “the substratum in which there is no duality”.⁹ To counter the Mādhyamikas who also talk of a non-dualistic entity called “śūnyatā” as a non-dual principle, Madhusūdana thought it necessary to insert “yatra” in the definition, identifying a specific locus of non-duality, i. e. brahman, in which there is no trace of dualism. Mādhyamika does not need such a substratum, since for that system “advaita” means simply “na dvaita”. Highlighting the difference, Hiriyanna says: Again, by postulating a Reality behind the self-discrepant world of experience, Śaṅkara differentiates his doctrine from the Śūnyavāda of the Madhyamika. This discrepancy characterizing the saguṇa Brahman or its relativity only degrades it to the level of appearances, it does not dismiss it altogether. If according to Madhyamika it is impossible for thought to rest in the relative, it is equally impossible for it, according to Śaṅkara, to rest in absolute nothing. To use the terminology of the Upaniṣads, the, the Advaita denies only ‘names’ and ‘forms’ but not that which appears under their guise. Or, as an old writer has observed,

 Mishra 1999: 99 – 111.  Brahmasūtra-śaṅkara-bhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 1. 9: naivāsmadīye darśane kiṅcidasamañjasyam asti… tasmāt samañjasam idam aupaniṣadam darśanam.  Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, 7 reads: advaitam caturtham manyante sa ātmā sa vijñeyaḥ.  Siddhāntabindu of Madhusūdana, Commentary on Verse 10, p. 80: na vidyate dvaitam dvidhābhavo yatra tad advaitam ity arthaḥ.

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

267

while the Advaitin negates only distinction (bheda) the Madhyamika negates it as well as the distincts (bhidyamāna).¹⁰

But to indicate that reality is non-dual, the question usually asked: would not the word eka or aikya suffice? Why use the term advaita? Despite the preeminence of monism there are a number of Vaiṣṇava schools which talk of “eka” as the supreme reality, for instance the Viśiṣṭādvaita School for which Viṣṇu is the only reality. In their scheme of thinking, duality is accepted: world is necessary but not sufficient in their understanding of the ultimate reality. Hence it is appropriate to reserve the word “advaita” for a pure non-dualistic thinking.¹¹

“Being” According to the Advaita Vedānta The enquiry into the actual import of advaita is an investigation into “what-is,” a quest after what is real and what is ultimate. In the world of doubting, erroneous perceptions, one thing that is not doubted is the presence of the self, “I”. Even in the statement, “I do not exist” there is an affirmation of “I” that asserts or doubts my absence. Śaṅkara says that the very fact of denial of the self would affirm it.¹² The essence of of the concept of advaita is a philosophical search of this “I,” the self. Hence the right understanding of advaita has to commute between the self (being) and the not-self (appearances). In this process it attends more to the unreality of the non-self than to direct focus on the self.¹³ Let me clarify that it is wrong to think that advaita denies the world; rather it asserts that understanding of the world goes beyond grasping its appearance, and reaching its substratum which is the reality, the brahman itself. The notion of the self, or of being, is fundamental to all knowledge. In contrast, the notion of appearance has little reference to knowledge, in that it refers to what is erroneously superimposed and imagined by subjective thinking. It follows that metaphysical knowledge is not essentially different from empirical knowledge. In this way of analysis, we need not speak of two kinds of knowledge, one ordinary and other extra-ordinary, one empirical and the other extra-empirical or transcendental. Even discourse on the transcendental must arise from the empirical. Conversely, a higher knowledge is required that enables  Hiriyanna 1932: 373.  Hiriyanna 1932: 372– 373.  Śaṅkarabhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 7: ya eva hy asya nirakartā tad eva tasya svarūpam.  Mahadevan used to say: Advaita is not a question of understanding the self, but of not understanding what is not self.

268

Godabarisha Mishra

us to detect what is false in empirically given knowledge and to access the underlying metaphysical reality.¹⁴ If we accept the differentiation of appearances and reality, the search for truth comes into play. It is recognized that an appearance is relative to the person to whom it appears (puruṣa-tantra). It is also relative to an underlying substratum, for a mere and pure appearance cannot appear. It needs to be sustained by reality and what sustains appearance is the being that does not appear.¹⁵ These appearances may be illusory or not illusory, but they cannot form a part of the reality. They have a necessary reference to the subject and to the substratum and are not independent in themselves. The Advaitin contends that all appearances, because they are appearances, are in some sense illusory in nature.¹⁶ An appearance cannot exist in itself, it is a contradiction in terms to say that an appearance exists independently. Thus, all appearance whatsoever is an appearance of reality but this reality does not appear. The ground presents itself through the appearance, but it does not become an object of knowledge, or we do not know it in its fulness and completeness as the thing it is.¹⁷ All our present knowledge is of appearance only and the thing-in-itself eludes us. To know something fully and for what it is in its own essential nature is to know the truth, and hence the problem of truth has reference to what is essentially non-perceivable and metaphysical. Hence as long as we are satisfied with the knowledge of the world, the question of such a metaphysical knowledge does not arise. The quest for that metaphysical knowledge presupposes a need or desire, or what Advaita Vedānta calls the desire (a hermeneutic need) to know (jijñāsā).¹⁸ The fundamental notion for metaphysics is being. Action is external to being and we introduce it because of extraneous considerations. The essence of a thing is never known, but only conceived. Conception again is a form of imagination and hence a subjective activity. The object is an outcome of one’s conception. Knowledge is different, it is not a subjective activity that makes or creates the object in knowing it. The true object or the thing in-itself is logically prior to

 Malkani, 1997: 303.  Kant talks of the thing-in-itself which is exactly like the analysis given by the Advaitin. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure reason, 1929: 29; see also Malkani, op cit, p.302.  With this in view Madhusūdana says in his Advaitasiddhi (p. 28): vimatam mithyā dṛśyatvāt, jaḍatvāt; cf. also Malkani 1997: 302.  Cf. Pañcadaśī of Vidyāraṇya 6. 76: niradhiṣṭhānavibhrānter abhāvād ātmano ’stita. Cf. Malkani 1997: 303.  Malkani 1997: 304

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

269

knowledge and independent of it. The knowledge is true only if it is after the object or in the image of the object (vastu-tantra).¹⁹

The God of Beings and the Being of God: Advaitic Analysis of Causality In Advaita Vedānta the idea of causation is accepted in the empirical level and in reality, nothing whatsoever is caused or originated. This is elaborately propounded by Gauḍapāda in his concept of ajātivāda, the theory of non-origination. Only that thing can exist in itself and so be real which is self-dependent and self-existent. This leads us to postulate an ultimate real cause or a causeless cause. Such a cause can neither be a temporal entity, nor something that is self-caused. It must be trans-empirical, self-created and self-existent.²⁰ By empirical investigation, it is neither possible to go beyond actual entities nor understand the operation of the first cause. A non-temporal permanent thing cannot burst into activity without any cause. The non-temporal can have no relation to a temporal series and the latter cannot come out of the former. Even so, we cannot avoid the problem of a first cause and we cannot do away with the problem of its relationship with the temporal series it is supposed to explain. Any movement or change points to the unmoving and the unchanging as its substratum.²¹ The cosmological argument of theology is based on locating the first cause or the unmoving mover. An act implies an actor and the actor must be the first and free cause of the act. If we stop with the God as the first cause, we need to find in him both mobility and immobility. As mobile, he explains the dynamism of the process, and as final telos he must also have an immobile or a static nature. God is permanent and eternal and at the same time he is an agent and creator. To the Advaitin, this view, too, is defective: To create is to create freely. Only a non-created being, a self-existent being can be said to act freely. The Advaitin posits an agent which does not act, yet who is the only agent. Nevertheless one accepts this odd and apparently self-contradictory position: the agent does not really act; the act stands in a relation of false or illusory identity with him. The non-actor is taken to the actor. We cannot combine in one and

 Ibid., p. 305  Mahadevan 1954: 136. Malkani 1997: 304.  Malkani 1997: 305.

270

Godabarisha Mishra

the same entity the two contradictory epithets of mobility and immobility, yet we do. Once we recognize this error, the problem dissolves itself. There is no longer any problem of tracing the temporal to the non-temporal: the eternal first cause is the truth, the temporality, a superimposition. In short, God in this tradition is necessary being but not sufficient, what is sufficient is being per se, brahman.²²

The Ontology of Appearance The metaphysics of Advaita Vedānta works on this presupposition that the real being is always being-in-itself and what is apparent is a dependent being. It may depend upon other things in the case of causation or some other forms of relation. It may depend upon certain conditions of perception or on the subject to whom it appears. Appearances can be many: 1. Substance-less appearance – dream objects; 2. Illusions: something appears as something else. The rope appears as a snake, a subjective illusion; the colourless sky looks blue, a public illusion; 3. There is an appearance due less to an error of the subject, than to certain conditions of perception: The sun and the moon look small from the earth, a straight stick looks bent when immersed in the water. Here the subject does not create an appearance – the person has no option. It is a public illusion and these appearances are false by common consent. 4. Then there are appearances which are ordinarily never sublated and which pass for truth. We perceive physical things just as they are supposed to be in reality.²³ To an Advaitin, it is by reflective or epistemological criticism that we can make a distinction between appearance and reality. If we begin to isolate all the subjective elements in a perception, we find that nothing is left for us to perceive. Truth, which is self-evident (svataḥsiddha) or self-created or self-existent is not available at the empirical level. All we know are phenomena or appearances, not reality. On this issue, Malkani observes, Before we undertake this somewhat difficult task of reducing all objects of ordinary knowledge to appearance as distinct from reality, we must be very clear about the ontological status of appearance as such. It is evident that the moment we distinguish being from real being, we have made an ultimate ontological distinction. It goes without saying that an appearance is midway between being and non-being. It is distinct from being because unlike the latter, it has something to offer. unlike the latter it has something to offer. It appears and

 Malkani 1997: 306 – 7.  Malkani 1997: 308 – 316.

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

271

appears to be not unrelated to reality. There is a line dividing appearance and reality. Knowledge which is not absolutely true is a mixed kind of knowledge.²⁴

This is what Śaṅkara speaks of as bringing together truth and non-truth (satyaanṛta-mithuna). Taking up the question of the reality of empirical objects, they share some important characteristics with illusory objects, there is adhyāropa i. e., they appear pending the question if whatever appears is true. There is subsequent experience of sublation and when such a state comes about, the distinction of appearance and reality is clearly visible. Just because an appearance is not cancelled, it does not mean it is true. Truth cannot depend on temporal factors. It can only depend on the pattern of knowledge, and so far this is concerned, there is no distinction between illusory perception and perception claiming to be true. The real self cannot be distinguished. It reveals all distinctions including the distinction of the subject and the object. Distinctions are made at the empirical level only and since the self is not an empirical entity, all things knowable belong to being and they belong to being by a sort of false superimposition. The self, essentially transcendent in character, does not belong to being. They belong to each other by simple identity (tādātmya-saṃbandha). Even when we add intelligence to it, the self remains being only, which is the self in the ultimate analysis.²⁵ On this Malkani observes, The appearances that deceive us most and easily pass for reality are the appearances that are never sublated under the ordinary conditions of life.—As we negate each form of appearance in turn, another and a subtler form of appearance rises in its place and remains unsublated. It is hard to negate the intellect and keep the self, and harder still to negate ego and keep the self. For the ego and the Self remain ordinarily undistinguished, and both are indicated by the use of the same common word ‘I’.²⁶

In and through the experiences that reveal the series of the states in the self, we experience a continuing and uninterrupted principle which we call the transcendent or absolute self. This distinction is clearly known when the ego lapses back into deep sleep. This is understood and revealed to us when we transcend that state, in the transition of states. That principle of consciousness remains immutable through all changes of states and through that we experience and understand those changes. In and through the states of our existence, it remains al-

 Cf. Malkani 1997: 310 – 311. Cf. also to Śaṅkarabhāṣya on Brahmasūtras (Adhyāsa-bhāṣya), p.1.  Mishra 2020: 212– 229  Malkani 1997: 315.

272

Godabarisha Mishra

ways awake, either in false identity with the ego when it knows both external and internal worlds or in pure transcendence without the ego when it reveals the lapses of the ego. Vidyāraṇya gives the example of a lamp in a theatre that makes the above point clear. The lamp in a theatre lightens all actors, spectators and the like and when none is present, still it emanates light.²⁷ Hence Advaitin charts out a scheme to look beyond the “I” the ego, ahaṃkāra since this ego is also impermanent, comes and goes. The true self is unaffected by these comings and goings of the ego. There are two entities here, one is the pure light and the other, mind that shines in borrowed light of the consciousness. The two are normally in a relation of identity. When the identity is broken, only pure consciousness remains. This “I” is the ultimate ground of all appearances whether external or internal. There is more in our common intuition of the self than what meets the eye or what appears at the surface of introspective consciousness. It is consciousness per se and blissful being (sat, cit, ānanda). It is the ground of the world and the necessary being behind all appearances.²⁸

Transition from the World of Appearances (Non-being) to the Locus of Appearances There is no appearance without a substratum. An illusory snake (rope-snake) is an appearance and is different from the rope which always remains a rope. This is different from a square circle which never appears and which is universally known to be non-existent. There is no transition from non-being to being or from being to non-being. There is transition from one kind of being to another or a transition from the being of the cause to the being of the effect. The effect, which is not there, comes out of the cause, which is existent. This is possible only when there is continuous underlying unity between the two, and the Advaitin contends that this unity is pure being without qualities. So now it comes to this, that being comes out of being, which needs to be explained. It is proper to say that in the beginning there was being and in the end there shall be being and even in the middle, when the object of the world appears, there is only being. Nothing really arises from being – it merely so appears. Gauḍapāda says: “that which is not in the beginning and also at the end, remains in the same manner even in the present. Even though they are illusory, they look as

 Pañcadaśī 10. 10: nṛtyaśālasthito dīpaḥ prabhum sābhyāṃś ca nartakīm, dīpayed aviśeṣeṇa tadabhāve ’pi dīpayet. Cf. Malkani 1997: 315.  Malkani 1997: 315 – 6.

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

273

though they are real.”²⁹ In other words, things arise from being, remain in being, and go back to being. What is contained in being is the absence or negation of those things. Hence the definition of an illusory object as given in the tradition of Advaita Vedānta is that which appears in a locus where its negation is contained in all three divisions of time – past, present and future.³⁰ There is the Buddhist view that the ultimate truth is nothingness/essenceless-ness (śūnyatā) which is never born or never dies. This nothingness as the mere negation of things cannot be its ultimate nature because it continuously arises and ceases. It has a location in time either as preceding things or as following them. It is only a negative appearance. But for the Advaitin pure being is everywhere and in all things and therefore fully positive, its true nature can be directly known in the absolutely immediate subject. And this reality can be realized and cannot be doubted. Once the truth is known as eternal, the demand for an explanation drops away. This is not a mystical experience; it is an immediate perception (sākṣātkāra). This truth derives nothing from any temporal circumstances or any other relation. Even time is a part of this empirically. It is self-illumined (svayaṃprakāśa)³¹ which needs means for its understanding. This I shall deal with a little later in this paper.

Non-relational Being and its Relation to the World (tādātmya-saṃbandha) In order to understand the continuity under the surface of known differences, two types of analyses are possible: – 1. to accept a real identity of the effect with the cause or 2. Alternatively, reach a transcendent reality which underlies the difference of the cause and the effect. Both these alternatives reduce the differences to an illusory appearance. This eliminates the time factor as something irrelevant and apparent only. The reality of the cause has to be accepted as ultimate and this reality must be timeless and eternal. Nothing really happens and

 Cf. Māṇḍūkyakārikā 2.6ab: ādāv ante ca yat nāsti vartamāne ’pi tat tathā.  Cf. Prakāśātman’s Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa p. 106: “Being the counter-positive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate” (pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedha pratiyogitvam).  Cf. Citsukha’s Tattvapradīpikā p. 9, 2– 3: na tāvat svayaṃprakāśe lakṣaṇāsaṃbhavaḥ, avedyatve saty aparokṣavyavahārayogyatāyās tallakṣaṇatvāt. Being unknown, it is capable of entering into our use and our speech as what is quite immediate. It cannot be known but can be known directly. Cf. Malkani 1997: 262; 318.

274

Godabarisha Mishra

this appearance is no part of reality since appearance is illusory. Malkani discusses this at length and to quote him: Empirical explanations of empirical events are no explanation at all. At the empirical level, there is no first cause. There are a few things which came to be understood in this context. 1. There must be an ultimate source of activity beyond which it is not possible to go. This cause/source must be uncaused and self-existent. It must be itself uncaused and self-existent. 2. The first cause must be outside the temporal series and thus timeless. 3. What is in time must bear some necessary relation to it, so that the temporal series cannot be realized without this relation. 4. The relation must not affect the timeless first cause or make any difference to it. 5. We must have an example of a first cause of this description in our own experience. This is the volitional experience. It is the pattern of all creativity anywhere.³²

In the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, this relation is explained in terms of false identity. False identity (tādātmya) is not a real or objective relation.³³ It is not a relation that things themselves can sustain. It is a relation that is an outcome of a subjective error and like any other error, it is a case of superimposition. This is the Advaitin speaks, we speak of the God as the creator who in reality is not a creator. His being a creator is relational to the existence of the world appearance. The real creator is brahman, the consciousness that which pervades all apparent and beyond. In ordinary parlance “I” (the self) is the creator. It is only in this way that we can describe a causeless cause or the first cause. There is another reflective ‘I,’ ahaṃkāra or ego through which we all experience. The substratum of this ego is the real ‘I’ the uninterrupted and continuous intelligence which reveals all changes within us. The latter is qualitatively different from the former. It is actionless (naiṣkarmya) and changeless and at the same time it is the only agent, who does not create in fact, but only appears to do so.³⁴ Hence the absolutism according to the tradition of Advaita Vedānta is different from all other forms of absolutism, in that creation does not affect the spirit since it is illusory. For the Advaitin, God, in the sense of pure spirit, cannot act at all. Action can emanate from God when associated with a body or an adjunct. In this case, the limiting adjunct for God is his cosmic power of māyā. The question will arise: why does this God create? All explanations are in some way inadequate since they are all subjective. There is in reality no creation at all (ajātivāda). This is the chief import of the teachings of Gauḍapāda who says: No self is ever born, there is no cause for it, this is the supreme truth that nothing wharever

 Ibid. 320.  Advaitasiddhi, p. 420: bhedasahiṣṇuḥ abhedaḥ. Cf. Malkani 1997: 323.  Malkani 1997: 323.

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

275

is born.”³⁵ When the illusion of creation subsides, the creator of the illusion, the personal God, vanishes simultaneously. The ultimate reality which is eternally self-fulfilled, remains as the citadel of joy (sat-cid-ānanda) and it needs nothing for its fulfillment. This is the truth, not the creator God, associated with ignorance, māyā. The concept of God is designed to meet the requirements of the human mind and is a design for the understanding of the apparent empirical world. To summarize, world is grounded in being due to ignorance and in reality, it is not contained in the ultimate self. The first cause is the material as well as the efficient cause of the world, and Advaitins speak of this as vivarta-upādāna or the transformative material cause of the world.³⁶ There is only one self in all selves and it is spoken of under different names. That brahman or ātman suffers from no limitations of personality, but is the one without any differences whatsoever.

Ontology of the Divine: Personal or Impersonal The God of religion is essentially personal and hence there is a demarcation between what philosophy can prove and what religion believes. According to the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, since God is the first cause, God has to be outside the world-creation process. The human and the divine self are not qualitatively different. The self is nothing but pure consciousness and there is no peculiarity which can distinguish it from another (state of) consciousness. What distinguishes it is the mode of embodiment. Following “know thyself” we can go from man to God in our experiential dimensions. In theology, we go from God to man and reconstruct man as God’s image. Both these perspectives are necessary for a proper understanding of man and God. There are a number of models describing the nature of God, like the one in which God is spoken of as the Supreme Craftsman for the creation of the world.³⁷ If He is a craftsman, the material should be different from Him and therefore such a God cannot have independence of what is external to him. Advaitins object to such an idea of God. Secondly, God may be spoken of as creating like an artist. Like any form of art, God’s artistry would be open to criticism excepting from staunch devotees. Everything in the world cannot be aesthetically pleasing  Māṇḍūkyakārikā 3. 48: na kaścit jāyate jīvaḥ sambhavo’sya na vidyate, etat taduttamam satyam yatra kiñcid na jāyate. Cf., Mahadevan 1954: 128.  Malkani (1997: 327) speaks of this as the “underlying ground” of the world.  Clooney 2000: 47.

276

Godabarisha Mishra

and aesthetic effect cannot be the purpose of the whole creation. Third, God can be compared to a magician who materializes things without corresponding material. Such a God can only exploit our ignorance by presenting false appearances. There is still another form of god-less creation which is the manifestation of something new out of no material. It is a new creation which can be described neither in terms of objective reality, nor in terms of subjective thinking. This form of creativity may be applicable to God (īśvara) who has created an illusory world with his power of māyā. This view also has its own difficulties since God cannot be the conscious creator of an illusory world. An illusory world is created unconsciously and never purposefully. The explanation we can have for this is that the purpose of the creation is for the liberation that is to redeem the man from the suffering of the empirical world existence. An illusory thing appears only to the mis-perceiver, not to others. If God has created an illusory world, he alone should perceive that world. On the other hand, if every person sees his own world, where is the need for God to create a common world? There are certain points to be considered here. 1. The worshipful God cannot create illusions either for himself or for others. In that case he would suffer from some limitations associated with the human beings. 2. There is another form of creation like that of the dream world; when the dreamer wakes up, the dream-world disappears along with him. This is what is called in Advaita Vedānta as dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda. The only thing that remains un-sublated is the consciousness transcending both the dreamer and the dream.³⁸ In other words, the whole empirical world of experience is only a bigger or a larger dream. There can be dreams within the dream. The ordinary dream which is readily sublated is only a dream within a bigger dream which comprehends our entire empirical existence.³⁹ The function of God here is taken over by the individual who becomes the centre of his own universe. This is called as ekajīva-vāda. The illusion alone is real and when he wakes from his dreams, he is also sublated as an individual being.⁴⁰ Hence, whenever we give importance to the concept of a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient creator, we are assailed by major difficulties. We can do away with them when we come nearer to the creativity of our own self in different forms of ignorance. The great God himself is a mixed product of divine truth and human ignorance. In Advaita Vedānta, the God is supposed to be the creator, and since this creator operates in the spell of ignorance, it is a necessary but  Malkani 1997: 334.  Cf. Advaitamakaranda 18cd: dīrghasvapne sphuranty ete svargamokṣādivibhramāḥ. Advaitamakaranda 27ab: upaśāntajagajjīvaśiṣyācaryeśvarabhramaḥ.  Malkani 1997: 334.

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

277

not a sufficient cause. In fact, the Self is the only reality that we can know directly for what it is (aparokṣa). We can say that God is the Self, minus his attributes. When the worshipper discovers that the worshipped is not an extraneous God and that true God is his essential self, there is an end to worship and to all forms of duality implied in it. Having this in view, the tradition of Advaita Vedānta talks of worshipping one’s own self (ātmapūjā). There is a significant difference between God and the Absolute, and a person of discrimination will know what he can transcend and what he cannot. There is no need that a theist and a non-dualist should refute each other, since an Advaitin does not miss anything that is important to theistic position, since he can combine his devotion with his saving knowledge. Man is divine himself at the highest reach of his knowledge. Gauḍapāda says that the concept of non-creation has no difference of opinion with any other school since all the views can be brought under its larger embrace.⁴¹

Unity and Mysticism In the following I would like to present my views on “darśana” in the sense of philosophy in India which, most of the times, is associated with and understood in terms of “mysticism” in the West. The term “darśana” means “seeing”. In Vedānta, it is used in the sense of seeing one’s own self.⁴² Whichever means a person may adopt, the identity of the self and brahman has to be personally experienced. The Upaniṣadic teaching bears on the understanding of the unity of the individual self with the supreme self, and this understanding which relates to the realization of the essence of one’s own self is non-different from the supreme self. Since this teaching of the unity of the individual person is the central focus of the Upaniṣads, it is in principle possible that whosoever attempts to understand this can do so and realize this phenomenon. The Advaitin speaks of this as aparokṣānubhūti, direct realization, and this is not for a chosen few, a rare mystical experience as has been understood, but is meant for everybody. In fact, the tradition of Advaita Vedānta gives the example of a prince who was lost during his childhood and brought up by a community of tribal people. Later on, when he was told that he was the son of a king, a prince, he does  Gauḍapāda Māṇḍūkyakārikā 3. 17cd: parasparam viruddhyante tair ayam na viruddhyate.  darśana implies direct realization without any obstruction of the prameya and pramātṛ (darśanam nāma pratibandharahitam pratyakṣajñānam). It is free of doubt and error and not dependent on inference (saṃśayarahitam, viparyayarahitam and anumānānapekṣam jñānam). The object of this perception is jīva, jagat and īśvara.

278

Godabarisha Mishra

not have a mystical experience but direct realization of the truth that he is a prince. The Advaitic concept of immediate realisation (sākṣātkāra) is not marked by the traits of mysticism such as ineffability, incomprehensibility, transcendence of rational analysis. The realisation of the self is not mystical, because the facticity of self-realization and the scriptural text as a means to it as set forth so clearly that one who desires it (jijñāsu) can have self-realization. The whole discourse bears on one’s own self, here and now, and as such can never be irrational, since it starts with textual exegesis and confirmed by personal experiences.

Conclusion One important aspect of Śaṅkara’s analysis is that though it begins with a faith in Śruti, it takes other hermeneutic channels like rational reflection to interpret and transcend the Śruti and also to negate the instinctive and philosophical prejudices against it so that experience becomes possible. The analysis of self-awareness is a significant part of this process. Śaṅkara never negates the world, as has been claimed by many including non-Advaitins. He models his philosophy on the basis of two truths, empirical, vyavahārika and trans-empirical, pāramārthika. In realizing the concept of advaita, he appeals to two basic principles, that the subject can never be the object and the real can never be sublated. On the basis of this, he says that empirical consciousness and existence are false or illusory. The transcendental falsity is compatible with pragmatic authenticity so that it is possible to discover truth by adhyāropa and apavāda, superimposition and subsequent negation.

Bibliography Primary Literature Advaitamakaranda of Lakṣmīdhara with commentary Rasābhivyañjikā of Svayamprakāśayati. Ramatattvaprakasa Publishers: Belgaun, (Sakabda 1818) 1896. Advaitasiddhi of Madhusūdanasarasvatī, Edited with critical notes by Mahamahopadhyaya Ananta Krishna Sastri. Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1937. Amarakośa of Amarasiṁha, Critically edited with Introduction by A. A. Ramanathan. Chennai: The Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1971. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, Śaṅkara. Brahmasūtraśāṅkarabhāṣya with the commentaries Bhāmati, Kalpataru and Parimala. Anantakrishna Shastri, Vasudev Laxman Shastri Pansikar (Ed.). [Krishnadas Sanskrit Series 25]. Varanasi: Krishnadas Academy 2000 (reprint).

Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism

279

Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, Gauḍapādakārika, with Śāṅkarabhāṣya, Ānandagiriṭīkā, Ramachandra Sastri (Ed.), Vanivilas Sanskrit Pustakalay, Varanasi, 1942. Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, Prakāśātman. Pañcapādikā of Śrī Padmapāda with Pañcapādikavivaraṇa of Śrī Prakāśātman and Tātparyadīpikā of Citsukhācārya. Ś. Śāstrī and S. R. Krishnamurthi Śāstrī (Eds.) [Madras Government Oriental Series 155]. Madras, 1958. Siddhāntabindu, Madhusūdana, with commentary of Purusottama, Ed. Trans. by P.C. Diwanji, Baroda Oriental Institute, 1933. Tattvasaṃgraha, Kamalaśīla. Tattvasangraha of Ācārya Shāntarakṣita with the Commentary Pañjikā of Shri Kamalashīla. Volume 2. Critical edited by Swami Dwarikadas Shastri. Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1982. Tattvapradīpikā, Citsukha. Tattwapradīpikā (Citsukhī) of Paramahamsa Citsukhācārya with the Commentary Nayanaprasādinī. Kāshinatha Shāstrī (Ed.) [Vrajajivan Pracyabharati Granthamala 19]. Delhi: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan, 1986.

Secondary Literature Bhattacharya, Vidhusekhara, The Āgamaśāstra of Gauḍapāda. University of Calcutta, 1943. Clooney 2000. Francis X. Clooney, “Śaṃkara’s Theological Realism: The Meaning and Usefulness of Gods (Devatā) in the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtra Bhāṣya.” In: New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta. Essays in Commemoration of professor Richard De Smet SJ. Bradley J. Malkovsky (Ed.). Leiden: Brill 2000, 30 – 50. Hiriyanna 1968. M. Hiriyanna. Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Delhi: Motilal Banarshidass, 1968. Hiriyanna 1975. Id., Indian Conception of Values, Kavyalaya Publishers: Mysore, 1975. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. by Kemp Smith Norman. London: Macmillan and Company Limited 1929. Mahadevan 1954. T.M.P. Mahadevan, Gauḍapāda. A Study in Early Advaita. [Madras University Philosophical Series 5]. University of Madras: G.S. Press Madras 1954. Malkani 1997. G.R. Malkani, The Philosophy of G.R. Malkani. Sharad Deshpande (Ed.) Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi 1997. Malkovsky 2000. Bradley J. Malkovsky (Ed.), New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta. Essays in Commemoration of professor Richard De Smet, SJ. Leiden: Brill 2000. Mishra 1999. Godabarisha Mishra, Advaita – A Reconciliation and Reconstruction (An Analysis of Upanisadic and Buddhist Concepts of Advaita vis-à-vis Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara). Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 17/1 (1999): 99 – 111. Mishra 2005. Id., Godabarisha Mishra, review of New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta. Essays in Commemoration of professor Richard De Smet, S.J. Bradley J. Malkovsky (Ed.). Philosophy East and West 55/4 (2005): 610 – 616. Mishra 2020. Id., “Tādātmya-saṃbandha: Relating the Non-relational with the World in Advaita”. In: Identity and Difference: Perspectives in Classical Indian Philosophy, Mohit Tandon (Ed.), Savitribai Phule Pune University 2020, 212 – 229. Raju 1985. Raju, P.T., Structural Depths of Indian Philosophy. State University of New York Press: Albany, 1985.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent: A Reflection on Some Abundant and Elusive Possibilities from the Brahminical Traditions In proposing the theme “God or the Divine” for the 2016 conferences aiming to think through the topic into the context of Hinduism and Buddhism, Bernhard Nitsche presents us with a substantive and challenging task, stated already in the conference brochure, a reconceptualization of the “relationship between the cosmos, the experience of transcendence, and the human individual,” such as will work beyond the standard categories of monism and theism, or impersonalism and personalism, and succeed in shedding light across cultural and religious boundaries. Nitsche invites us to draw on our knowledge of multiple traditions to think anew about the human, the world, and the divine, in order to find ways of speaking that move beyond the standard and stale dichotomies of “person and nonperson,” “duality and non-duality,” “all-encompassing unity, or monism, or pan-en-theism, or theism.” As we ponder the complexity of our finite world and our own finite selves, in the light of the transcendent, we are to seek, in a deliberative and collaborative way, to rise beyond any “simple oppositions of theistic duality and monistic identification or personality and impersonality.” Or, as Nitsche expresses his own starting point in his first programmatic document, “Dimensions of Human Existence:” I am currently led by the intuition that the different basic dimensions of human existence— relation to the world (corporeality and bodiliness), relation to the social sphere (in social roles and constructions of identity) and self-relation (spiritual consciousness and ways of subjectivization)— are also valid in connection with the human interpretation of the ultimate horizon of existence and are able to outline motives and the process of lending importance to different interpretations.¹

Thus, we move from a more complex understanding of the self in the world, to a more nuanced understanding of the ultimate horizon of our existence. Nitsche observes,

 Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence,” p. 5 (printed in this volume, p. 5 – 8). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-019

282

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Being aware of the cultural as well as religious diversity of transcendental concepts, I would like to start with human self-understanding. I propose analytically differentiating three dimensions of being human. The differentiation into human self-relation, social relation and world-relation opens up three characteristic means of personal self-understanding… All human beings, as holistic persons, have these three aspects at their command (analogous to the grammatical speaking roles): a. a subjective one (I); b. an interpersonal one (Thou) and, c. a bodily one (He/She/It). The meaning of each aspect, however, can vary in different cultural contexts…²

Nitsche also poses a long series of questions for us, including these key ones: Would you agree that there is a correlation between the ultimate dimension and human self-understanding in self-relation, social relations and world relations? Are aspects of the three basic dimensions mentioned above recognizable in the tradition you are dealing with? What supplementary statements or critical comments can you make?³

It is certainly difficult to directly answer these and the whole set of questions. They are pertinent, but they open up many considerations, even when linked closely to Nitsche’s reflections. And as Nitsche knows, these other systems of thought work with different perspectives that on the surface answer different questions, and no direct answers to our questions. In his introduction to this volume, Nitsche even envisions the grand challenge that awaits those who would do comparisons across religious and cultural borders as wide as those between West and East: Setting out on the journey of comparative research in the field of theology of religions is like diving into an adventure as the encounter between the religious galaxies of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism means initially meeting the other, i. e., the unfamiliar, that is fascinating as well as disconcerting. The venture of comparative theology turns even more adventurous where it is advancing into the heart of each religious mindscape, the dimension of the transcendent.⁴

This is a welcome invitation, even if Nitsche seems to expect a descriptive function—“to identify, describe and categorize” various typologies—and a heuristic service—to clarify “the transcultural” and “transreligious” dimensions of awareness. While this approach is possible and can be productive, there can be no question of simply finding in India a confirmation of a model worked out in the West. We might be finding just that which we seek; we might with misleading

 Nitsche, ibid., 5.  Nitsche, ibid., 8.  Introduction, p. 11.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

283

straightforwardness translate into English or German terms from the Sanskrit, affording them in English just the meanings we hope for; and we might be so focussed on what we hope to find, that we miss what is truly interesting (similar or different) in the other. Nitsche hopes for more refined analytic instruments that use a wider variety of ideas, models, typologies. It is of course gratifying to see this affirmation of the importance of comparative work, and this connection to the work of comparative theology, my own field.⁵ This essay takes up Nitsche’s invitation and challenge and responds to his project by two moves. I first highlight some intriguing resemblances that confirm his project, differences notwithstanding. I then highlight differences by looking to other moves in elite Hindu learning (śāstra). First, I offer a consideration of the ancient Indian tripartite division of the world, with attention to how it creates an ample space for thinking about the divine in relation to the human. While it of course differs from the Nitsche’s template, it is interestingly similar and different. Second, I consider, with respect to the Mīmāṃsā ritual tradition and its Vedānta correlate—two of the great scholastic systems of Hinduism. These offer an alternative conceptualization of the human and divine, and we can ask whether it enriches Nitsche’s project or ends up unsettling it, on the grounds that Asian thought cannot easily be fit into the best of our models of knowing and being.

A Fourfold Enumeration of the Cosmos We can first ask then about analogies with respect to Nitsche’s tripartite view of I, Thou, He/She/It. His distinction of three relationships—to the world, to the social sphere, and to the self—reminded me, even if not precisely, of a well-known set of ascending layerings of reality in brahminical tradition: the adhidaiva (pertaining to the gods), the adhibhūta (pertaining to the elements of the cosmos), the adhyātma (pertaining to the [embodied] self), and the adhiyajña (pertaining to the sacrifice). These strata of reality are referred to often enough in ancient Indian literature that we can easily recollect them in light of Nitsche’s proposal. Consider for instance the use of the four terms in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (c. 1000 BCE). A good example of this usage, though missing the adhibhūta,

 Accordingly, I have offered my own illustrations of analogous views. It is opportune to leave behind the unhelpful narrow dichotomies of the past—“person and non-person,” “duality and non-duality,” “all-encompassing unity, or monism, or pan-en-theism, or theism,” etc.

284

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

can be found at X. 5. 2, in the course of meditation on the three lights (of the sun, of the golden disc in the fire altar, and within the eye): Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the deity (adhidaiva). That orb [of the sun] is the foundation (foothold) of both that light and that man; whence one must not recite the Great Litany for another, lest he should cut away that foothold from beneath his own self; for he who recites the Great Litany for another, indeed cuts away that foothold from beneath his own self: wherefore the (professional) singer of praises (śastra) is greatly despised, for he is cut off from his foothold. Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the sacrifice (adhiyajña) That shining orb [of the sun] is the same as this gold plate (under the altar), and that glowing light is the same as this lotus-leaf (under the altar); for there are those (divine) waters, and the lotus-leaf is water; and that man in yonder orb is no other than this gold man (in the altar): thus, by laying down these (in the fire-altar), it is that (divine) triad he constructs. And after the consummation of the sacrifice [that sacrifice] rises upwards and enters that shining (sun): one need not therefore mind destroying Agni, for he is then in yonder (world). Thus far, in regard to the sacrifice. Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the embodied self (adhyātma). That shining orb [of the sun] and that gold plate [in the altar] are the same as the white here in the eye; and that glowing light and that lotus-leaf are the same as the black here in the eye; and that man in yonder orb and that gold man are the same as this man in the right eye. (SB X. 5. 2. 5 – 7)⁶

The three layered dimensions chart the trajectory of sun, fire altar, and eye/inner light. The scheme clearly imagines on three levels of reality, ranked so as to support a move toward interiorization, even if this is not necessarily certain progress, since in the Brāhmaṇa, the more interior does not replace the more exterior.⁷ A layering of reality in a fashion that does suggest a definitive movement, that reaches beyond the ritual realm, is seen more often in the Upaniṣads. We can add here a passage from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad that follows directly on the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa just quoted. In Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad III. 7, Yājñavalkya is debating with Uddalāka Āruṇi. First, there is a meditation on the divine reality in relation to the cosmos, in each element, but different from it: Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the deity (adhidaiva): This self of yours who is present within but is different from the moon and the stars, whom the moon and the stars do not know, whose body is the moon and the stars, and who controls the moon and the stars from within – he is the inner controller, the immortal.

 I have used with slight adaptations the Eggeling translation, volume 4, pp. 367– 368.  See also SB X. 6. 2.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

285

This self of yours who is present within but is different from space, whom space does not know, whose body is space, and who controls space from within – he is the inner controller, the immortal. This self of yours who is present within but is different from darkness, whom darkness does not know, whose body is darkness, and who controls darkness from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal. This self of yours who is present within but is different from light, whom light does not know, whose body is light, and who controls light from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal. (BU III. 7. 11– 14)

Yājñavalkya then meditates on the elements: Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the elements (adhibhūta): This self of your who is present within but is different from all the elements, whom all beings do not know, whose body is all the elements, and who controls all the elements from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal. (BU III. 7. 15)

And finally, he offers a series of correlations to the embodied self—the organs of smell, speech, seeing, hearing, the mind as a common sense, and touch. For example: Now with reference to the sphere pertaining to the embodied self (adhyātma): This self of your who is present within but is different from breath, whom the breath does not know, whose body is the breath, and who controls the breath from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal. This self of your who is present within but is different from speech, whom speech does not know, whose body is speech, and who controls speech from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal. (BU III. 7. 16 – 17)

His teaching concludes in this way, with a declaration of the most interior reality within each. As in other such encounters, Yājñavalkya thus pushes his interlocutor beyond obvious and familiar categories to the realm where words break down: silenced, Uddālaka accepted the truth of what Yājñavalkya says: He sees, but he can’t be seen; he hears, but he can’t be heard; he thinks, but he can’t be thought of; he perceives, but he can’t be perceived. Besides him., there is no one who sees, no one who hears, no one who thinks, and no one who perceives. It is this self of yours who is the inner controller, the immortal. All besides this is grief. Thereupon, Uddālaka Āruṇi fell silent. (BU III. 7. 23)⁸

 I have used the Olivelle translation, pp 87– 89, with slight adaptations.

286

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

In the overall Upaniṣadic context, this is just inward progression, mapped and made possible along these levels of reality, and in accord with the elements included in each. We can see in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad the transcendent turn Nitsche points us to, beyond this-worldly relations, scaled by the gradations of adhibhūta, adhidaiva, adhyātma, and adhiyajña, however these might be arranged). Nor have we exhausted the turn to the transcendent in Indian thought, even if we have made some gestures in a promising direction, in fruitful parallel to the tripartite scheme proposed by Nitsche. But it seems opportune to make a detour here, to the solidly theistic frame we find in the Bhagavad Gītā, a text probably from the second century BCE or so, and thus considerably later than the texts we have been considering. It spells out rather clearly a many-layered universe subsumed into the reality of God. As Kṛṣṇa says at the start of Chapter 9, By Me, Unmanifest in form, all this universe was spun: in Me subsist all beings but I do not subsist in them. And yet contingent beings do not subsist in Me –behold my sovereign skill-in-works/activity: my Self sustains all beings, It does not subsist in them; it causes them to be-and-grow. As in wide space subsists the mighty wind blowing where it will always and everywhere, so do all contingent beings subsist in Me: so must you understand this. (BG IX. 4– 6)⁹

The Gītā takes up the levels of reality we have seen earlier, and also offers an adjustment to the reasoning found in the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads. This is evident at the beginning of Chapter 8 of the Gītā, even if the categories are presented only in a condensed form. The four levels of reality we saw earlier are subjected to questioning anew: What is that Brahman? What pertains to the self (adhyātma)? What is action, O best among persons? And what is explained as pertaining to the elements (adhibhūta)? What is said to pertain to the divine (adhidaiva)? And as for what pertains to sacrifice (adhiyajña), how is he—who?—here in this body, O Destroyer of Madhu? And how are you to be known at the time of going-forth by [those of] restrained self? (BG VIII. 1– 2)

Kṛṣṇa responds in a way that subsumes within himself all the layers of reality:

 My own translation of Gītā passages, though after consulting standard translation.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

287

The imperishable is the supreme Brahman. One’s own-being is what pertains to the self (adhyātma). The creativity originating beings’ state-of-existence is designated as action (karman). What pertains to the elements (adhibhūta) is the perishable state-of-existence, and person is what pertains to the divine (adhidaiva). I am what pertains to the sacrifice (adhiyajña) here in this body, O best of body-bearers. When at the hour of death and abandoning their mortal frame, someone bears Me in mind and goes forth, that person comes to my own model of being: about this there is no doubt. (BG VIII. 3 – 5)

This offers yet another register and interpretation of the complex world in relation to the wholeness of what is real. Reality is here interrogated with respect to the fundamental realities of brahman, karman, and the subject (the “who”), yet even these are mediated through the familiar fourfold scheme comprised of the bhūta (the elemental material world), ātma (the self, as embodied), daiva (the divine), and yajña (the sacrifice). The interpersonal element comes to the fore in Kṛṣṇa, the divine person in whom all else holds together. He is supreme, all-inclusive as had been the sacrifice in a previous era. Asserting the priority of Kṛṣṇa makes possible a coherent layering of reality. “What pertains to the divine” at this point does not concern itself with gods as important in themselves. They are denied substantive importance and are never given a role that transcends their place among the layers of reality. Deities are never erased from the calculation, but they are important and explanatory on just one level of existence. Transcendence is evident here, as is the value of deity and of ritual. The final synthesis, even as found in Kṛṣṇa, still gestures toward both sacrifice and deity, subsumed within the all-encompassing supreme Deity, who is himself the sacrifice. More examples could be adduced that support the threefold model Nitsche suggests regarding human self-relation, social-relation and world-relation, though without excluding the adhidaiva, a “divine-relation” that poses the divine not so much as transcendent but simply as a “higher” component in an overall and largely mundane ordering of reality. But we must also look farther afield, since we would be unduly narrowing our engagement with Nitsche’s quest if we looked only for examples that confirm what he suggests to us in support his thesis. We must begin to learn patiently from other, less convenient paradigms.

288

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Sacrificial Reasoning and the Displacement of Persons, Divine and Human Sacrifice is of relevance not only with respect to the adhiyajña, but also in terms of a more ample ritual thinking in which, by some theorizations at least, both humans and deities are decentered, assigned a place in a system that does not depend on human or divine interests or perspectives. To show this we turn to the scriptural reasoning evident in the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (early Mīmāṃsā) ritual analysis, with special attention to the fate of the deities in the new calculations, and then to its extension in the Uttara Mīmāṃsā (the “later Mīmāṃsā,” better known as Vedānta) analysis of the self. The Pūrva Mīmāṃsā is concerned with Vedic ritual texts and practice, while the Uttara Mīmāṃsā with the Upaniṣads, texts that inquire into the nature of the self (ātman) and the higher reality (brahman). Both may be grouped under the category of “karmic and post-karmic thinking,” referring not specifically to “karma theory,” but rather to the more important category of “ritual action (karman) thinking.” Out of the many possible points of entry into this vast literature of karman (action) and jñāna (knowledge), I simply adduce a few illustrative cases (adhikaraṇa) in the classic sūtra texts of each tradition—the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra of Jaimini and the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtra of Bādarāyaṇa—which show us in a precise and undramatic form the fate of the human and divine. In turn both sūtra texts are tightly condensed in the usefully succinct Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā (Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons, a Mīmāṃsā text focussed on ritual) of Mādhavācārya and the Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā (Garland of Vyāsa’s Reasons of Bhāratītīrtha, a Vedānta text that sorts out the teachings of the Upaniṣads in accord with the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras). Both texts from around 1400 CE.¹⁰ In (Pūrva‐)Mīmāṃsā analysis, deities are essential to sacrifice. If there is no deity who can be named and is able to be invoked, no sacrifice is possible. But throughout the Mīmāṃsā tradition, such deities are treated as pertinent to the external form of ritual, not its inner efficacious core. The view of the more conservative Prābhākara school of Mīmāṃsā on the matter is helpfully summarized by Ganganatha Jha: There can be no doubt as to the ephemeral character of the sacrifice itself; it is borne out by everyday experience. Nor can the sacrifice be held to be laid down for the purpose of obtaining the favour of the deity; as there is no evidence in support of this: as a matter of fact also, sacrifices are never performed for that purpose. The deity is only one to whom the of-

 See Clooney 2018, 2020a, 2020b.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

289

fering is made; and we could please a deity by only such acts as could reach it; then again, it is not possible for any deity to get at all the offerings made by different men at all times; specially because no deity is eternal or omnipresent.¹¹

Deities are everywhere, and there is no singular, supreme divine reality. Rather, the complex of Vedic texts and rites marks the totality of the Dharma, the sacred reality which is manifest (only) in details. Attention to the opening cases in the ninth book (adhyāya) of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtras will be useful for us in discerning the overall Mīmāṃsā argumentation regarding the essential but limited role of divinity.¹² This chapter deals with the modification of rites, a practice at issue when details of a rite may have to be borrowed from a fully described sacrifice for insertion in derivative, not fully described though often more complex rites. Jaimini states the key principle at the start of the ninth chapter: what is directly enjoined by the Vedic word is essential: The sacrificial action is primary, because it comes into being due directly to the injunctive word. Hence the preparation of its materials is motivated by that, and they occur for its sake. (Case 1, PMS IX. 1. 1)¹³

Action takes precedence over the things and persons related to the action, even those things and persons, the benefit and the donor, conventionally taken to render the action meaningful. And most important of all is the transcendent intelligible result of the sacrifice, the apūrva, literally “that which is without precedent” (apūrva), new: this is the finality of a rite as completed and complete. Details in more complex rites formulated in light of simpler rites need to be explained, and apūrva plays a role in deciding which details can or must be carried over from one ritual to another, and which can be omitted. In the Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā Mādhava phrases this first case as follows, distinguishing occasional and final cause or motive:¹⁴ Is the apūrva the occasional cause or not? [First view:] It is not, since it is that which motivates the sacrifice.

 Jha summarizing Prabhākara at PMS II. 1. 5 (Jhā 1911: 160 – 161).  See also my exposition of III. 5 in the sūtras, on sacrificial remainders or leftovers, in Clooney 2018.  Translations from the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras, and the Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā and Vaiyāsika Nyāya Māla are my own.  Case 1, third interpretation

290

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

[Final view:] No. That it motivates the sacrifice is warranted by verbal support that it is the occasional cause pertains to the objective factors (such as the material details of a ritual). (Case 1, JNM on PMS IX. 1. 1)

After initial clarifications, the analysis moves on to a more obviously theological topic, the role of the gods, and heaven, as possibly alternate realities that may or may not stand in the place of the apūrva as determinative of what a sacrifice is for and how it proceeds: one performs a sacrifice to worship a god, or to get a reward.¹⁵ Subsequent cases ask whether the worshipped deities are the givers of its fruits and thus primary in terms of efficacy or motive, as would be the sacrificer’s goal, the happiness of heaven—or instead, what matters more may be the inner intelligibility of the sacrifice, the apūrva. As a final cause, the apūrva marks the non-material intelligibility and finality of the sacrifice as coming to completion in itself. It ensures the efficacy of ritual, making transactions with the gods unnecessary or at most supplementary, for form’s sake. But does the apūrva “outrank” the deities, who are so obviously key to the ritual, as praised and as receivers of offerings? The third and fourth cases in IX.1 address this matter directly.¹⁶ The third case, in PMS IX. 1. 3 – 4, poses the problem in this way (in Mādhava’s succinct version): We have these mantras: ‘We have come to heaven and to heaven we have come,’ and ‘May I be victorious through the victory of Agni,’ etc.¹⁷ Are heaven and the deity (such as Agni) the final causes—or is the cause rather (the sacrifice) that is enjoined? [First view:] (The gods and rites are primary) due to the implication (of what is said in the mantras). [Final view:] Not so, since even subsidiary rites are in need of the apūrva. ¹⁸ (Case 3, JNM on PMS IX. 1. 4– 5)

That is, heaven, the promised reward, and Agni, the fire god, seem obviously to be at the center of attention, and thus motivation for the ritual, its final cause. But the deity and result, however prominent, do not by their presence or proffered rewards guarantee the effectiveness of the ritual, either its primary or its subsidiary rites. Rather, the new force generated by the words and offerings guarantees the ritual’s efficacy, serves as its motive force, and integrates the parts into a coherent whole.  Clooney 2017. See also Clooney 1988; Clooney 1997.  The second case deals with still more technical matters, that need not detain us here.  As translated in Benson 2010: 594.  That is, in order to give value to the prayers, so the sacrifice and whatever new it accomplishes are primary.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

291

The fourth case (PMS IX. 1. 6 – 10) focusses solely on the status of the deity, but the conclusion is the same, as the completion of the sacrifice in its final intelligibility is what matters: Is the deity the final cause or is the apūrva? [First view:] The deity, because it gives the fruit. [Final view:] No, since it is secondary with respect to what is enjoined. The fruitfulness of the apūrva, already been explained above, pertains here too. (Case 4, JNM on PMS IX. 1. 6 – 10)

Mādhava is rather abrupt here, simply asserting that the deity “is secondary with respect to what is enjoined,” and referring the reader to PMS II.1, case 2 (PMS II.1.5), where it was declared that the apūrva leads directly to the fruit, without any intermediate work of the deity, which is secondary with respect to the inner obligatory force of a sacrifice. The activity of worship, and the fruits resulting from the sacrifice, provide the external shape of the sacrifice, but the inner coherence and activity hearken back to the injunction driving the action, and to the active force arising after obedience to that injunction. In turn, the injunction is inscribed in the words in the text, which take precedence over other phenomena such as divine or human perspectives. In obedience to the scriptural word the sacrifice most truly exists, that is, by it it comes to be. The gods may be honored as real, even as present and able to receive offerings, but the sacrifice’s inner meaning and its finality, such as holds it together, lie in the harmony of text and act. We learn from these Mīmāṃsā examples to “think ritually,” in a way that unsettles standard relationships between the divine and human, the one and many, etc. Salient rules of this ritual theologizing may be stated this way: a. The ordinary and sacred universe is comprised of words, things, and agents, where the transcendent is enacted in a web of worldly realities; b. words used in particular ways, sometimes informatively but more often performatively are of decisive importance in the construal of reality; c. naming deities is a matter of practicality – they need names, so that they can be invoked by those names – and does not reveal essences; d. what can be uttered and heard takes priority over what can and cannot be seen; e. the human agent is indispensable as the agent of the ritual activity, but this agent (who is usually male) is not of any essential or even primary importance; f. the deities likewise are indispensable, but they too are secondary when measured against the overall coherence of the action.

The logic of sacrifice is to integrate everything seen and unseen, heard and unheard, as integral yet still secondary to the action itself. By this ritual calculus, which aims at an integration in action of all the components of a sacrifice, the

292

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

deities are important, but only as is the world, and the agent self.¹⁹ All of these rules (and others), in their interactions, constitute the Dharma as the integral whole that, including all, is nowhere but here, in ritualized time and space. Deities, things, persons, and sacrificial actions matter, all as components of the sacrifice itself, but are always denied supremacy, and even the debates about supremacy that one expects. The first proposal is always to suggest more importance for the deity, but this first view is always rejected. The logic of the primacy of integral sacrificial performance downgrades the status of all participants, including the deities; that logic entails a view of the world in which all the moveable parts matter insofar as they are properly related to the whole of the action. Mīmāṃsā treatments of the divine and human, world and ritual, challenge us to ponder how these templates might further affect how we configure the great questions about the human, the world, and the divine. Mīmāṃsā’s way of thinking is rational, concrete, and elusive regarding whether transcendence counts and where it might be: the transcendent never reduces to any single substantive reality, and it is the properly performed ritual, transcending all its parts, that captures in act what is most important about the world. If we wish to hold onto categories such as self, world, and deity, we must nevertheless see them as ways of speaking to the reality and efficaciousness of the sacrifice.

Creating Space for God in the Vedānta Vedānta is the famed philosophical or theological tradition of meditation on the Upaniṣads. Vedānta offers a philosophy and theology grounded in interpretation of the late Vedic texts known as the Upaniṣads, texts that touch more directly on the ultimate reality, the self, the deep nature of the world, and the mystery of death and beyond death. It is tellingly also known as the Uttara (later) Mīmāṃsā, since in the tradition’s great commentaries the truths communicated in the Upaniṣads are filtered through the exegetical and performative lens of Mīmāṃsā. In Vedānta, Mīmāṃsā reasoning is applied to interpretation even when there is indeed a supreme reality beyond the text: brahman. Granting the formidable commitment of Mīmāṃsā to ritual reasoning, it is interesting to consider how Vedān-

 Here it may be said that the adhibhūta, adhidaiva and adhyātma are in effect subsumed into adhiyajña, the “world of the sacrifice.” While the Pūrva Mīmāmsā Sūtras do not directly draw on the adhiyajña category of the Brāhmaṇas, the Sūtras do subsume all of reality into the sacrificial order.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

293

ta cautiously allows for realities beyond the sacred text.²⁰ Though Vedānta is famously all about going beyond ritual, as an intellectual system it has aptly been called a “later (uttara) Mīmāṃsā,” because it extends Mīmāṃsā hermeneutics to questions arising in the study of the Upaniṣads, about the higher Reality and about the adjudication of scriptural ambiguities noted there. Given the performative and non-speculative commitments of the Mīmāṃsā system, the Vedānta effort to use the same hermeneutical principles is complicated, as a speculative manner of learning very dependent on a pragmatic manner of textual interpretation. Brahman is an extra-textual reality par excellence, but it is known by a disciplined reading of scripture that eventually shows brahmans unknowability and ineffability. When complex ritual and textual interpretation is applied to the transcendent brahman, the hermeneutics and the revelation are thereby stretched rather far indeed, the Mīmāṃsā concern with performance and, in a way, the performance of knowledge, is dominant. The ending of Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad III symbolically counts the gods, and in doing so radically revises the meaning of deity in a natural and ritual cosmos that does not presume the importance of deities. After famously reducing the number of deities from 3003 to one, Yājnavālkya reviews finally the relation of deities to the structure of the natural world: “Who are the six?” “The six are fire and earth, wind and the intermediate region, sun and sky – for these six are the whole world.” “Who are the three gods?” “Just these three worlds, for all the gods live in them.” “Who are the two gods?” “Food and breath.” “Who are the one and a half?” “The purifying wind that is blowing here. Now, some may ask: ‘But the purifying wind here blows as one only. So how can he be one and a half?’ He is one and a half because in him this whole world increases.” “Who is the one god?” “Breath. He is called ‘Brahman’ and ‘Tyad.’”²¹ (BU III. 9. 7– 9)

 In general terms we can compare the four books of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras with the twelve books of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtras. Each book of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras has a particular exegetical focus. The first focusses on texts regarding Brahman (and Ātman) as treated with clarity or only indirectly in texts expository of the nature of Brahman. The second deals with contestations of the meaning of the texts about Brahman, either by kindred traditions within the Vedic fold or by skeptics outside it. The third turns to the practice of meditation: the dispassion that prompts meditation, the object of meditation and the nature of the meditator, the possible summation of qualities used in meditation gleaned from various texts, and clarification regarding accessories helpful to the practice of meditation. The fourth considers the liberation of the living being; the northern path after death; the ascent to attainment of the world of Brahman. See Clooney 1994.  Olivelle translation, pp. 93 – 95.

294

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

This enumeration, the whole of which is articulated in dialogue with the ill-fated Śākalya (who will soon die, doomed by pushing too far in his questions) enables Yājñavalkya to reckon with the deities of ritual and the cosmological relations of deity and world, by traveling “down” a scale of ranked realities to ever simpler and deeper realities, the final One subsuming but never becoming free of the many. By the end of this calculation, the deepest of realities is reached: brahman, than which there is nothing greater. Only silence can follow thereafter. “From many gods to one God” sounds like a recognizable transcendence of letter realities. But here we must be careful not to move too quickly to the reality of a single highest divinity, purified of polytheism, etc. To resist the temptation of a too comfortable familiarity, we can turn to more complex Vedāntic reasoning that highlights again the Mīmāṃsā way of analysis and interpretation. What we learn from the Upaniṣads is rendered more precise, and more difficult, by a turn to Vedānta scholasticism, which here can be represented by Bhāratītīrtha’s Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā, a text in style exactly like Mādhava’s Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā. Here Mīmāṃsā reasoning is extended to the realm of meditation, by a calculus that includes rethinking the status of the gods and God —neither of which is really needed in a strict Advaita Vedānta system. Here too, there is no adherence to the four layers of reality we saw earlier (adhibhūta, adhidaiva, adhyātma, adhiyajña). As in Gītā 8, here there is a quest for simplification with respect to the origins of all, as all complexities are related back to an underlying source; and yet, the way in which that ultimate source is talked about is problematized in a way that makes it impossible for us to simply align notions of God and notions of Brahman. Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras III. 2 distinguishes the self, in its states, from brahman, in its states, and brahman from the Lord (īśvara), even if Lord is treated as a state of brahman. The first four cases in III. 2 are given over to clarifications regarding the reality of dreams, the tension between the complex biology of self in the Upaniṣads and its simplicity, and the continuity of self in the states of deep sleep, dream and waking. The issue of continuity of self across those states is the central concern, concluding to an affirmation that there is a continuous deep self beneath all changes. Those first cases need not detain us here, but what is interesting is that next, at this point, there is a “seamless” shift to clarifications regarding brahman. The link seems to be the matter of the states of being in relation to states of consciousness. Is Brahman both with form and without form, or is it only without form? [First view:] Because there are texts of both kinds, Brahman should be described in both ways. [Final view:] No. It is propounded as without form by the Vedānta texts, regarding what is new

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

295

(and revelatory). [First view reasserted:] But form too is referred to. [Final view reasserted:] Nevertheless, that it could be both (with and without form) is mistaken, contradictory. (case 5, VNM on UMS III. 2. 11– 21) Is Brahman too negated by “not this, not this” or not?²² [First view:] By the repetition (of “not,” “not”), both the world and Brahman are to be negated. [Final view:] No. Intensification is indicated by “not this, not this,” so as to prohibit every thing that is visible. By “notthis,” the truth of truth, the one, Brahman, is taught as the ultimate limit. (case 6, VNM on UMS III. 2. 22– 30) Is there a substance other than Brahman or greater than Brahman? [First view:] Yes, because [the Upaniṣads mention that] Brahman is a dam (between worlds), has measure, and is related, and that there is difference. [Final view:] No. Because it holds, it is called a dam; for the sake of meditating, it is said to have measure; relatedness and difference are mentioned due to the arising and perishing of adjuncts. Moreover, that there is any other (beyond it) is ruled out. (case 7, VNM on UMS III. 2. 31– 37)

As distilled here in the Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā, the quest is for a rule of simplicity, by which apparent differences, particularly with respect to language and consciousness, are put aside. There is no great difference regarding self and brahman in this regard. God comes in only at the end, as a rather implausible arrival in a world of Brahman and self that, on Advaita terms, does not need God. The actual sūtras of the eighth and final case (UMS III. 2. 38 – 41), though rather inscrutable, do not mention God at all: Thence (from Brahman) comes the result (of meditation), since that is most plausible. And it is explicit in the scriptures. Jaimini insists on dharma (as the source of results), only from there. But Bādarāyaṇa holds the prior view, because (Brahman) has been taught as the cause. (UMS III. 2. 38 – 41)

The real self, in relation to the singularly real Brahman, is transformed in the work of meditation which, in light of the first cases in III. 2, both confirms continuity of self – from the phenomenal to the deepest and unchanging – and frees that self of false and anthropomorphic understandings of brahman. But in the commentaries God reappears, as Bhāratītīrtha’s formulation—faithful to the Advaita tradition—shows:

 That is, the famous “not this, not this” (na iti na iti) propounded several times in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad.

296

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Does the act alone give the fruit, or is it the lord who is propitiated by the act? [First view:] By the intermediate means, the apūrva, the act is the giver of the fruit. [Final view:] No. From what is not conscious, no fruit is engendered. So the fruit must be from the Lord known in scripture and worshipped. Then there is no need to postulate the apūrva just to explain why the fruit originates at a later time.²³ (case 8, VNM on UMS III. 2. 38 – 41)

Brahman is now represented as the Lord, God, who is to play the role of the agent who effects the required transformation of self in its deepening relation to brahman. Karman, sacrificial or meditative, is now denied sovereignty, even if the human imagination still requires some sense of agent, act, and effect. The seeming unexpectedness of the mention of “Lord” in this eighth case suggests that Bhāratītīrtha’s re-insertion of God in the explication of the efficacy of ritual is a later move, such that the deity had to be added in here by a Vedānta thinker, notwithstanding the lack of any such mention in the four sūtras comprising III. 2. 38 – 41. The issue of God is an intrusion here, as if even the nondualist Vedānta thinkers decide, unlike Bādarāyaṇa, that God is needed to connect the self, realizing its true states, and brahman, as a possibly entirely transcendent reality. Bhāratītīrtha’s Vedānta, oddly parallel to the Gītā, seems to make a special place for one deity, the Lord, albeit without naming this deity in a sectarian manner. UMS III.2 was constructed, it seems, to rule out even sophisticated interactions between human worshippers and a Lord who rules over ritual and meditative activity. But caught in a world where action and knowledge (karman and jñāna) still jostle tensely, Advaita reintroduced a personal deity who really had little role in at least the conservative Vedānta of UMS III. 2. In concluding this section, we can turn again to Nitsche’s “Dimensions of Human Existence,” the guiding essay for this volume: Within my anthropological approach, I ascribe eccentric movement to human beings: in their rational faculties, human beings are able to transcend concrete objects and the conditions of their lives. This can be called the dynamic of transcending in the sense of a formal interminability that goes beyond all classes of objects. This transcending dynamic is characterized by a certain unconditionality, an unconditionality that is, however, inaccessible…²⁴

But where exactly is the transcendent in the analyses distinctive to the Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā and the Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā? The divine and human both appear

 It was a standard Mīmāṃsā view that the apūrva could be appealed to in order to explain the apparent gap between the end of a sacrifice and the accomplishment of its desired results. See Clooney 1990, chapter 7.  Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 6.

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

297

in these systems as rationalized as stripped of singularity and importance, and made to subsist within a larger sacrificial and epistemic calculus. Even the “the lord” is posed as a usefully conditioned form of brahman, such as is useful in validating the fruitfulness of practice and perhaps too in meeting wider popular expectations. So the focus now is on human cognition, how knowledge of dharma and brahman is to be explained. We can detect some traces of the “eccentric movement” and the “dynamic of transcending,” now given a specific form in the reasoning exercised in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, which keep adjusting and narrowing the list of candidates eligible for transcendence. Mīmāṃsā invests heavily in the reality of the sacrifice, as arranged and performed, as “transcendence here,” such as rules out a human or divine transcending of the practicalities of the sacrificial act. Vedānta holds to the fact of a transcendent reality, to be sure; but in the scholarly (śāstraic) tradition of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras and the Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā, the world, the human, and the divine are reconstructed in a way that does not immediately validate expectations humans may have regarding what transcendence is and why we might appeal to it as a value that is potent across religious boundaries. Near the end of “Dimensions of Human Existence,” Nitsche adds, If personhood is favoured or identified within the kataphatic approach, the possibility and legitimacy of referring to a person according to the grammatical roles of the speaker (I: protopersonal; Thou: hyperpersonal; He/She/It: transpersonal) can be put to the test. If, however, the impersonal side is preferred, the question emerges of whether a further differentiation needs to be made. Under the term “impersonal,” motifs of nature (e. g. source, light, breath) and abstract concepts (e. g. energy field, abyss) can frequently be differentiated.²⁵

The analyses undertaken in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta elude the personal/hyperpersonal dichotomy, as Nitsche would hope, but in ways that do not easily support the kataphatic and apophatic dynamics he still prizes.

The Fruits of Comparison: Confirmation, with Variance Much more can be said, but for now and in this short essay we must be done with our double excursion, into a fourfold layering of the Vedic world culminating, in a way, in the Bhagavad Gītā, and then into the finely-tuned exegetical analysis that flourishes in the two Mīmāṃsās. The former, I have suggested, is  Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 7 (printed in this volume pp. 5 – 8)

298

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

amicably close enough to Nitsche’s model to seem promising with respect to the conversation he proposes; the latter, already complicated and then perhaps too compactly presented here, seems to push back against any immediate conversation, until many further clarifications are made. We can see then that the Brahminical and Hindu traditions are not straightforwardly polytheist, atheist or monotheist. These rather are ways of thinking that are richly varied with respect to calculations of God, world, and the human, able to support all manner of comparisons, but also contraries that make the assertion of similarity very difficult. I have thus offered a good deal of complexity in response to Nitsche’s bold venture and quest for a substantive crosscultural exchange on God and the human. I have offered a parallel similar structure that supports, to an extent, Nitsche’s model, but I have also shown how according to Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta scholastic reasoning, both the divine and the human are problematized, and without a straightforward retrieval of their value on a transcendent level. My hope has been that my reflections in support of Nitsche’s tripartite model and on a rather different disposition of the divine and human in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta will contribute to this refinement of a still more sophisticated interpretive project. We do well to go slowly in choosing to find analogies that work well within Nitsche’s model, lest we think that other religions offer answers to Western questions. Models that privilege difference and a seeming lack of common ground also matter. Surely we need to pursue both models, finding common ground and admitting real differences. One can work with Nitsche’s proposed triad—relation to the world (corporeality and bodiliness), relation to the social sphere (in social roles and constructions of identity) and relation to the self (by way of spiritual consciousness and ways of subjectivization)—and plot a concurrent course of transcending based on brahminical models. But we can also work with the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsās’ ritually-grounded ways of disposing of the divine and human in accord with the calculus of the intelligible coherence of a sacrifice, or with Vedānta’s consequent theory of the superimposed states of consciousness that renders the differentiation of world and self and brahman merely provisional, such that the turn to the action of God in commentaries at the end of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras III. 2 seems artificial and unnecessary. We are faced with a superabundance of plausible models—too many options, no strong governing rules by which to narrow down the options, and in the end, nothing for certain. Do my reflections on Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta notably advance the project he has put before us, or just complicate it in a predictable “on the one hand” and “on the other hand” fashion? It may be hard to say – 300 but in any case we are not in an age where a simple comparative model

The World and the (Non)Transcendent

299

or a complex comparative model will entirely win the day. No single model will suffice. Careful study means that we are thus faced with an irreducible abundance of models that construe for different purposes the interrelations among the human, the world, and the divine. A certain disturbance, due to super-abundance, occurs when theologian-comparativist realizes that they have imposed her categories on the other, imperfectly and with at least some bias; when at the same time she realizes that struggling to understand the categories indigenous to another tradition also creates an abundance of new possibilities; and when at the same time she also sees that the refreshed presence of older categories alongside new categories creates an over-abundance of interpretive possibilities, rather just the refinement of a best instrument of analysis. It is one thing to refine and adjust categories that one has worked with and is content to continuing employing. It is another to recognize novel, foreign categories that resist assimilation by what is already familiar. Comparative work in some ways extends this choice. Some comparisons nuance and strengthen the paradigm one begins with, while other comparisons make an initial paradigm appear too limited to make a difference across philosophical and theological boundaries. But if all this seems to deflate the work of interreligious learning, in the long run it is likely to be more productive, as models become proximate to one another and change one another in the very act of comparing. We ought then to think of Nitsche’s proposal, the double conferences related to it, and this volume itself, as giving us both refinement and disruption. Nitsche’s project is to an extent upset by the kinds of examples I have adduced here, and yet his work admirably succeeds in getting us to think anew about Western and Christian, Indian and Brahminical ways of understanding and ordering the world, each finding common ground, and each challenging easy presumptions about what that commonality might be.

Bibliography Primary Literature UMS: Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras. As contained in VNM. BU: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, as included in The Early Upanisads: Annotated Text and Translation. Translated and edited by Patrick Olivelle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. PMS: Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra. As contained in JNM. JNM: Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā. Śivadatta (Ed.) [Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series 24]. Poona: Ānandāśrama Press 1892.

300

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

SB: Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. Translated by Julius Eggeling. Sacred Books of the East. Volumes 12, 26, 41, 43, 44. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1882 – 1900. VNM: Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā. Ed. by Śivadatta (Ed.) [Ānandāśramasaṃskṛtagranthāvali 23]. Jayapura: Ānandāśramamudraṇālaya 1891.

Secondary Literature Benson 2010. James Benson, Mahādeva Vedāntin, Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṃgraha: A Compendium of the Principles of Mīmāṃsā. Edited and Translated by James Benson. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag 2010. Clooney 1988. Francis X. Clooney, Devatādhikaraṇa: A Theological Debate in the Mīmāṃsā-Vedānta Tradition. Journal of Indian Philosophy 16 (1988): 277 – 298. Clooney 1994. Id., “The Principle of Upasaṃhāra and the Development of Vedānta as an Uttara Mīmāṃsā”. In: Studies in Mīmāṃṣā. Dr. Mandan Mishra Felicitation Volume. R. C. Dwivedi (Ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1994, 279 – 297. Clooney 1997. Id., What’s a God? The Quest for the Right Understanding of devatā in Brāhmaṇical Ritual Theory (Mīmāṃsā). International Journal of Hindu Studies 1/2 (1997): 337 – 385. Clooney 2017. Id., “Discerning Comparison: Between the Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons and Catholic Theology”. In: The Past, Present and Future of Theology of Interreligious Dialogue. Terrence Merrigan, John Friday (Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press 2017. Clooney 2018. Id., “Comparative Theology’s Difficult, Near Other: Reading Ritual in the Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons (III.5). In: How to Do Comparative Theology. Francis X. Clooney, Klaus von Stosch (Eds.). New York: Fordham University Press 2018, 206 – 228. Clooney 2020a. Id., Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How Deep Reading Still Matters. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Clooney 2020b. Id., On the Style of Vedānta: Reading Bhāratītirtha’s Vaiyāsika Nyāya Mālā in Light of Mādhava’s Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā. In: The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta, Ayon Maharaj (Ed.). New York: Bloomsbury Academic 2020, 341 – 366. Jhā 1911. Gaṅgānātha Jhā, The Prābhākara School of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. Allahabad. Reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1978.

Gérard Colas

The Supreme Being: A Person? This contribution will examine how and in which contexts the Supreme Being, variously named Brahman, Creator, God, etc., may be called a person. One must bear in mind that the meaning of the notion “person” in Western languages varies greatly according to the context and the school of philosophy. As is well known, the English word “person” comes from the Latin word persona, which in ancient Rome designated masks of actors and by extension, the theatrical characters represented by them, and also personality in general.¹ Each domain or discipline defines the notion of person according to its preoccupations: physical, biological, psychological, biographical, even legal, administrative, functional, etc. Some societies give importance to the moral and aesthetic attributes of persons as individuals. Some others focus on the social and familial function of the person to the detriment of her or his individuality. The topic of the person is studied in disciplines such as sociology and grammar. A major contribution of Mauss explores various concepts of person in different societies of the world.² Grammarians define person in terms of gender, number, etc.³ The importance of the personal name to define a person depends on the cultural, social, religious or administrative context. For instance, we observe that, in Indian families, the terms defining the mutual relationships between the members, and consequently their respective duties, often have more importance than the personal names themselves. The notion of persona was an important topic of debate in early Christian theology, especially with the Trinitarian and Christological formulations of the 4th-5th centuries: the three persons (hypostases, prosopoi) of the one divine nature; the two natures, humanity and divinity, united in the one person or hypostaseis of Christ. Along with the conception of the soul, it helped distinguishing the doctrine of the future Catholic Church from so-called heresies. In Western philosophy, the notion of “person” was extolled but also taken as secondary or as a composite or fluctuating reality. For instance, Bergson, on the basis of Plotinus, distinguished between two personalities in the human being:

 Gaffiot 1961: 1160. The Latin persona is the equivalent of the Greek prosōpon, which designated the masks of actors too. For discussions about the notion of “person,” its variability and its nonexistence in some cultures, see Lenclud 2009: 4‒17 and Ildefonse 2009: 64‒77, and, more generally, the other contributions in the same volume (http://terrain.revues.org/13443).  Mauss 1938: 263‒281.  See Benveniste 1966: 225‒236. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-020

302

Gérard Colas

one constantly changing and superficial, and the other, essential and intuitive, which can engage in an emotional and mystical relationship with the person of God.⁴ Nietzsche considered the individual to contain many persons, and that a “person” is but a summary (Zusammenfassung) of features and qualities.⁵ Several authors questioned the very existence of a definite person or self. In an outburst of scepticism Sainte-Beuve wrote: “there is no real foundation in us, there are only surfaces ad infinitum”.⁶ Several centuries before him, Montaigne pointed out the forever changing quality of the self, as well as the vanity of the social representations of the person.⁷ The notion of person also varies in Indian scholarly disciplines and religious systems. The relationship between the name and form of the individual (a person?) and his or her self (ātman) (in relationship with its past karman) differs according to the viewpoints.⁸ The conception of non-self (Pāli anattā, Sanskrit anātman) in early Buddhism challenges the very metaphysical foundation of the notion of person: a so-called person only results from a forever changing combination of various physical and psychological features. There is, however,

 See Bergson 1972: 1055 – 1058, 1060; also 1972a: 1218 – 1219. About Bergson’s conception of personality, see Riquier 2007.  “Der Einzelne enthält viel mehr Personen, als er glaubt. ‘Person’ ist nur eine Betonung, Zusammenfassung von Zügen und Qualitäten”. See “Posthumous Fragments,” NF-1884, 25[363] in the Digital Critical Edition of Nietzsche’s Works and Letters, accessed 01/06/2016).  “Il n’y a pas de fond véritable en nous, il n’y a que des surfaces à l’infini” (Sainte-Beuve 1947: 19).  “Moy à cette heure et moy tantost, sommes bien deux” (ed. Thibaudet/Rat 1962): III, IX, p. 941 (trans. by Screech 2003: 1091: “ ‘I’ now and ‘I’ then are certainly twain”); ibid., II, the entire chapter I, for instance p. 321: “Nous sommes tous de lopins et d’une contexture si informe et diverse, que chaque piece, chaque momant faict son jeu. Et se trouve autant de difference de nous à nous mesmes, que de nous à autruy” (trans., p. 380 : “We are entirely made up of bits and pieces, woven together so diversely and so shapelessly that each one of them pulls its own way at every moment. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and other people”); ibid., I, I, p. 13: “Certes, c’est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers et ondoyant, que l’homme. Il est malaisé d’y fonder jugement constant et uniforme” (trans., p. 5: “Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform”); ibid., III, XIII, p. 1096: “Et au plus eslevé throne du monde, si ne sommes assis que sus nostre cul” (trans., p. 1269: “And upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses”)]. In the Essais however the conceptual notion of person is expressed by such words as “naturel” and “esprit” rather than “personne” (see Lecointe 1993: 24, note 62).  For an exposition of various Indian viewpoints from the perspective of rebirth, see Halbfass 2000.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

303

one later Buddhist school that accepted the enduring reality of pudgala, which may be translated as “person”.⁹ As the notion of “person” is far from being natural, innate or precise, there is no unique definition of it. For the time being, we will define a “person” as a conglomerate of features, fixed or evolutive, more or less identified with a subject, a self or consciousness. Is the supreme being a person? My paper will compare two perspectives on the notion of supreme being as a person. The first derives from Indian metaphysical speculations found in the Upaniṣads and early speculative schools, both Vedāntic and non-Vedāntic. Besides this erudite perspective, there is a second perspective which is semi-learned, that of the worship of, and devotion to, religious icons. I shall not discuss important notions such as avatāra in the Purāṇic and epic traditions, where the biographical and psychological dimensions of the personalities of gods are regularly illustrated.¹⁰ It should be stressed however that conceptions similar to that of avatāra also occur in late Vedic literature, which had special shades of meaning.¹¹ In early Indian speculations, the notion of a supreme being was closely associated with that of the creation and origin of the perceptible universe. The hypothesis of a supreme being as creator of all was not constantly prevalent, and in certain milieus, it was faint or absent. Certain hymns of the Ṛksaṃhitā, the oldest available Indian textual corpus, ponder about the “One” that precedes all gods, or that is above or rules the universe.¹² The ancient Upaniṣads developed a metaphysical conception of the notion of bráhman (see below). But perhaps up to the 6th century, various sources, as for instance the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (1.2) and Buddhist texts, record several hypothetical non-divine causes of the universe, like time, matter, atoms, nature, etc.¹³ Metaphysical debates started concentrating on the notion of a creator-God in the 4th century for Buddhism, and in the 6th century for Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika.¹⁴ Early Indian metaphysical specula-

 This is only a brief allusion to a topic that has been and still is much debated among specialists of early Buddhism. For a recent discussion, see Schmithausen 2014: 633‒635.  For elements of discussions on this topic, see Parrinder 1997; for questions related to interreligious dialogue, see Matilal 2002.  See Colas 2012: 26‒28, 110.  See Colas forthcoming. We do not take into consideration here the conception of gods as it can be conjectured from the earliest Vedic texts. This conception, as well as (much later) Tantric conceptions, in which the notion of deity can be closely connected to that of “power” (śakti), could be usefully compared and contrasted with the conception of gods in ancient Greece. The Greek gods were “Powers”, not persons, according to Vernant 1971: 86.  For instance, see Colas forthcoming.  See Colas forthcoming.

304

Gérard Colas

tions were ambivalent about considering the supreme being as a person. Torn between the conception of a barely picturable cosmic cause and anthropomorphism, they professed ideas of the supreme being which ranged from a minimal person to an “incomplete” person. This overall uncertainty perhaps reflected a disbelief, in certain circles, in the very notion of a creator supreme being. This supreme entity was named bráhman or Īśvara, this term often translated “Lord” or God. If we consider the metaphysical speculations about the supreme being, we can distinguish three trends. The first is that of the Vedānta, illustrated by the ancient Upaniṣads, and later, by the schools based on the exegesis of the Upanisadic corpus. The second trend is disbelief or scepticism about the notion of a creator-God. It is illustrated by several schools, for example by Buddhism and Jainism, which either were not interested in the notion of a creator-God or rejected it, and by Mīmāṃsā, which believed in the eternity of the Veda and the efficacy of Vedic sacrifice without taking the Upaniṣadic supreme being nor Īśvara into account. The third trend is illustrated by what we might call “proto-scientific” speculations that are difficult to define historically, but are later recorded in Sāṃkhya, Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika. Of course, it is impossible here to expand in detail on all these trends and traditions. I will limit the discussion to some elements from Vedānta and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. The major notion in Upaniṣads and Vedāntic schools is that of bráhman. This term is neutral in gender, not masculine or feminine. In its Vedic context, it cannot really be translated as “God”. In the Ṛksaṃhitā, the most ancient Vedic collection, bráhman signifies “hymn”, “formula”, not a metaphysical entity. To be more precise, in early Vedic collections, bráhman is a verbal object fashioned by gods or men.¹⁵ It also signifies an enigma that helps correlate man and the cosmos.¹⁶ There is a wide semantic gap between the early meaning of this word and the meaning that later became predominant in the Upaniṣads.¹⁷ The meaning of bráhman as a verbal object became secondary, yielding place to the meaning of a universal creative principle. In this meaning the word bráhman then appeared grammatically only in the singular, never the plural.¹⁸ This new significance of bráhman is already found in several Vedic texts called Brāhmaṇas. But it mainly developed in the earliest Upaniṣads. In these texts, bráhman is gen See Renou 1978: 85 – 87. On the divine art (śilpa) of fashioning speech in the Vedic context, see also Dange 1996: 103.  Renou 1978: 87– 89.  Renou 1978: 83.  Renou 1978: 84.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

305

erally not described as a god¹⁹; rather it is clearly differentiated from the gods. The gods themselves have difficulty in identifying and understanding that superior entity situated above or beyond them.²⁰ Though bráhman is often a central topic in the Upaniṣads, there is no uniform description of it. The views are different, if not contradictory (to modern eyes), from one Upaniṣad to the other, sometimes paradoxically (to us) even in the same Upaniṣad. For instance, bráhman is sometimes considered a supreme entity, sometimes a creator, and sometimes a mystical and elusive being. At first sight, it seems difficult to regard the Upaniṣadic bráhman as a person since this genderless entity is designated by a grammatically neutral term. It is bodiless, has no specific shape or aspect, no personal life history and no legal personality. This is in contrast with the Vedic gods, who have different names, are born mortal but later acquire immortality, and who are often conceived as having a body and an eventful existence.²¹ However several features may be said to make the Upaniṣadic bráhman a minimal person. It creates itself ²² as well as the universe perceptible by sentient beings.²³ It knows, though is not knowable.²⁴ It acts.²⁵ Although it does not have a naturally specific body, it can choose to take a perceptible definite form, as described in the Kena Upaniṣad. ²⁶ Though silent, it is addressed by sentient beings,

 When it is called deva, this term has the more general meaning of “an effulgent being” (see Renou 1943, Kena Upaniṣad).  See Kena Upaniṣad 3 where the gods fail to recognize him under his assumed appearance of a yakṣa (semi-god or spirit).  See Lévi 2003: 41– 43 (acquisition of immortality), 68 – 74 (examples of fragments of divine biographies). The biography or story of gods is often only alluded to in Vedic texts, not systematically recounted.  Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2, 7, 1: “That [i. e. the bráhman] created itself by itself” (tad ātmānaṃ svayam akuruta).  For instance, see a story of this creation in Aitareya Upaniṣad 1, 1, 1– 4.  For instance, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2, 4, 14; etc.  For instance, Kena Upaniṣad 3, 2: it manifests itself to the gods.  For instance, in the Kena Upaniṣad, the bráhman is said to have achieved a victory for the gods, but they attribute this victory to themselves. The bráhman then decides to appear to them (that is, to be an object of perception to the senses of the gods) (3.2). The gods identify this being as a yet unknown spirit (yakṣa), but cannot identify it further. Finally this appearance of the bráhman vanishes and a woman named Umā Haimavatī reveals to the gods that it was the bráhman (3, 11– 12 ; 4, 1). Interestingly, to mention the manifestation of the bráhman as a yakṣa, the Kena Upaniṣad (3,2) uses the verb prādurbabhūva (“appeared”), from which is derived the word prādurbhāva, a word that Hinduism later sometimes used as a synonym for avatāra or divine incarnation, on occasion as a distinct category thereof.

306

Gérard Colas

including deities.²⁷ In fact the very action of verbalizing it, encapsulating it as an agent into a linguistic expression, contributes to giving it a sort of personality. One may ask if the very mention of an intelligent and conscious being by language does not bar its evocation or description as being “impersonal”?²⁸ But it should be stressed again that the traits of such a person vary from one Upaniṣadic passage to another. The tendency to reinforce the personal features of the supreme being is stronger in such younger Upaniṣads as the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, where bráhman is identified as the supreme god. Several centuries later, the ancient Upaniṣads came to be considered as a single corpus called Vedānta, and were commented upon by various preceptors. Śaṅkara in the 8th century, largely contributed to the notion of the homogeneity of this corpus with his commentaries that integrated the main Upaniṣads into his own system. He gave bráhman, hereafter Brahman, a relatively constant core definition, that of an entity which is “by nature eternal, pure, intelligent, free, (and is) omniscient and endowed with all powers”.²⁹ These aspects point to a particular person, though not of the same sort as a human one. Śaṅkara transformed the non-homogenous notion of Brahman into a homogenous one. For instance, he theorized the notion of Brahman with form (saguṇa) and without form (nirguṇa) to explain the divergent conceptions of the Brahman in the Upaniṣads.³⁰ He identified the Brahman with the highest level of reality, and distinguished it from Īśvara, which corresponds to the Brahman with form³¹ and is situated at the vyāvahārika level, that is, the level of lower ordinary existence. Īśvara comes into being only because of limiting adjuncts (upādhis). Though personalized in Śaṅkara’s exposition, Īśvara is a non-sectarian paradigm and may be termed a deistic rather than theistic conception of God.³² He is considered as the creator of the universe, but not a god in the religious sense.

 For instance, Aitareya Upaniṣad 1, 2, 1 sqq.  This hardly avoidable linguistic “personalization” of the bráhman could perhaps be fruitfully compared with the notion of “idole conceptuelle” as Jean-Luc Marion develops it in Marion 1991: 44. However the opposition between “idole” and “icône” as posited in several other passages of this work is open to debate (see note 46 below). ‒ I thank James Fredericks and Marcus Schmücker for having drawn my attention to this work.  On Brahmasūtrabhāṣya 1, 1, 1, p. 79: nityaśuddhabuddhamuktasvabhāvaṃ sarvajñaṃ sarvaśaktisamanvitam.  See Potter 1981: 81 and in Śaṅkara’s works, for instance, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya 1, 3, 13 – 19; 1, 4, 14– 15.  See Potter 1981: 77– 78 and in Śaṅkara’s works, for instance, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya 1, 3, 13 – 19; 1, 4, 14– 15.  See Colas forthcoming.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

307

While Śaṅkara distinguished the Brahman and the masculine divine person Īśvara, post-śaṅkarian Vedāntic schools assimilated these two notions and even identified them to a sectarian god. For example, Bhāskara, who lived not very long after Śaṅkara, identified Brahman with Īśvara. Rāmānuja, in the 11th century, further identified Brahman-Īśvara with Viṣṇu, thus linking the Upaniṣadic supreme being with Vaiṣṇava religion.³³ However his enterprise was ambiguous with regard to attributing the status of a person to Brahman-Īśvara. This is because he adopted a purely scholastic way to demonstrate it, while steering clear of a merely religious point of view, at least in his specifically Vedāntic works. For instance, in his commentary on the Vedāntasūtras he apparently does not use the term avatāra typical of Vaiṣṇava religion, and prefers the more intellectual and comprehensive term saṃsthāna. ³⁴ This concept could apply not only to the notion of avatāra, but also to all possible manifestations of Viṣṇu, which this god takes according to the wishes of his devotees. Rāmānuja also rarely mentions religious icons, at least in his Vedāntic commentaries.³⁵ This distancing from the approach, terminology and practices of religion illustrates the persistence of the divide between scholasticism and religion in the 11th century with regard to the definition of the supreme being as a person. Important non-Vedāntic “philosophical” schools did not follow the Upaniṣads or the Veda as a privileged source of authority,³⁶ nor did they mention or discuss the notion of Brahman in their metaphysical reflections. Two of them – the Yoga- and the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika-darśanas — adopted, though marginally (and comparatively late in the case of Nyāya), the paradigmatic concept of Īśvara. But this was deistic rather than theistic,³⁷ for none of them identified Īśvara with a sectarian or Purāṇic god like Viṣṇu or Śiva. The Yogasūtras (1, 23 – 29) consider Īśvara a particular kind of person (puruṣa-viśeṣa) (1, 24)³⁸, but not as the creator of the universe.³⁹ Īśvara is omniscient (1,

 See Colas forthcoming.  See Colas 2020: 124.  See Colas forthcoming.  Except, of course, the Mīmāṃsā, which was both an exegesis of Vedic ritual prescriptions and a speculative system.  For my understanding of the distinction between deism and theism in ancient Indian speculations, see Colas forthcoming.  Larson does not translate puruṣa as person, but on the contrary insists on de-personalization and that “the notion of God is never personal”; Larson 2013: 83.  Larson 2013: 85 – 86; 93: “In other words, there is always an inherent urge in citta-sattva to break free from the afflictions and karmic bonds of ‘ordinary awareness’ (citta-vṛttis). God, thus, is never the creator. Only sentient beings through their karma create the multi-verse. God, rather, is the enabler of the unfolding processes of creative becoming and dissolution by virtue of the

308

Gérard Colas

25), not limited by time (1, 26), not affected by afflictions, karmic fructification and predispositions (1, 24). Concentration (samādhi) is attained by meditation (praṇidhāna) on him (1, 23). The position of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika with regard to Īśvara evolved with time, becoming more elaborate. The sūtras of the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika schools, composed in the three first centuries CE, did not take a deistic or theistic stance. Like the early Buddhist Pāli canon, they appear not to have been very concerned with questions of God and the creation of the world. But by the 6th century, commentators on the sūtras clearly admitted the creation of the universe by Īśvara.⁴⁰ Īśvara is a supreme person who periodically dissolves the universe to give rest to the selves (ātman), and recreates it to allow them to exhaust their karman through experience in the created universe. But Īśvara’s function of destruction and creation is limited because he is bound by the time cycles of destruction and creation in general, and by the individual karman of the selves in particular. Based on this argument the later commentators of the school rejected the religious concept prevalent in the Purāṇas of a god who acts and creates by mere fantasy or free will. What is Īśvara’s status as a person in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika? We may say that the Īśvara of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika is a deistic concept. He does not possess a body,⁴¹ in contrast to Purāṇic gods and temple icons. This is because a body, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, would entail feelings of pain and joy, which this entity does not experience. The possession of a body would also mean that he would be subject to karman. This Īśvara has no personal name, no specific shape. He has no legal personality. He has no personal life history of being born, is not liable to death. Being self-sufficient and free from pain and pleasure, Īśvara does not experience personal feelings and the imputation of his cruelty is refuted.⁴² This limiting definition of God in later Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika echoes the absence or secondariness of this concept in the sūtras which form its scriptural base. The notion of Īśvara received due attention in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika with the Nyāyakusumāñjali of Udayana in the 11th century, where he tried to demonstrate the existence of a creator-God, especially against Buddhists and Mīmāṃsakas. According to him, God could assume a temporary form to fulfil certain functions

non-intentional, pre-reflexive presence that enables all manifest Beings (sattā-mātra) to be reflexively aware.” “God is not any personal deity nor a highly achieved yogin” (ibid., 94).  See details and references in Colas 2011: 48.  However later logicians like Udayana admitted that Īśvara occasionally takes on an “instrumental body”: see Colas 2004: 160.  Chemparathy 1972: 160.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

309

like teaching the Veda. Also an “unconditional compassion” prompts him to help the beings who are caught in cyclic existence.⁴³ Such motivation cannot be a personal feeling like “amusement” or the wish “to show his power”, but is part of his nature.⁴⁴ In any case, the Īśvara advocated by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, not being a full-fledged person, could not be an object of devotion. Several introductory and final verses of Udayana’s works show that he personally was a worshipper of Śiva, but his Nyāyakusumāñjali is for the most part dedicated to proving the existence of a creator-God (Īśvara) through logical arguments.⁴⁵ We can only guess the reasons why Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika had admitted a creatorGod Īśvara by the 6th century, and later strengthened this position, especially in the 11th century. It is interesting to note that in the 11th century too, Rāmānuja founded a system that identified Brahman, Īśvara and Viṣṇu, though keeping a clear boundary between scholasticism and religion. Was this tendency to develop and strengthen deistic and theistic concepts connected to a sharp decline of Vedic rites and the development of the worship of icons in public temples? The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika authors however do not draw any arguments from the domain of religion, or from Purāṇic, Vedic or Vedāntic authority. As we saw, their deistic concept of Īśvara is an almost abstract paradigm. Independent of notions derived from religious movements, they nevertheless legitimate religious notions of a supreme God from an erudite and scholarly perspective. If we leave the metaphysical speculations and turn to the perspective of the worship of and devotion to religious icons, we observe a complete reversal of the first perspective, for icon worship gives extreme importance to the supreme being’s identification as a person.⁴⁶ It aims at projecting and sustaining in the mind

 Chemparathy 1972: 159.  See for instance Potter 1977: 333; Chemparathy 1972: 162.  At the very beginning of the text, Udayana identifies Īśvara as the god of the different systems, but under different names: Śiva for the Śaivas, Viṣṇu for the Vaiṣṇavas, etc. Chemparathy equates the Īśvara of the Nyāyakusumāñjali with Śiva, to whom Udayana apparently had a personal devotion (Chemparathy 1972: 29 – 30). See also Colas forthcoming.  See Colas 2012: 12, for my use of the term “icon”. It is different from that of Marion in his Dieu sans l’être, where the “icône” (painted on wood, 33) is considered higher than the “idole” (as illustrated by the statues of ancient Greek gods) (15 – 37, 41), though this work does not express this hierarchy in such a forthright way. Marion refrains from giving “idole” a caricatural meaning and expands its sense to the notion of conceptual idol (39 – 58). As regard material representations of gods, his differentiation between icon and idol appears based on and restricted to a Christian understanding. An in-depth comprehension of Indian textual and anthropological material on this topic cannot lean on a dualism of this kind for at least two reasons. One is the variety of intellectual, religious and devotional views about icons in India up to the present time. Another is that this variety includes many finely shaded skeptical views that cannot be simply

310

Gérard Colas

of the devotees the idea of a god as a full-fledged embodied person. God’s body is predominantly anthropomorphic, but it also can have the form of chimeric beings like Narasiṃha, the Man-Lion incarnation, or, according to the texts, the form of the animal incarnations of Viṣṇu like the fish and the boar. We may briefly mention four different aspects in this perspective. The first aspect is that of the legal personality of the divine icon, a notion common to both the Buddhist and Hindu religions. Though not the most important, the legal personality of God must be mentioned first because of its antiquity. Inscriptions that record donations show that the icons of Buddha, bodhisattvas or Hindu deities were considered the legal owners of the agricultural lands, jewellery, or other possessions given to them. This practice is documented as early as in the 2nd century onwards in the Buddhist context and gathered importance from the 4th to the 7th century in both religions. Donations were often sanctioned by political power and contributed to guarantee the possession of real estate by monasteries and temples and assure their functioning after the disappearance of the donator. In this context, religious icons were conceived not as paradigmatic and abstract entities but as individual persons. The inscriptions often refer to icons by a specific local name ‒ often assigned by a local legend ‒ and not by a general name like Viṣṇu or Śiva. This conception of the icon as a person and owner was sustained by the devotional attitude.⁴⁷ The second aspect is reflected in the manuals of temple priests.⁴⁸ While the inscriptions refer to the legal aspect of the divine person, these manuals deal with its physical features and power. Semi-erudite in nature, these manuals contain iconographic and ritual prescriptions, as well as, sometimes, simple doctrinal speculations. Though they foster the notion of the divine icon as a person, they are prescriptive and are intended for a universal applicability. From their point of view, the correct application of their rules, both iconographic and ritual, conditioned the life and power of the icon as a person. Further personification of these icons as particular gods was achieved by the appropriate mantras of ritual installation. The prescriptions in these manuals for priests deal with the manufacture, installation, and worship in temples of icons made of various materials, mainly stone, metal and mud. The prescriptions for the installation of the icons are of two kinds: iconographic ones and ritual ones (by which life and power are introduced into the icons).

summarized in the mere general notion of idolatry. A discussion on this topic would exceed the limits of this contribution.  See Colas 2012: 114– 118; Reiniche 1988: 367– 383.  For more details on this aspect, see Colas 1996: 305 – 347; Colas 2012: 123 – 163.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

311

Deviation from the iconographic prescriptions not only would prevent the god from residing in the icon, but would also attract demoniac powers to the icon, making it an instrument for black magic. While a beautiful and canonical icon is said to please the represented god, a damaged and unrepaired icon angers the god, who abandons it. Though the prescriptions often suggest that the icon is the body of the divine person, they also mention it as being merely an abode.⁴⁹ The other kind of prescriptions, those of installation, consist in infusing life and power into the icon. Without going into the theology of divine icons at length, these manuals make us understand that life is drawn into the icon through various rituals, like the opening of its eyes. Thus, made alive, the icon becomes fit to receive offerings addressed to its different senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, etc. A complex series of ritual operations brings divine power (śakti) into the icon. As we have seen, this power is said to leave the icon when the divine being is not pleased to stay there. The divine power may also be temporarily withdrawn into another material support when the icon is under repair, or when the icon is under threat of being stolen, etc. Therefore, unlike the God of reasoners, or should we say, theorists, the iconic deity of the priestly manuals is considered a sensitive person experiencing various feelings like a human being. But its being a full-fledged person is conditional, because it is mediated by the correct application of the rules prescribed by the ritual manuals. The viewpoint of the priests is technical rather than devotional. They organize the scene, so to speak, for the devotees. Their function consists in causing divine power to be installed in the icon and overseeing its continued presence in it. Being practical and not speculative texts, these manuals do not describe the exact relation between the icon and the god who supposedly takes it as a body or resides in it. Is the god different from its icon? This question does not arise from the point of view of the devotee, as we will see below. Nor do the manuals indicate whether the divine person is different in each icon, as is the case from a legal perspective. They systematically distinguish various recorded and accepted divine forms according to theology and iconography, and associate specific sacred formulas (mantras) with them. But because of their general and prescriptive character, they do not bind the ritual to individual, unique statues in particular places of worship.⁵⁰

 See Colas 1996: 206; Colas 2004: 165.  Contrast this with the local identification of singular icon-deities, which is sustained by their biographies in local stories and mythologies. See also Reiniche 1988: 374– 375.

312

Gérard Colas

A third aspect is the point of view of the devotees.⁵¹ While for the priests, the icon becomes a god through ritual action, the identification of the icon with god is spontaneous for the devotees. For them the icon is a living person with feelings to which they address their prayers, offerings, etc., and to which they are personally attached. The relation between the devotee and the icon-deity is a relation between two persons. The 13th-century South Indian devotee Piḷḷai Lokācārya, in his Śrīvacanabhūṣaṇa, for example, refuses to dissociate the icon from the deity. He states that it would be unbecoming to think about the materials out of which the icon is made. The craftwork involved in the icon is voluntarily ignored in a direct interaction with god transcending the object’s materiality. The same author also calls the icon an arcāvatāra, that is, an incarnation of god in view of his worship by devotees. The fourth and final aspect of the icon as a person is the legitimation of icon worship by an all-encompassing theology. This is exemplified by the textual corpus of the Puṣṭimārga, also called Śuddhādvaita, which was founded by Vallabha at the end of the 15th century. This system, which is both theological and religious, is far removed from the older Vedāntic systems, which were preoccupied with metaphysics and developed their schools independently of religious practices. The Vallabha tradition is based not only on Vedāntic metaphysics, but also on devotion towards the icon of Kṛṣṇa. Vallabha is said to have identified, at Kṛṣṇa’s command, an icon named Śrīgovardhananāthajī on the Govardhana Hill in Braj as being the very form, svarūpa, of God Kṛṣṇa. This icon was later moved to Nāthadvāra in Rajasthan. It is today known as Śrīnāthajī and still plays an important role in the Vallabha tradition.⁵² The Prameyaratnārṇava of Bālakṛṣṇabhaṭṭa, written in the 18th century, illustrates the importance of the divine icon in Vallabha theology. According to this text, due to Māyā the whole universe is mere viṣayatā (“object-ideation”, provisional translation), except for the icons of the Lord and other sacred objects into which the Lord himself has entered. While devotees perceive the icon as God himself, worshipping and taking care of it, those lacking devotion do not perceive the icon as God. This is because their vision is impaired by viṣayatā that obscures their intellect.⁵³ In contemporary India, followers of the Vallabha tradition combine a deep devotion towards Kṛṣṇa’s icons as living persons with reverence for the tradition’s erudite leaders. Devotees often install an icon of Kṛṣṇa in their home tem-

 For more details, Colas 2012: 109 – 113.  See Vaudeville 1980: 1– 45.  Prameyaratnārṇava, pp. 7.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

313

ple, worshipping it with great affection and considering it a family member. We may mention a recent event that illustrates this conception.⁵⁴ In 2009, Goswami Shyam Manohar, a pandit of the tradition, reported the following story. The house of a devotee’s family in Mumbai caught fire and a burning wooden slab fell on the metal icon of Kṛṣṇa, deforming it. A son asked his old mother to replace the icon with a new one, but the lady wanted to continue to worship the damaged icon. They went to Goswami Shyam Manohar to settle the issue. The lady argued that she was not worshipping an icon, but “her Ṭhakurjī”, that is, “dear Lord”, and that just as a mother would not replace a son who lost his limbs, she would not replace “her Ṭhakurjī” simply because he had been deformed in an accident. Her argument was accepted by all, including Goswami Shyam Manohar, and she continued to worship the damaged icon. One may observe that this decision goes against the temple-ritual texts, according to which God and his power leave a damaged icon. But the absolute identification of the icon with a divine living person is in keeping with the theology of the Vallabha tradition and the central role of devotion in that school. With this story, we are far from the early Vedāntic schools that were unreceptive to devotion. However, as we have seen, even the Upaniṣads and the ancient Vedāntic schools could not dispense with at least a minimal notion of a person to describe or suggest the nature of a supreme being, the Brahman. We have also observed that certain non-Vedāntic systems, such as Yoga and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, accepted the notion of a paradigmatic person God-Īśvara as the supreme being, whether Creator or not, who experienced a minimum of emotions, though without a body. We do not know if this was a deistic concession to Hindu religion, and/or was aimed at countering unbelievers (though not atheists!) such as Buddhists or Mīmāṃsakas. As regards divine icons and their personification of the supreme being, they were not common topics of discussion in the ancient Vedāntic and non-Vedāntic speculative systems. They were mentioned only incidentally,⁵⁵ however with no outright condemnation. Yet while the ancient systems were reluctant to consider the supreme being a person, devotional trends developed the notion of the icon as an embodied, living, and powerful person subject to the same feelings experienced by human beings. This articulated conception complemented the perhaps earlier notion of legal person known from inscriptions. The culmination of the notion of supreme

 I owe the account of this incident to Prof. Anand Mishra (Heidelberg). See also Colas 2014: 52– 63; esp. 58, note 29.  For these questions, see for instance Colas 2012: 118 – 122, 169 – 170, 175 – 177.

314

Gérard Colas

being as a person is found in the Vallabha tradition, which created a synthesis between Vedānta metaphysics and the conception of the icon as God in person. Perhaps these two conceptions catered to two functions of the divine. One corresponds to the intellectual need of defining a creator of the universe as a whole (except in the case of the Yogasūtras, where Īśvara is not a creator); this is meant to explain, in toto, the causality of the worldly appearance, a context in which the physical representation of God as a person is not vital. The second function corresponds to the need of devotees and believers to address and interact with a supreme being similar to them in appearance and behaviour, a supreme being that is nevertheless omniscient and omnipotent. The divide between a speculative attitude and the devotional understanding of icons as persons is analogous, to some extent, to the situation in Catholicism, where a clear line of separation was drawn between the metaphysical perspective and devotion to icons of Christ and the saints. In its missions outside Europe, Catholicism admitted or even encouraged such devotion as a concession to “popular” attitudes.⁵⁶ Though miracle-icons were recognized in practice, it was stressed that icons were only representations, not actual divine persons.⁵⁷ The Hindu tradition of Vallabha illustrates another way of conciliating the speculative and devotional conceptions of the divine person.

Bibliography Sanskrit texts Aitareya Upaniṣad. Swamī Gambhīrānanda, Aitareya Upaniṣad. In: Swamī Gambhīrānanda (Ed.), Eight Upaniṣads. With the commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Swamī Gambhīrānanda. Volume Two. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama 1973 (reprint), 1 – 75. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Émile Senart, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1967. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, Śaṅkara. Brahmasūtraśāṅkarabhāṣya with the commentaries Bhāmatī, Kalpataru and Parimala. Anantakrishna Shastri, Vasudev Laxman Shastri Pansikar (Eds.). [Krishnadas Sanskrit Series 25]. Varanasi: Krishnadas Academy 2000 (reprint). Kena Upaniṣad. Louis Renou, Kena Upaniṣad. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve 1943. Prameyaratnārṇava. Bālakṛṣṇabhaṭṭa. [Prameyaratnārṇava], Gosvāmī Śyām Manohar (Ed.), Kolhāpur: Śrīvallabhavidyāpīṭha-Śrīviṭṭhaleśaprabhucaraṇa Ā. Ho. Ṭrasṭ, Vikrama saṃvat 2054 [= 1997 AD], Śrībālakṛṣṇa-granthāvalī.

 See for instance Mosse 1994: 305 – 306; Osswald 2005: 157– 162, 169 – 170.  See for instance Fabre 2013.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

315

Taittirīya Upaniṣad. Swami Sharvananda, Taittirīya-upaniṣad. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math 1977. Yogasūtra. Ḍhunḍhirājaśāstrī, Yogasūtras. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Sanskrit Sansthan 1982 [2nd ed.].

European works and secondary literature Benveniste 1966. Émile Benveniste, “Chapitre XVIII. Structure des relations de personne dans le verbe”. In: Problèmes de linguistique générale I (Paris 1966) 225 – 236. Bergson 1972. Henri Bergson, 21 Avril–22 Mai 1914. “Onze conférences sur la “personnalité” aux Gifford Lectures d’Edinburgh”. In: Mélanges (Paris 1972) 1051 – 1071; French translation 1071 – 1086. Bergson 1972a. Henri Bergson, 6 Mai 1916. Conférence de Madrid sur la personnalité. In: Mélanges (Paris 1972): 1215 – 1235. Chemparathy 1972. George Chemparathy, An Indian Rational Theology: Introduction to Udayana’s Nyāyakusumāñjali. Vienna: Publications of the De Nobili Research Institute 1972. Colas 1996. Gérard Colas, Viṣṇu, ses images et ses feux: Les métamorphoses du dieu chez les vaikhānasa. Paris: Presses de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 1996. Colas 2004. Id., “The Competing Hermeneutics of Image Worship in Hinduism (Fifth to Eleventh Century AD)”. In: Images in Asian Religions. Texts and Contexts. Phyllis Granoff, Koichi Shinohara (Eds.). Vancouver 2004, 149 – 179. Colas 2011. Id., “God’s body: Epistemic and Ritual Conceptions from Sanskrit Texts of Logic”. In: Images of the Body in India. Axel Michaels, Christoph Wulf (Eds.). London: Routledge 2011, 45 – 55. Colas 2012. Id., Penser l’icône en Inde ancienne. Brepols: Turnhout 2012. Colas 2014. Id., “Senses, Human and Divine”. In: Exploring the Senses. Axel Michaels, Christoph Wulf (Eds.). London (2014): 52 – 63. Colas 2020. Id., “Le corps du Dieu créateur selon Rāmānuja: le dépassement d’un obstacle épistémologique dans la scolastique indienne”. In: Les scolastiques indiennes: genèses, développements, interactions. Émilie Aussant and Gérard Colas (Eds.). Paris, Publications de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 2020, 113 – 126. Colas forthcomming. Id., “Evolution of Deism and Theism up to the 12th Century. Some Considerations”. In: Changing Forms and the Becoming of a Deity in Indian Religious Traditions: The God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Marcus Schmücker (Ed.). Wien: Press of the Austria Academy of Sciences 2023. Dange 1996. Sindhu Dange, Aspects of Speech in Vedic Ritual. New Delhi: Aryan Books International 1996. Fabre 2013. Pierre Antoine Fabre, Décréter l’image ? La XXVe Session du Concile de Trente. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2013. Gaffiot 1961. Félix Gaffiot, Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français. Paris, Hachette [1st ed. 1934]. Halbfass 2002. Wilhelm Halbfass, Karma und Wiedergeburt im indischen Denken. München: Diedrichs 2000. Ildefonse 2009. Frédérique Ildefonse, La personne en Grèce ancienne. In: Terrain 52 (2009) 64 – 77 (http://terrain.revues.org/13577, accessed 01. 06. 2016).

316

Gérard Colas

Larson 2013. Gerald James Larson, “Yoga’s Theism. A New Way of Understanding God”. In: Classical and Contemporary Issues in Indian Studies. Essays in Honour of Trichur S. Rukmani. P. Pratap Kumar, Jonathan Duquette (Eds.). Delhi 2013, 78 – 95. Lecointe 1993. Jean Lecointe, L’idéal et la différence. La perception de la personnalité littéraire à la Renaissance. Genève: Droz 1993. Lenclud 2009. Gérard Lenclud, Être une personne. Terrain 52 (2009): 4 – 17. (http://terrain.re vues.org/13544, accessed 01/06/2016). Lévi 2003. Sylvain Lévi, La doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brāhmaṇas. Turnhout: Brepols 2003. Marion 1991. Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Collection Quadrige [1st ed. 1982]. Matilal 2002. Bimal Krishna Matilal, “The Problem of Inter-faith Studies”. In: Philosophy, Culture and Religion: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal, Vol 2: Ethics and Epics. Ed. Jonardon Ganeri. New Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press (2002) 161 – 165. Mauss 1938. Marcel Mauss, Une catégorie de l’esprit humain. La notion de personne, celle de ‘moi’. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 68 (1938): 263 – 281. Montaigne 1962. Michel de Montaigne, “Essais”. In: Œuvres completes. Ed. Albert Thibaudet, Maurice Rat. Paris: Gallimard, La Pléiade. [original editions 1580 – 1595]. Montaigne 2003. Id., The Complète Essays. Transl. by M.A. Screech. London: Penguin Books 2003. Mosse 1994. David Mosse, Catholic Saints and the Hindu Village Pantheon in Rural Tamil Nadu. Man, New Series 29/2 (1994): 301 – 332. Nietzsche 2016. Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of Nietzsche’s Works and Letters (URL: http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB/NF-1884,25[363], accessed 01/06/2016) Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Osswald 2005. Maria Cristina Osswald, Goa and Jesuit Cult and Iconography Before 1622. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 147 (2005): 155 – 173. Parrinder 1997. Geoffrey Parrinder, Avatar and Incarnation: The Divine in Human Forms in the World’s Religions. Oxford: Oneworld Publications 1997. Potter 1977. Karl H. Potter, “Nyāyavārttika”. In: Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies [Vol. II]. Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika up to Gaṅgeśa. Karl H. Potter (Ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1977, 304 – 337. Potter 1981. Id., “Introduction to the Philosophy of Advaita Vedānta”. In: Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies [Vol. III]. Advaita Vedānta up to Śaṃkara and His Pupils. Karl H. Potter (Ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass (1981) 1 – 100. Reiniche 1988. Marie-Louise Reiniche, Un nom, une forme, un lieu. L’invention hindoue de l’autre et du même. Revue de l’histoire des religions 205/4 (1988): 367 – 383. Renou 1978. Louis Renou, “Sur la notion de bráhman”. In: L’Inde fondamentale: Études d’indianisme réunies et présentées. Charles Malamoud (Ed.). Paris: Hermann (1978) 83 – 116. Riquier 2007. Camille Riquier, Bergson et le problème de la personnalité: La personne dans tous ses états. Les Études philosophiques 81 (2007): 193 – 214 (URL: http://www.cairn. info/revue-les-etudes-philosophiques-2007-2-page-193.htm, accessed 01/06/2016). Sainte-Beuve 1947. Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Écrivains critiques de la France. – XVI. — M. de Rémusat, Passé et Présent. Revue des Deux Mondes 20 (1947): 5 – 41.

The Supreme Being: A Person?

317

Schmithausen 2014. Lambert Schmithausen, The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Responses and Reflections. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies 2014. Vaudeville 1980. Charlotte Vaudeville, The Govardhan Myth in Northern India. Indo-Iranian Journal 22.1 (1980): 1 – 45. Vernant 1971. Jean-Pierre Vernant, “La personne dans la religion: Aspects de la personne dans la religion grecque”. Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs. Études de psychologie historique II Paris 1971, 79 – 94.

Anantanand Rambachan

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara: A Proposal for the Relationality of Saguṇa and Nirguṇa Brahman Advaita refers to one of several Hindu theological traditions that are grounded in the recognition of the four Vedas (Ṛg, Sāma, Yajur and Atharva) as sources of valid knowledge (pramāṇa). The fundamental teachings of Advaita are derived from the exegesis of the Vedas and, more specifically, from the last sections of the Vedas, the Upaniṣads. Although looking to the Upaniṣads as highest source for its teachings, the Advaita tradition also recognizes the Bhagavadgītā and the Brahmasūtra as authoritative sources, although these are not put into the category of pramāṇa as the Upaniṣads. Advaita acknowledges a line of distinguished teachers for the exegesis, clarification, defence and transmission of its teachings. Among earliest are Bādarāyaṇa, the author of the Brahmasūtra and Gauḍapāda, author of a commentary in verse (kārikā) on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad. There is no dispute, however, that the principal systematizer, exponent, and apologist for Advaita is Śaṅkara (ca. 788 – 820). Śaṅkara’s legacy to the tradition is his commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, the Brahmasūtra, and on ten of the Upaniṣads (Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Māṇḍūkya and Kārikā, Muṇḍaka, Aitareya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya and Taittirīya). He is also credited with the authorship of many independent works, but the authenticity of these is in question, with the exception of the Upadeśasāhasrī. In this discussion, I propose to highlight and interrogate the well-known terminology and distinction, in Advaita, between brahman as saguṇa and brahman as nirguṇa. I will discuss what I believe are the concerns underlying this distinction and question the significance and necessity for these. I will propose alternative ways of employing the terminology of saguṇa and nirguṇa. This distinction has implication for Advaita relations with other Hindu traditions and with other world religions. This distinction receives greater prominence in post-Śaṅkara exegetes, although Śaṅkara offers a basis in his commentaries. In his Brahmasūtra commentary 1. 2. 14, for example, he explains the use of saguṇa language for the sake of meditation (upāsanā). Brahman is intrinsically nirguṇa.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-021

320

Anantanand Rambachan

And it has been said already that though brahman is without qualities, still for the sake of meditation, It is presented in those respective places as a qualified entity, possessed of the characteristics associated with name and form. ¹

The Advaita tradition has not only been the focus of my scholarly work; my personal world-view has been shaped by its insights and I continue to be deeply influenced by its understanding of human existence. One cannot, however, ignore the challenges of claims that are different from one’s own and my encounter with other Hindu traditions and other religions has led to a re-examination of many aspects of my Advaita heritage. Contemporary commentators on the Advaita Vedānta tradition commonly distinguish between two orders or levels of the absolute (brahman) and propose a hierarchy between these. One is parā or higher brahman and the other is aparā or lower brahman. ² The higher brahman is equated with nirguṇa brahman, the absolute non-dual brahman, transcending time, space, causation and relations. It is beyond all action and change and free from any duality or multiplicity. Nirguṇa brahman, so characterized, is not responsible for the world-creation, since it is presented as being beyond activity and causation and relationship with anything. On the one hand there is brahman which is One only, which is formless, attributeless and actionless. On the other, there is the world of perceivable objects, diverse in name and form. This is the phenomenal world, the world of the many. Brahman is one; the world is many. Brahman is attributeless, nirguṇa; objects are qualified by attributes, they are saguṇa. Brahman has no name or form; objects have different forms and names. Brahman is inactive and permanent; the objects of the world are active and subject to change. What is the link between the two? What is the modus operandi of the transition of the One into the many?³

The modus operandi or connecting principle between nirguṇa brahman and the world, according to this viewpoint, is māyā. Without māyā, nirguṇa brahman cannot make the transition from impersonal awareness to personal creator (īśvara).⁴ It is brahman associated with māyā which is the origin and source of the world and which is referred to as saguṇa brahman. Saguṇa brahman is  Gambhirananda 1977: 128.  See, for example, Puligandla 1975: 225 – 226. I question also the uncritical translation of parā and aparā as higher and lower. I want to suggest these terms refer to brahman as transcendent and immanent.  Sankaranarayanan 1988: 46.  The significance of māyā and its relationship to brahman and creation in Advaita is a subject which requires critical consideration. Such a discussion, however, is beyond the scope of this study. For some of my views on this matter see Rambachan 2006: Chapter 5, 67– 81.

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara

321

also equated with īśvara, the lord of the creation.⁵ Saguṇa brahman is regarded by Advaita interpreters as lower (aparā) because, among things, it is conditioned and related to the world. “Saguṇa brahman is God as appearance and not as reality.”⁶ Īśvara is related to the world and defined through that relationship, whereas nirguna brahman is brahman-in-itself and beyond all definitions. It is higher (parā) because it is neither cause nor effect. Brahman-in-itself is neither the cause nor the effect of anything. If it is the effect of something else, then it has a beginning, and whatever has a beginning must have an end. It means that it will cease to be eternal. If it is the cause of anything, then it becomes relational. In that case, it is not better than the things of the world which are relational. ⁷

The same writer adds that the association of brahman with māyā represents a climb down in the status of brahman. Whereas there is no distinction between substance and attributes in nirguṇa brahman, saguna brahman possesses attributes (guṇas) and this is another reason for characterizing saguṇa brahman as lower.⁸ The distinction between a higher and lower brahman is not just a mode of speaking about the absolute which is internal to the Advaita tradition. It is applied outside Advaita to evaluate the doctrine of God in other Hindu traditions as well as in other religions. It may not surprise one to note that the God of other Hindu traditions and other religions is generally equated with the lower brahman. The language often comes across as arrogant and supercilious. Brahman so conceived of is God (īśvara), as understood in all theistic traditions, Western and non-Western alike. It is obvious that such a conception belongs to the lower, conventional, relative, conditioned, practical standpoint; whereas the inconceivable Brahman devoid of form, name, qualities and relations, belongs to the higher, absolute standpoint. Saguṇa brahman is God (īśvara) understood as the cause, creator, sustainer, destroyer and judge of the world. It is saguṇa-brahman that people worship under different names and forms, such as Rama, Krishna, Siva, Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, and so on. It is God as saguṇa-brahman that is endowed with such qualities as love, kindness, mercy, and justice. In brief, saguṇa brahman is personal God.⁹

This description of brahman as nirguṇa and saguṇa is not without problems and, in spite of its prevalence in Advaita rhetoric, deserves reconsideration. It sug    

The word “God” is more appropriately used for saguṇa and not nirguṇa brahman. Puligandla 1975: 225. Balasubramanian 1994: 36. My italics. Satprakashananda 1977: 77. Puligandla 1985: 91.

322

Anantanand Rambachan

gests a dualism in the nature of brahman which is inconsistent with its non-dual nature. Such a distinction becomes particularly problematic when there is a hierarchical ordering and one is considered higher (parā) and the other lower (aparā). Surely, the nature of brahman does not admit of distinctions of any kind and the necessity and purpose of these must be queried and assessed. Such distinctions also raise questions about the nature of īśvara‘s self-consciousness. Does īśvara regard brahman as having two levels of being, one higher and does īśvara identify with the lower? The distinction also, as already noted, has implications for the Advaita understanding of and relationship with other traditions. It seems to me that the main purpose of the Advaita interpreters, in proposing a higher and lower brahman, is to account for the origin of the universe in a sentient and intelligent cause, while, at the same time, insulating or “protecting” brahman from what the tradition sees to be the drawbacks and limitations of ascribing creatorship and a relationship with the world to brahman. A relationship with the world is assumed to compromise the transcendental nature of brahman. Creatorship, and all that it implies in Advaita, is thus attributed to saguṇa brahman while nirguṇa brahman is seen as entirely free from all involvement in the world process except as the ground or substratum (adhiṣṭhāna) of the creative process. Are these Advaita concerns about the so-called defects and limitations of creatorship and relationship to brahman valid? Is it necessary to address this concern by proposing that brahman possesses a two-fold nature, one higher and the other lower? Let us begin by considering the issue of change and activity. Since the act of creation appears to imply change and activity and brahman, by definition, according to these interpreters, is free from all change and activity, brahman cannot be directly involved in the world process. Such involvement therefore is attributed to the lower or saguṇa brahman. What is most interesting here is that Advaita interpreters who are particularly concerned, in the doctrine of nirguṇa brahman, with deconstructing anthropomorphic understandings of brahman propose a problem which is created by the anthropomorphic imagination. When human beings, limited by space and time, engage in action, such action necessarily implies change of a certain kind. The same, however, ought not to be assumed for brahman who is the origin of space and time and who brings forth the world without any loss of fulness of being. It is not necessary to suggest a hierarchical bifurcation in the nature of brahman, in order to preserve brahman’s fulness, since the creative act does not alter or diminish this nature. Advaita interpreters are responding to a problem that, in fact, only arises from understanding and problematizing the creative act of brahman on the analogy of finite human activity.

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara

323

If we turn to the Upaniṣads, we see no hesitation to account for the origin of the universe in brahman and no suggestion of a dualism or hierarchy in the nature of brahman. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6. 2. 1– 2), for example, the teacher, Aruni, explains the origin of the world from brahman alone and not from nonbeing. In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent – one only, without a second. Now on this point some do say: “In the beginning this world was simply what is non-existent – one only, without a second. And from what is non-existent was born what is existent.” But, son, how can that possibly be? How can what is existent be born from what is nonexistent? On the contrary, son, in the beginning this world was simply what is existent – one only, without a second.¹⁰

The Upaniṣads are not reticent to suggest, will and purpose on the part of brahman. Brahman is described as desiring, deliberating, creating, and entering into all that is created. Aitareya Upaniṣad (1. 1) and Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2. 6. 1) are good examples. In the beginning this world was the self (ātman) alone, and there was no other being at all that blinked an eye. He thought to himself: ‘Let me create the worlds.’ He wished, ‘Let me be many, let me be born.’ He undertook a deliberation. Having deliberated, he created all this that exists. That (Brahman) having created (that), entered into that very thing. ¹¹

At the same time, we must take careful note of the many Upaniṣadic texts suggesting the attribution of activity to brahman cannot be anthropomorphic. Brahman is unique. Īśa Upaniṣad (4– 5) describes the activity of brahman in a series of paradoxes. Although not moving, the one is swifter than the mind; the gods cannot catch it, as it speeds on in front. Standing it outpaces others who run; within it Mātariśvan places the waters. It moves and it moves not; It is far and It is near; It is within all this and It is also outside all this.¹²

 Jha 1942: 295 – 299.  Gambhirananda 1965 – 1966: 20 and 340.  Radhakrishnan’s translation, 570 – 571.

324

Anantanand Rambachan

“Sitting,” says the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (I. 2. 21), “he moves far; lying he goes everywhere.”¹³ In a well-known sequence of verses in the Bhagavadgītā (13, 15 – 17), Krishna enunciates the mystery of brahman as both immanent and transcendent, involved in the world-process and free from finitude and limits. Shining by the functions of the senses, yet freed from all the senses, unattached yet maintaining all, free from the qualities yet experiencing the qualities. Outside and inside beings, those that are moving and not moving, because of its subtlety This is not comprehended. This is far away and also near. Undivided yet remaining as if divided in all beings. This is to be known as the sustainer of beings, their devourer and creator.¹⁴

These verses are excellent examples of the language strategy spoken of the Advaita tradition as the method of adhyāropa-apavāda. The usual polarities of language that exclude each other (near and far, inside and outside, moving and unmoving) are inadequate and are overcome in their juxtaposition. One polar term is inadequate and misleading without the other. Language is used to reveal the limits of language. Only then words can become, to use a Buddhist metaphor, fingers pointing to the moon. In passages like these, the Upaniṣads are offering us a way speaking about brahman as source of the world without the necessity for proposing division or hierarchy. Many Upaniṣads, of course, also employ the language of negation to speak of brahman and to distinguish it from the known and limited reference of all words. As Aquinas reminded us, “the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches.” One becomes freed from the jaws of death by knowing That which is wordless, untouched, formless, without taste, eternal, without scent, without beginning, without end, undecaying and greater than the great.¹⁵ It is neither gross nor minute, neither short nor long, neither red color nor oiliness, neither shadow nor darkness, neither air nor ether, neither savor nor odor, without eyes or ears, without vocal organs or mind, nonluminous, without the vital force or mouth, not a measure, and without exterior or interior. It does not eat anything, nor is It eaten by anybody.¹⁶

   

Kaṭha Upaniṣad, 1. 2. 21, 152. Sargeant: 1993, 204– 205 Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1. 3. 15, 173 – 174. Madhavananda 1975, 3. 8. 8, 359.

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara

325

Upaniṣadic passages like these make it difficult to agree with those Advaita interpreters who contend that if that if brahman is the cause of anything it becomes relational and, because of such relations, it is no better than things of the world. Brahman, I want to suggest, can be the cause of the world without becoming a worldly object. Many Advaita commentators seem to assume, unnecessarily and unfortunately, that the fact of having a relationship with the world is problematic and find a need, therefore, to propose a lower brahman related to the world and a higher brahman unrelated to the world. Another reason advanced for distinguishing between brahman as saguṇa and brahman as nirguṇa and for granting a lower status to saguṇa brahman is the argument that whereas there is no distinction between substance and attributes (guṇas) in nirguṇa brahman, saguṇa brahman possesses attributes and there exists a distinction of substance and attributes. This contention also requires careful scrutiny since it further underlines the problematic dichotomy in the nature of brahman. Brahman is consistently described in the Upanisads as one only and nondual.¹⁷ This is interpreted in Advaita to mean that brahman is free from divisions and differences of all kinds. Brahman is not divided by space or limited by time. Since it constitutes the essential nature of everything that exists, brahman is free from the limitation of being one object separate and distinguishable from every other object. It confers substantial being to everything that exists. The non-dual nature of brahman is also understood to mean that brahman is free from distinctions (bheda) of all kinds. In Advaita, three such distinctions are particularly highlighted. First, there is the distinction obtaining among objects belonging to different species (vijātīya bheda) such as plants and animals. Brahman is free from distinctions of this kind since there is no object that enjoys a separate ontological nature and existence from brahman. Second, there is the distinction existing among different objects belonging to the same species (svajātīya bheda). Brahman, however, is not the name of a species and there are no objects similar to but different from brahman. Distinctions of this kind therefore, do not apply. Third, there is the distinction obtaining within a single object comprised of different parts and possessing different characteristics. A cow, for example, has legs, a tail, ears and a head. It also has color, shape, and size. It is, in other words, internally differentiated. Brahman, on the other hand, has no internal distinctions. It is not a compound of diverse parts and natures and transcends distinctions such as those obtaining between substance and attrib-

 See, for example, Aitareya Upanisad (1.1) and Chāndogya Upanisad (6. 2. 1).

326

Anantanand Rambachan

utes or whole and parts. Brahman is indivisible and partless and beyond all definitions which are based on such distinctions. It is in the context of denying divisions and distinctions of the kinds described above that we ought to understand the use of the term nirguṇa (lit. without qualities). Nirguṇa affirms that everything we say about brahman is brahman. This term emphasizes that brahman cannot be thought of having distinctions in the manner of limited objects, but it does not refute the possibility of the world originating from brahman. Nirguṇa particularly denies the distinction of substance and attribute in brahman. This does not mean that one should regard brahman as a substance with no attributes. It means that brahman transcends the categories of both substance and attribute as well as the conventional distinction obtaining between these. Nirguṇa affirms the uniqueness of brahman’s nature, but does not speak to the possibility of brahman as the world-creator. Though translated often as “impersonal,” this is very far from the meaning of the term nirguṇa. Nirguṇa points to the indivisibility of brahman; it is not a denial of personhood. To argue, as some Advaita commentators have done, that nirguṇa brahman cannot be the author of creation is to misconstrue the significance of the term. The essential point is the creative act does not affect the essential unity of brahman which always remains free from divisions of every kind. This is the truth which must be emphasized and which eliminates the need for any hierarchical distinctions in the nature of brahman. The Upaniṣads clearly distinguish between the mental concepts and images that we have about brahman and the reality of brahman’s nature. The Taittirīya Upaniṣad twice describes brahman as that from which all words, with the mind return, having failed to reach.¹⁸ The Vedas, in speaking about brahman, are constrained to use conventional language derived from everyday usage and, since these emerge from our experience of finitude, can never directly signify brahman. Words are mere pointers to that which is beyond the meaning of all words and definitions. The concern to differentiate between a lower and higher brahman betrays this significant Upaniṣadic insight about the limits of language in relation to brahman. Śaṅkara is emphatic that no word can directly signify brahman. The words of the Upaniṣads are no exception. When carefully chosen words, however, are skilfully juxtaposed, they mutually qualify and eliminate from each other their finite associations and can teach about brahman by implication.¹⁹

 Cf. Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2. 9: yato vaco nivartante aprapya manasa saha.  See Rambachan 1991: Chapter 3, 67– 78.

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara

327

In relation to creation, we must rightly speak of brahman as creator, lord, support, and as omniscient and omnipotent. These are indeed relational definitions of brahman. Surely, they must not be construed as implying a transformation in the nature of brahman or a “climb down in the status of brahman.” Creation does not introduce hitherto non-existent divisions in the nature of brahman, including the distinction of reality and appearance. The problem and limits of language, it must be remembered, are also valid with reference to brahman as creator and in relation to the world. Here also, we must be conscious of the difference between the nature of brahman and our human discourse about brahman. Human speech about brahman, even when such speech, because of the limits of language, appears to imply divisions in brahman’s nature does not, in actuality, imply any divisions. To posit omnipotence as an attribute of brahman does not mean that brahman possesses the attribute of omnipotence in the same way that a lotus has the color blue as its attribute. The act of creation and a relationship with the created does not alter the unity of brahman. The need to distinguish between a higher and lower brahman incorrectly underlines this fear and introduces an unnecessary bifurcation in the nature of brahman. It appears to suggest that perfection is possible only in a nonrelational brahman. If the nature of brahman is not dual and does not become dual as a result of the creation of the world, we must also question the distinction made between what is intrinsic or essential in the nature of brahman (svarūpalakṣana) and what is extrinsic or non-essential (taṭasthalakṣana).²⁰ Essential or intrinsic is equated with nirguṇa and non-essential and extrinsic with saguṇa. Creatorship and being in relation to the world are regarded as constituting the non-essential nature of brahman. The terminology of essential and non-essential is as unfortunate and as unnecessary as higher and lower since it introduces another distinction in the nature of brahman. The need for it also arises from the concern, identified earlier, that creatorship and relationship are limiting and defective. How could brahman possess non-essential characteristics if the basic distinction between substance and quality, to which the word nirguṇa points, does not obtain? The most unfortunate consequence of the distinction between a higher and lower brahman is the reduction in the significance of the world and human existence within it. The value of the world is surely diminished if it is associated with brahman’s lower nature and if any kind of involvement of brahman in the world process is understood as a “climb down” on the part of brahman. The same devaluation ensues when the world is regarded as the result of non-essen-

 For a discussion of this distinction see Potter 1981: 73 – 76.

328

Anantanand Rambachan

tial character of brahman. This is an issue that deserves further analysis. In addition, saguṇa brahman or īśvara is endowed with virtues such as compassion, mercy, and justice. What is the status of such virtues when these are associated with a so-called lower brahman? What significance do these hold in the life of the liberated? There are questions here that need to be explored further.²¹ The many problems in the hierarchical and supersessionist use of nirguṇa and saguṇa may be avoided by an emphasis on the absence of distinctions in brahman both before and after creation. While we must speak in our limited language about brahman, our language does not compromise the unity and fulness of brahman. We may see nirguṇa and saguṇa as complementary and necessary rather than exclusive and hierarchical. These terms point to brahman as both immanent and transcendent, as related to the world-process and unlimited by it. In this view, one does not have to deny creatorship to brahman or to bifurcate brahman in order to preserve brahman’s non-duality and transcendence. Saguṇa and nirguṇa are necessary poles in the paradoxical language without which one cannot speak of brahman.

Bibliography Balasubramanian 1994. R. Balasubramanian, “The Absolute and God”. In: The Tradition of Advaita. R. Balasubramanian (Ed.). Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers (1994) 26 – 42. Gambhirananda 1965 – 1966. Swami Gambhirananda, Eight Upaniṣads with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Swami Gambhirananda. 2 Volumes. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama 1965 – 1966. Gambhirananda 1977. Swami Gambhirananda, Brahmasūtra Bhaṣya of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Swami Gambhirananda. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama 1977. Jha 1942. Ganganatha Jha, Chāndogya Upaniṣad with the Commentary of Śaṅkara. Translated by Ganganatha Jha. Poona: Oriental Book Agency 1942. Madhavananda 1975. Swami Madhavananda, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya. Translated by Swami Madhavananda. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama 1975. Potter 1981. Karl H. Potter, The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedānta up to Śaṃkara and His Pupils. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1981. Puligandla 1975. Ramakrishna Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. Nashville: Abingdon Press 1975. Puligandla 1985. Id., Jñāna-Yoga: The Way of Knowledge. Lanham: University Press of America 1985.

 In Rambachan 2015, I offer a constructive theology of liberation and the liberated life in Advaita Vedānta. My concern is to develop the argument that this tradition has the resources for an engaged life in the world centered on compassion and justice.

Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara

329

Radhakrishnan 1968. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upaniṣads. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968 Rambachan 1991. Anantanand Rambachan, Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Śaṅkara. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1991. Rambachan 2006. Id., The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity. Albany: State University of New York Press 2006. Rambachan 2015. Id., A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two is Not-One. Albany: State University of New York Press 2015. Sargeant 1993. Winthrop Sargeant, The Bhagavadgīta. Translated by Winthrop Sargeant. Albany: State University of New York Press 1993. Sankaranarayanan 1988. P. Sankaranarayanan, What is Advaita?. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 1988. Satprakashananda 1977. Swami Satprakashananda, The Universe, God and God-Realization. St. Louis: The Vedanta Society of St. Louis 1977.

John Nemec

Śiva’s Claim to Identity: Can Personalism in a Theistic Tradition of a Strict Identity Survive? Introduction In developing his anthropological approach to God or the divine, Bernhard Nitsche has identified three dimensions of being human, each with inner and outer levels of relation, that find correspondence in his hermeneutics of the transcendent: human self-relation, which is subjective and concerns the “I”; social relation, which is interpersonal and concerns the other (“thou”); and relation to the world (“he/she/it”), which is mundane or material – an embodied dimension – and is concerned with the ‘cosmic environment’. Thus, a mundane or embodied interpretation of God or the divine might involve, for example, conceiving of God or the divine as a cosmic process, an ‘ultimate It’; a social conception might entail imagining a personal divine, ‘an ultimate You/Thou or an ultimate He/She’; and a subjective conception of the divine, which would emphasize the freedom of individual intellection, would render “the logical position of reason [as] before the conscious ‘I’.” In this essay I propose to respond to this model for conceiving of God or the divine in two phases. First, I wish to suggest that this tripartite typology and Nitsche’s core thesis – that the three dimensions of being human are reflected in the ways humans conceive of God or the divine – may be applied appositely to the Pratyabhijñā, the non-dual Śaiva tradition of Kashmir most commonly associated with the writings of Somānanda (c. 900 – 950), Utpaladeva (c. 925 – 975), and Abhinavagupta (c. 975 – 1025). Here, I propose to explore the emphasis on the subjective dimension that is prominently featured in the tradition’s conception of God, in particular by an examination of Somānanda’s articulation thereof. Second, I wish to suggest the matter is not so unidimensional as this emphasis on the subjective might suggest. Indeed, the particular approach to God or the divine taken by Somānanda sought not simply to privilege this subjective dimension, but did so in a manner that thoroughly reinforced the real existence of, in particular, the third dimension, that of human relation to the world. For, his implicit and explicit argument is that it is only by emphasizing the subjective element of the divine that the real existence of the objective world could properly be https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-022

332

John Nemec

explained. I will explore this phenomenon – that of grounding their notion of God or the divine in subjectivity so as to be able properly to account for the real existence of the world – through the medium of two examples offered in Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi: his arguments against Vedāntic illusionism, and his agreement with the Mīmāṃsā regarding the nature of speech and objective phenomena. The thesis I wish to prosecute in this essay, then, is this, that the logical starting point of Somānanda’s philosophical (as opposed to theological) thinking is not one of presuming the unity and singularity of a transcendent deity, Śiva, and then seeking to make sense of that monistic ontology in the context of an apparently multiple world of common experience, but rather the opposite. Somānanda began, I argue, with a presupposition that the world as one regularly experiences it is real, and he sought to explain how it possibly could both be real and appear as it does in our quotidian experience – as evidently autonomous and multiple entities. This is to say, then, that the answer he gives to the question posed by the organizers of the conferences out of which this essay is born (and preserved in its title) – “Can Personalism in a Theistic Tradition of a Strict Identity Survive?” – is an unequivocal “yes”; for it was precisely in endeavoring to establish the reality of mundane experience that Somānanda developed his philosophical non-dualism.

Nitsche’s Tripartite Typology and the Pratyabhijñā Somānanda, who was active c. 900 – 950 C.E./A.D in the valley of Kashmir and founded the Pratyabhijñā or “Recognition” school with the production of his famed magnum opus, the Śivadṛṣṭi (=ŚD),¹ says something astounding at the close of the fifth chapter of that text: All entities, being aware of their own nature, exist as all others. The pot knows by way of my nature, or I know by way of the pot’s. I know by dint of Sadāśiva’s, or he by mine, Yajñadatta by Śiva’s, [and] Śiva by Yajñadatta’s. The pot knows by dint of Sadāśiva’s nature, and he by the pots. All entities consist of everything, since everything is of the nature of everything. Everything exists here as everything by having the nature and form of [all] the various entities. The pot has my nature, and I have that of the pot.

 On the dates of Somānanda, see Sanderson 2007: 411– 412.

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

333

Śiva exists autonomously as one who is aware, by way of the various entities, of his own nature as the form of the manifestation of consciousness, which is differentiated by the various entities, [and] is endless. Thus, given that all [entities] are equally present in all entities, it therefore follows that we have ascertained that Śiva’s form is omnipresent, is [itself] everything.²

This bold statement, what one scholar has called the “visionary crescendo” of the ŚD,³ suggests not only that all entities exist ubiquitously, but also that all entities – even apparently inanimate entities like water-pots – are conscious agents. It is this (by now relatively well-known) doctrine in Pratyabhijñā thought that positions the school as a germane – indeed, as a centrally significant – casestudy against which to test and measure Nitsche’s typology of God or the divine. For, in conceiving of everything as a singular, divine subject – a position that was first highlighted by Mark Dyczkowski, who suggests that the doctrine of the “absolute ego” was first articulated fully in the writings of Somānanda’s immediate disciple, Utpaladeva (active c. 925 – 975 C.E./A.D.)⁴ – the Pratyabhijñā articulates a radical vision of God or the divine that, on first blush, may be sorted neatly into the first dimension of Nitsche’s tripartite typology. Just as the authors of the Pratyabhijñā sought to justify their monism by grounding it in an encompassing and divine subjectivity, however, they also did so by arguing that the unity of all existence as that divine – as Śiva himself – was such that the manifested universe with which he was identified was of necessity entirely real, because it could be nothing other than Śiva himself.⁵ They  See Śivadṛṣṭi (=ŚD) 5.105 – 110: sarve bhāvāḥ svam ātmānaṃ jānantaḥ sarvataḥ sthitāḥ | madātmanā ghaṭo vetti vedmy ahaṃ vā ghaṭātmanā || 5.105 || sadāśivātmanā vedmi sa vā vetti madātmanā | śivātmanā yajñadatto yajñadattātmanā śivaḥ || 5.106 || sadāśivātmanā vetti ghaṭaḥ sa ca ghaṭātmanā | sarve sarvātmakā bhāvāḥ sarvasarvasvarūpataḥ || 5.107 || sarvasya sarvam astīha nānābhāvātmarūpakaiḥ | madrūpatvaṃ ghaṭasyāsti mamāsti ghaṭarūpatā || 5.108 || nānābhāvaiḥ svam ātmānaṃ jānann āste svayaṃ śivaḥ | cidvyaktirūpakaṃ nānābhedabhinnam anantakam || 5.109 || evaṃ sarveṣu bhāveṣu sarvasāmye vyavasthite | tena sarvagataṃ sarvaṃ śivarūpaṃ nirūpitam || 5.110 || Note that this passage was first referred to in Torella 1994, xv–xvi, where it is also associated with the sarvasarvātmakatvavāda (alluded to most explicitly at S´D 5.107cd). I have also discussed its significance at some length in Nemec 2016, 343 – 347.  See Torella 1994: xvi.  See Dyczkowski 1990. Note that Torella (1994: xxix) supports Dyczkowski’s view but also suggests that in his opinion “there are no substantial differences between this and Somānanda’s dynamic Self-Śiva which underlies the whole universe and express[es] himself in it.”  This, too, is a well-known fact. Dyczkowski (1987: 51– 57), for example, noted some time ago that the “Kashmiri Shaivas” were realists. (On the use and significance of the term “Kashmiri Shaivism” see Nemec 2011: 2, fn. 5 and Dyczkowski 1987: 222– 223, fn. 12 (which is quoted, op. cit., in Nemec 2011).)

334

John Nemec

argued, that is, that the orientation of their conception of God or the divine toward the subjective dimension simultaneously and necessarily incorporated within it the embodied (or manifested) dimension. In responding to Nitsche’s formulations, I would like to propose that Somānanda’s monistic subjectivism – his theory that Śiva is both ubiquitous and the singular entity in all existence – was of philosophical currency to him in the composition of the ŚD primarily because this position served to account for the external world in such a manner that he could safely and thoroughly defend the position that the world must be understood to exist in precisely the manner in which it appears to us in mundane activity. To understand Śiva as the self and everything, that is, allowed him to defend the notion that mundane existence, what he also defined as God or the divine, was real in precisely the manner in which it appeared in quotidian experience.

Somānanda’s Realism This emphasis on the reality of the world as it is commonly experienced is clearly articulated in a number of passages where Somānanda interrogates his śāstric interlocutors. The fourth chapter of the ŚD in particular articulates a series of arguments against opposing philosophical schools in defence of this very notion.⁶ Here, one witnesses Somānanda disqualifying his opponents’ views simply because they cannot account for an external reality that must be as it appears. His own philosophical position regarding the nature of the external world, then, while it features the well-known doctrine that everything is Śiva, serves his philosophical program primary by supporting the notion that the world is and must be what it is commonly known to be. Two examples may serve to illustrate as much, one from the sixth chapter of the ŚD, the other from the aforementioned fourth chapter. The first of these engages Somānanda’s arguments against the ontology of the Advaita Vedāntins, the second a dispute with the Buddhist Epistemologists concerning the use of language, one that shows him to align himself with the (dualist and realist) Mīmāṃsakas, who, as it is well known, consider the world to be real and to exist precisely in the manner in which it appears. As we shall see, Somānanda assents to

 Thus, ŚD 4.1ab declares that the task to hand in that chapter is to prove how everything in the world (as it appears to us is the implication, as we shall see) is Śiva himself: athedānīṃ pravaktavyaṃ yathā sarvaṃ s´ivātmakam. “Next, it is now to be explained (by me) that everything is of the nature of S´iva.”

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

335

this view, with the implicit caveat that this position is defensible only if one accepts his non-dualist Śaiva ontology.

On Being: Opposition to Vedāntic Illusionism First, Somānanda’s arguments against the Vedāntins. These arguments are somewhat complex and have not been explored in much detail to date.⁷ They appear in the sixth chapter of the Śivadṛṣṭi, for which the commentary is lost; as such, the passage of text in question, like all of the Śivadṛṣṭi where the commentary is lost (after the middle of the fourth chapter), presents significant challenges.⁸ And yet, much can be discerned of what Somānanda wished to say. Regarding the Vedāntins, Somānanda makes his case explicitly and plainly: his core concern is that all his Vedāntin opponents (of whom he identifies and critiques twelve distinguishable views⁹) rely on the existence of an ontological distinction of a real brahman, on the one hand, from an unreal avidyā (nescience or ignorance), on the other, which is said to cause the world of diversity to appear; thus, none of the various ways in which the Vedāntins understand the relationship of brahman to the manifestation or appearance of that diverse world can account for the real existence of the apparent multiplicity one witnesses in it. Summing up the fault he finds in the views of all his Vedāntin opponents, Somānanda says (at ŚD 6. 14d–15): All these [aforementioned] propounders of the Vedānta without exception (api) conceive of avidyā itself as having been joined to brahman; and (tathā) [they all maintain that] an unreality exists in the entities [that make up the phenomenal world]. So much has been definitively determined [herewith].¹⁰

 One exception is Dyczkowski 1987: 232, fn. 96, which offers a summary account of the relevant verses.  The difficulty of the Śivadṛṣṭi has been noted frequently. One scholar (Torella 1994: xiv) referred to it as a “difficult, discordant but fascinating work;” another, Paul Muller-Ortega (1989: 44), described it as “a very difficult text in seven chapters that has yet to be translated satisfactorily.” And the great Italian scholar Raniero Gnoli (1957: 16) noted the particular challenge in dealing with the text where the commentary is missing: “without the help of a commentary,” he said, “the reading of the other three chapters [of the seven of the ŚD] is an extremely difficult, not to say hopeless, undertaking.” Finally, two contemporary scholars have, in personal communications, suggested to me that the text is simply impenetrable without the aid of the commentary.  These are found at ŚD 6.1– 24ab and are subject to a detailed analysis in Nemec forthcoming.  ŚD 6.14d–15: …teṣāṃ vedāntavādinām || sarveṣām apy avidyaiva kalpyā brahmaṇi saṃgatā | tathā bhāveṣv asatyatvam ity avaśyam avasthitam ||.

336

John Nemec

His critique of the Vedāntins is similarly introduced by the same concern, namely, that the appearance of the multiple entities in the world must be explained, such that these entities can be taken to be just as they appear – as real and truly variegated phenomena. Now, no [ontological] distinction is established [in our view] between the power and the possessor of the power, just as [we make no such distinction] between substance (dravya) and action (karman). Action (kriyā) simply (u) is not different from substance, nor is it the case that [action] does not exist. In this way, it is in Śaivism [alone] that the variegation of the world is fully established for the empowered and (tathā) for the possessor of power, but not in any other philosophical system.¹¹

A full survey of the Vedāntic positions reviewed by Somānanda, which will be presented by me in a future publication,¹² lies beyond the scope of the present essay. For the present, suffice it to say that framing verses of this section clearly indicate that Somānanda’s overarching concern is that the Vedāntins cannot explain how a variegated world can appear in experience while also being real. ¹³ Given his monism, the logical conclusion must be, then, that the variegation in the world that we see is the divine – it cannot be appended to, or be ontologically disjoined from, the divine –, and thus (as we have seen) Somānanda has claimed that all entities, even the apparently inanimate ghaṭa or water-pot, are self-aware and mutually identified as fully active volitional agents, as Śiva.

This statement should be understood as serving to sum up all of the (twelve) views addressed from ŚD 6.3 – 14, as I argue in Nemec forthcoming.  ŚD 6.1– 2: atha śakteḥ śaktimato na bhedo dravyakarmavat | sthāpito dravyato bhinnā kriyā no na ca nāsti sā || 6.1 || evaṃ tathā śaktimataḥ śaktasya samavasthitā | jagadvicitratā śaive na punar darśanāntare || 6.2 ||. See also Nemec 2016: 343 – 344 for a discussion of this pair of verses and what they convey regarding Somānanda’s engagement with the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika.  The work in question is to be found in Nemec forthcoming.  To offer one further example of the same: the discussion of the first Vedāntic point of view Somānanda interrogates is introduced by the very question of how it is that a singular Brahman can be made multiple. See ŚD 6.4: yatra brahmocyate citraṃ kaiścid vedāntavādibhiḥ | ekasya citratā kena hetunā brahmaṇo bhavet || “Whereas certain propounders of the Vedānta say that Brahman is variegated, [we must ask:] by what cause does the variegation of the one Brahman come into being?” The arguments that follow consider the various possibilities of explaining the relationship between Brahman and the variegation, none of them satisfying Somānanda’s dual criteria, that both non-dualism and realism be preserved.

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

337

On Knowing: Affirming Mīmāṃsaka Linguistic Theory, but with a Śaiva justification Now, one might reasonably object that this dispute with the Vedāntins illustrates merely that Somānanda insists on a unity of existence, one that can successfully justify a nondualism that preserves the singularity of God or the divine while simultaneously explaining the possibility of the manifestation or appearance of the apparently multiple or “variegated” (citratā) world of divisions. One might object, that is, that this exemplar merely shows that Somānanda insists on an ontological non-dualism, not that his primary philosophical concern is the defence of the real existence of the world as it is experienced in quotidian life. But elsewhere in his ŚD we see the pattern of thinking clearly moving in the opposite direction: rather than seeking to explain how a singular divine can be made, or made to appear, variegated (as Somānanda argues the Vedāntins are unable to do), he suggests that the singularity of the divine is necessarily implied by the variegation of the world. The fourth chapter of the ŚD features several arguments against rival philosophical schools – among them the Sāṃkhya, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, and the Buddhist Epistemologists – in which Somānanda makes the claim that the philosophical positions of his counterparts are comprehensible only if one admits the existence of the unity of everything articulated in his monistic conception of Śiva.¹⁴ Perhaps the most engaging among them shows Somānanda adopting core ideas of the realist Mīmāṃsakas in the course of exploring a dispute regarding the nature of language, one that pits his own view against those of the Buddhist Epistemologists and Dharmakīrti in particular.¹⁵ Somānanda implicitly and explicitly embraces Mīmāṃsaka positions in prosecuting his argument, and in doing so adopts a key presupposition of his Mīmāṃsaka counterparts, namely, that the manner in which language is used conforms precisely to one’s everyday experience of it. He does so with one significant caveat: it is only by adopting his own Śaiva ontology that the Mīmāṃsā’s common-sense realism can be explained

 See, e. g., ŚD 4.60cd–64ab, where the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of wholes and parts is shown to depend on unity; ŚD 4.93cd–98a, where momentariness as described in the kṣaṇabhaṅga theory is said to depend on the same unity of all; and ŚD 4.100cd and following for a similar treatment of perception in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school. (Note that the enumeration of verses here recorded reflects the fact that the KSTS edition of the ŚD records 4.70 twice.)  These arguments are explored in more detail in Nemec 2019.

338

John Nemec

(just as he also suggests that the Buddhist position also is not tenable unless they presuppose the same unity).¹⁶ The particular philosophical problem in question involves the manner in which language in its lexical diversity can denote meanings. The Buddhist understanding of the problem involves the famed anyāpoha theory, which suggests that language is not eternally linked with worldly phenomena, and that language in fact offers a secondary formation, one appended artificially to the phenomena found in the world, which are real but utterly momentary and unique in nature. Language on this view presents a relative reality (even if it can furnish practically useful and in this sense accurate information), and linguistic terms and concepts are only known relationally, such that, for example, the word “cow” denotes the creature with a dewlap, hoofs, etc., only by virtue of excluding other entities such as horses, etc. Language, that is, is only contingently meaningful, and it is only conventionally associated with things in the world. Against this view the Mīmāṃsaka suggests that language is eternal in nature, and is eternally linked with the entities denoted by words. An example of the problem is explored in the ŚD, one concerning the referent of the expression “bring the gold.” How, it is asked, could such an expression signal that one should retrieve, say, a golden bracelet? On the Buddhist view, one would know the meaning of the word “gold” by virtue of the fact that the term invokes a category that is defined by virtue of what it is not. “Gold” on the Buddhists’ view refers to that which is not something that is not gold, such as copper. This would mean that the referent of “gold” is an absence, the absence of anything that is classed as “not gold.” The Mīmāṃsaka, by contrast, understands the word “gold” in “bring the gold” by nature to denote both the real category – the “gold-ness” that exists wherever anything made of gold is to be found – and the real appearance of a particular instance of gold, the golden bracelet in the present example. Somānanda introduces these concerns by suggesting that the absence of a real – and not merely conventional – universal leads the Buddhists to intractable problems. In this he sides with the Mīmāṃsā, and in effect deploys their point of view to counter that of the Buddhists. But he also suggests that the unity of existence maintained by the Śaivas is a sine qua non for the rational explanation of

 This represents a strategy that Somānanda deploys repeatedly in the fourth chapter of the ŚD. See, e. g., Ratié 2014: 158 – 159: “Somānanda does not state explicitly that the Sāṃkhyas cannot provide such an answer to the criticism of abhivyakti, but his intention is obviously to show that this reply is possible only provided that one accepts his own metaphysical presuppositions…” (emphasis Ratié’s). The arguments concerning the Sāṃkhya point of view are found at ŚD 4.29cd–60ab.

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

339

the viability of the Mīmāṃsaka’s point of view: it would not be viable in the absence of such a unity. If for the Buddhist there is no [real] universal (sāmānyam), [then] inference (anumānaṃ) ceases to occur. [When one says ‘bring the gold’ (suvarṇam ānayety ukte),] [an awareness based on verbal knowledge rooted in the universal does] not [arise] with respect to [mixed] gold and copper as [it arises] with respect to [pure] gold ornaments. Is it absence (śūnyatā) that is perceived when one says, ‘bring gold’, this as a result of the absence of contact with a particular [that is not gold]? Is that appropriate somewhere?¹⁷ It could not be so in the absence of the unity of reality (tattvasyaikyam): [for,] the one [object, e. g., a gold bracelet] itself would be [self‐]contradictory. How could the one [object] be connected with the universal (sāmānyena), [and] with the particular (viśeṣeṇa)?¹⁸

Note, in particular, the final statement in the passage here cited: “How could the one [object] be connected with the universal (sāmānyena), [and] with the particular (viśeṣeṇa)?” Here, Somānanda invokes precisely the Mīmāṃsaka’s theory, that what is seen in perception is the vyakti, which is a two-natured entity, both the particular entity in question (this golden entity) and a type of entity that embodies a category of entities: it is golden in nature. Language similarly denotes both. The Buddhists deny this, because for them, as mentioned, language is a secondary phenomenon, and the universal categories associated with it (the fact of being gold in this instance) are constructed categories that ultimately are not real. Somānanda’s objection to the Buddhists’ position involves his implicit acceptance, with the Mīmāṃsā, that language refers to the universal (sāmānya) and the particular (viśeṣa), and he goes on explicitly to claim what is implicit in the passage quoted above, that that doctrine depends on the existence of an underlying, unitary reality to secure it. In doing so he clearly evokes Śabara’s bhāṣya on Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.5: [Human] discourse (vyavahāra), moreover, could not be produced in the absence of this¹⁹ single reality: There could be no connection between speech and object, the two being distinct and situated in different places, of [mutually] contradictory forms, and apprehended

 In other words, can one really know an object only via a negation, an absence, when this – of necessity according to the Buddhist theory of anyāpoha – requires one not to know the particular in front of one, but only what that particular is not?  Śivadṛṣṭi 4.68 – 70: bauddhasya cen na sāmānyam anumānaṃ nivartate | yathā suvarṇabhāṇḍeṣu na tathā hematāmrayoḥ || 4.68 || suvarṇam ānayety ukte śūnyatā kiṃ pratīyate | viśeṣasparśavirahāt kadācid api yujyate || 4.69 || tattvasyaikyaṃ vinā na syād ekasyaiva viruddhatā | sāmānyena viśeṣeṇa katham ekasya yogitā || 4.70 ||.  Presumably Somānanda here refers with etat to tattvasyaikyam at ŚD 4.70a.

340

John Nemec

by different instruments [of knowing]. For the word is found in the mouth and the object [denoted by it] on the ground—where can there be a meeting [of the two]? One is without a form, and the second has a form; how can they be connected [one with the other]?²⁰

Reference to speech being found in the mouth and objects denoted by it on the ground clearly evokes Śabara’s Bhāṣya; for this expression is found there, where it is deployed to express the doubts of a pūrvapakṣin who asks how the connection between word and thing can be permanent given that, on the pūrvapakṣin’s view, it is constructed.²¹ The Mīmāṃsaka’s answer to this doubt is, in essence, that there must be a permanent connection of word and thing, because it is always experienced as such, and such a link could not be initiated – constructed – if it were not already always present.²² Somānanda agrees, with the caveat that there must be a unity of existence to explain this connection. For this is precisely what he goes on to argue in an extended exchange with his Buddhist opponent regarding saṃketa, the possibility of an agreed-upon referent of a given linguistic term:

 ŚD 4.71– 73ab: ekatattvaṃ vinaitac ca vyavahāro na jāyate | śabdārthayor na saṃbandho bhinnayor bhinnadeśayoḥ || 4.71 || viruddharūpayor bhinnakaraṇagrāhyayor api | mukhe hi śabdo bhūmau ca vidyate ’rthaḥ kva saṃgamaḥ || 4.72 || amūrta eko mūrtaś ca dvitīyo yogitā katham | Note that the enumeration of the verse numbers of ŚD 4 differs here from what is found in the KSTS edition, which counts verse 4.70 twice: the enumeration of verses found in the present essay corrects this error.  If it is crafted or constructed, it logically cannot be eternal, because there is of necessity a moment in which it was constructed. See Śābarabhāṣya ad Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.5, which reads in part as follows: yadi prathamaśruto na pratyāyayati, kṛtakas tarhi śabdasya arthena saṃbandhaḥ | kutaḥ? svabhāvato hy asaṃbandhāv etau śabdārthau | mukhe hi śabdam upalabhāmahe, bhūmāv artham | śabdo ’yaṃ na tv arthaḥ, artho ’yaṃ na śabda iti ca vyapadiśanti | rūpabhedo ’pi bhavati | gaur iti imaṃ śabdam uccārayanti, sāsnādimantam artham avabudhyante | pṛthagbhūtayoś ca yaḥ saṃbandhaḥ, sa kṛtako dṛṣṭo, yathā rajjughaṭayor iti | “[Objection:] If [a word] does not denote meaning on first being heard, then it follows that the relation of the word with the object [to which it refers] is created/artificial (kṛtaka) [and not eternal]. Why? Because (hi) these two, word and object, are by nature not related. For, we perceive the word in the mouth, the object on the ground. Moreover, [people] make the distinction: ‘This is the word and not the object; this is the object, not the word.’ So too is there a difference in [their respective] forms. [People] utter this word ‘cow’; they understand the object [to which it refers] to be [an actual cow, which is] possessed of a dewlap and the rest of it. And the relation between two [mutually] distinct entities, one can observe, is created/artificial, as is that of a rope and a pot [to which it is tied].”  On this argument, see Arnold 2006, esp. pp. 458 – 467.

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

341

How [in your view] is one like Yajñadatta not [designated] by Devadatta’s name? [Buddhist Opponent’s] Objection: because of the fact that there is agreement here [regarding the referent of the name]. [Reply:] What service is done here by the agreement? [Opponent’s] Objection: a connection (saṃyogas) [of the name with the person named]. [Reply:] That [saṃyoga] is not possible for those [mutually] distant [entities], which [respectively] have a form and do not have a form; nor, given that speech expires after it is uttered, is it [possible] for the two that have [respectively] perished [i. e., the name ‘Devadatta’, after it is uttered] and not-perished [i. e., the perduring Devadatta himself]. [Opponent’s] Objection: it [i. e., the connection (saṃyoga)] exists in the form of designatum and designator (vācyavācakarūpa). [Reply:] Wherefrom is this necessity [of the connection] (niyama) that one [i. e., speech; the name] is that which designates (vācakatvam), while that which is designated (vācyatvam) is something else. If [you argue:] it is [found in] the [very] nature of the designatum and designator (vācyavācakarūpatve), [we reply:] there is[, in that case,] a definite link of the nature of the designatum to that of the designator.²³

Word and thing are mutual distinct; nothing can come to link them if their connection is not already always established. And that link is guaranteed by the very unity of existence for which Somānanda argues. In a word, Somānanda, along with his Mīmāṃsaka counterparts, understands there to be no possible link between word and thing unless it is eternally real. It cannot come to be constructed, for the position that claims that the meaningfulness of language can be constructed presupposes the very possibility of the connection of word to thing that it seeks to explain.²⁴ Such an alliance with the Mīmāṃsakas in his arguments against the Buddhists, an alliance that is extended in what immediately follows the passage of the ŚD here quoted,²⁵ itself implies a reliance, as is found pervasively in the

 ŚD 4.78 – 81ab: kathaṃ na devadattasya yajñadattavad ākhyayā | atra saṃketitatvāc cet saṃketenātra kiṃ kṛtam || 4.78 || saṃyogaś cen na dūreṣu mūrtāmūrteṣu yujyate | śabdasyoccāritadhvaṃsān naṣṭānaṣṭadvaye na ca || 4.79 || vācyavācakarūpaś cet sa eṣa niyamaḥ kutaḥ | yat tasya vācakatvaṃ hi vācyatvam aparasya tu || 4.80 || vācyavācakarūpatve vācyavācakatānvayaḥ |.  Indeed, the arguments here offered are strikingly reminiscent of those found in Kumārila, which also were deployed against the Buddhist Epistemologists. See Arnold 2006 for a detailed study of this debate.  Somānanda supports an argument he deploys against the Buddhist Epistemologists and Dharmakīrti in particular (at ŚD 4.81cdff.) by citing favorably a passage of the Sambandhākṣepaparihara section of Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika that itself glosses the section of the Śābarabhāṣya ̄ s´i ̄ kriyā) with Ślothat was examined, above. Compare ŚD 4.83ab (bālamūkādivijñānasadṛ s´i ̄ kidṛ kavārttika, pratyakṣapariccheda, v. 112cd. Ślokavārttika, pratyakṣapariccheda, vv. 112– 113 read as follows: asti hy ālocanājñānaṃ prathamaṃ nirvikalpakam | bālamūkādivijñānasadṛśaṃ śuddhavastujam || 112 || na viśeṣo na sāmānyaṃ tadānīm anubhūyate | tayor ādhārabhūtā tu vyaktir evāvasīyate || 113 || “First there is an initial perception (ālocanā) – a non-conceptual awareness, similar to the awareness of children, mutes, and the like, and arising purely from the object. At that

342

John Nemec

Mīmāṃsā, on the notion that the world is and must be as it appears to be. And, indeed, this is precisely what is found in the debate here reviewed, where Somānanda assumes that the world as we experience it is and must be thus, just as he suggests that it is only his theory of the unity of Śiva that may account for this ostensive claim regarding reality: the unity of Śiva explains how language can function as it appears to one in quotidian experience. Thus, one sees here a logic that presumes the existence of a diversity of entities in the world (words and things), and seeks to explain the possibility that they appear as such. The variegation is both presumed on the basis of being furnished in the evidence that is quotidian experience, and it is not to be contravened by Somānanda’s theistic theory of a strict ontological identity of all entities, rather quite the opposite: it is the variegation that is explained, accounted for, with his monistic and personal conception of the divine serving this very purpose.

Conclusion It is evident that Somānanda was naturally inclined toward a common-sense realism that held the variegated world to be real and to exist in the manner in which it appears to one in quotidian experience. More importantly, for the purposes of this essay, his understanding of the unity and singularity of Śiva served to explain the possibility of this variegated experience; for, it was the inability of the Vedāntins properly to account for it that disqualified their philosophical positions in Somānanda’s eyes. And Somānanda was similarly comfortable defending a Mīmāṃsaka’s view of language, one that presumed that the link between word and meaning must be real and permanent. Indeed, his Śaiva non-dualism served, on his view, to explain precisely how what was evident to the Mīmāṃsakas on ostensive grounds could indeed be proven to be so. This, in turn, clarified that Somānanda’s philosophical program began (or often began) with the presupposition that he must explain the appearance of mundane experience as it appears in quotidian life, for he deployed his conception of the supreme subject, Śiva, to do just this. What then, does this evidence tell us of his understanding of God or the divine? Clearly, Somānanda did not understand the transcendent to supersede the time, neither particular nor universal is experienced, but, rather, the individual (vyakti), which is the basis (ādhāra) of both, is apprehended.” Translation McCrea’s. See McCrea 2013: 135. Note also that Kumārila here also has the Buddhist Epistemologists in mind as his opponent, as McCrea (ibid.) has shown.

Śiva’s Claim to Identity

343

variegation of the world of phenomena. The unity of Śiva for which the Pratyabhijñā is known included in it not only a dimension of self-relation (of the “I”), but also a concomitant mundane or embodied dimension (of “He/She/It”). The two, in fact, were fully identified, as we have seen, such that even apparently inanimate objects were understood to possess Śiva’s own divine agency. Can personalism in a theistic tradition of a strict identity survive? In a word, yes. For, Somānanda understood all entities to be entirely personalistic inasmuch as all entities in the world were, on his view, willful, fully self-conscious, and thus able to choose how to act. And it is that personalism that is embodied in the variegated universe. Indeed, the strict identity of Śiva that characterizes the tradition served in the ŚD to explain the variegation that would allow for personalism in a multiple universe. Śiva does not transcend the world, on this view; instead, he is the personalism that defines it, and he could not be one, and thus transcendent, if the world in its diversity were not real. In the case of Somānanda’s articulation of the Pratyabhijñā, then, the dimensions of being human that Bernhard Nitsche has identified in various possible conceptions of God or the divine are of particular interpretive value precisely when one measures their mutual relation as it was understood in the internal logic of the tradition itself.

Bibliography Primary Literature ŚD: Śivadṛṣṭi (=SD), Somānanda. The S´ivadṛṣt ̣i of Soma ̄nandana ̄tha with the Vr ̣tti by Utpaladeva. Madhusudan Kaul Shastri (Ed.). [Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies 54]. Pune: Aryabhushan Press 1934.

Secondary Literature Arnold 2006. Dan Arnold, On Semantics and saṃketa: Thoughts on a Neglected Problem with Buddhist Apoha Doctrine. In: Journal of Indian Philosophy 34/5 (2006): 415 – 478. Dyczkowski 1990. Mark Dyczkowski, Self Awareness, Own Being, and Egoity. Varanasi: Ratna Printing Works 1990. Dyczkowski 1987. Id., The Doctrine of Vibration: An Analysis of the Doctrines and Practices of Kashmir Shaivism. Albany, New York: SUNY Press 1987. McCrea 2013. Lawrence McCrea, The Transformations of Mīmāṃsā in the Larger Context of Indian Philosophical Discourse. In: Periodization and Historiography of Indian Philosophy. Eli Franco (Ed.). Vienna: De Nobili Research Library 2013, 127 – 144. Nemec forthcoming John Nemec, Somānanda’s Arguments Against the Vedāntins.

344

John Nemec

Nemec 2019. John Nemec, Somānanda on the Meaningfulness of Language. Indo-Iranian Journal 62/3 (2019): 227 – 268. Nemec 2016. Id., “Realism and the Pratyabhijñā: Influences on and Legacies of Somānanda’s Conception of Materiality”. In: Around Abhinavagupta: Aspects of Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century. Eli Franco, Isabelle Ratié (Eds.). Berlin: LIT Verlag 2016, 339 – 371. Nemec 2011. Id., The Ubiquitous Śiva: Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Tantric Interlocutors. New York: Oxford University Press 2011. Ratié 2014. Isabelle Ratié, A S´aiva Interpretation of the Satka ̄ryava ̄da: The Sā ṃ khya Notion of Abhivyakti and Its Transformation in the Pratyabhijñā Treatise. Journal of Indian Philosophy 42/1 (2014): 127 – 172. Sanderson 2007. Alexis Sanderson, “The S´aiva Exegesis of Kashmir”. In: Mélanges tantriques à la mémoire d’Hélène Brunner. Tantric Studies in Memory of Hélène Brunner. Dominic Goodall, André Padoux (Eds.). Pondicherry 2007, 231 – 442 and (bibliography) 551 – 582. Torella 1994. Raffaele Torella, The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of Utpaladeva, with the Author’s Vṛtti. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Rome: ISMEO 1994.

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

The Bhedâbheda (Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka Introduction The problem of the One and the Many has been dealt with in a variety of ways. In the Hindu tradition, we have the two poles of those who maintain that there is only One Reality and those who deny the One and hold on to only the Many. Some intermediary positions believe that there is difference and non-difference (bhedâbheda or dvaitâdvaita) between finite realities and the Infinite or Supreme Reality. In my presentation I shall focus on the view of Nimbārka in his commentary on the Brahmasūtras, entitled Vedāntapārijātasaurabha, while briefly referring also to his School, and shall mention in passing the differing understandings of Bhāskara and the Caitanya School.

The Svābhāvikabhedâbheda (Natural Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka Some scholars claim that Nimbārka flourished around the 12th or 13th centuries CE; Satyanand, however, assigns him to as early as the 6th century CE or even the latter half of the 5th century CE. One of the reasons for this is that, unlike Ramānuja and others, Nimbārka makes no reference to Śaṅkara and his doctrine. (a) Difference between brahman, on the one hand, and the souls and the material world, on the other hand (i) brahman and the souls Many scriptural texts clearly bring out the difference between brahman and the souls, using phrases such as “the lord of all”, “the ruler of all” or “the two unborn ones, the knower and the non-knower, the lord and the non-lord”. Brahman is the whole, while the soul is his part or, rather, aspect (aṃśa). As the emanator of the universe, brahman is superior to the soul. Brahman is free from sins, while the (ignorant) soul is subject to the fruits of its deeds (karman). Brahman is the inner controller, worshipped, omniscient, and consisting of bliss.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-023

346

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

However, the soul in bondage is the opposite of all this. Even in the state of salvation, the soul is not capable of the activities of emanating, preserving, and dissolving the universe. Hence the soul is different from brahman, who is superior to the soul. (ii) Brahman and the material world Similarly, brahman is the source of beings and is imperishable, while matter is not so. Brahman is non-gross, infinite and pure, while the world is the opposite. Hence the material world is different from brahman. (b) Non-difference between brahman and the souls and the material world Scriptural texts mention the non-difference between brahman and the souls and the world, as for example in phrases such as “Thou art That [brahman]”, “All this, verily, is brahman”. There is non-difference between the effect (the souls and the world) and the cause (brahman), and this is so because the effect is perceived only when the cause is existent. Nimbārka holds the doctrine of satkāryavāda, namely, that the effect pre-exists in its substantive cause; it is merely a manifestation of that which was present in a subtle form in its substantive cause (upadānakāraṇa). (c) Difference and non-difference between brahman and his effects An effect is both different and non-different from its substantive cause. Just as a jar has a shape and functions (e. g., holding liquid) that are different from clay, the jar’s substantive cause, so also the souls and matter have different attributes (e. g., finiteness, being subject to karman, grossness) and activities (e. g., sinful activities) from brahman’s characteristics (e. g., infiniteness, omniscience) and activities (e. g., emanation, etc.). On the other hand, the jar is at the same time non-different from its cause, the clay, because it depends on it for its production and continued existence and is basically just clay. Similarly, the souls and matter, as evolutes of brahman, share the same essence as brahman. The substantive cause, too, is different and non-different from its effect. Clay is not modified only into jars, but also into other items like saucers, cups, etc., and hence it is not exhausted in its effect. Similarly, brahman is not exhausted in its effects, the souls and matter, which are only part of its infinite powers. Brahman thus transcends them. Nonetheless, clay permeates its effects and, as such, is non-different from the effects. In similar fashion, brahman is non-different from the souls and the world, since it permeates them. It is important to note that Nimbārka explicitly denies absolute difference (atyantabhinnatva) between the effect, i. e., the souls and matter, and the substantive cause, i. e., brahman, and yet he also denies absolute identity (atyantâbheda) between them. For Nimbārka, non-difference does not indicate abso-

The Bhedâbheda (Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka

347

lute identity; it only implies sameness of essence and the immanence of brahman. And difference does not mean absolute dissimilarity, but it only implies the diversity of forms, attributes and activities, and the transcendence of brahman. This difference and non-difference pertains to the very nature (svabhāva) of brahman and the souls and matter; hence it is called Natural (svābhāvika) Difference and Non-Difference (bhedâbheda). It is real and eternal, original and ultimate.

The Aupādhikabhedâbheda (Adventitious Difference and Non-Difference) of Bhāskara According to Bhāskara the soul and matter are different and non-different from brahman only when they are in an evolved state. Moreover, the souls are different and non-different from brahman only when they are ignorant and have not yet attained salvation, and this is due to certain adjunct conditions (upādhi). In other words, in the case of Nimbārka, the difference and non-difference is real and eternal, pertaining to the very nature (svabhāva) of Brahman and the souls and matter, whereas for Bhāskara, the difference and non-difference is real, but temporary, and is due to adventitious reasons. Hence his theory is called adventitious (aupādhika) Difference and Non-Difference (bhedâbheda).

The Acintyabhedâbheda (Incomprehensible Difference and Non-Difference) of the Caitanya School Unlike Nimbārka, the Caitanya School considers the simultaneous difference and non-difference between Brahman on the one hand, and the souls and matter on the other hand, to be contradictory and illogical, and therefore incomprehensible (acintya). Still, this is nevertheless to be accepted as true based on the authority of Scripture, which is infallible.

348

Noel Sheth, S.J. (†)

Concluding Reflections Traditionally, nirguṇa-brahman, in the tradition of Kevalādvaita Vedānta, is translated as Impersonal. However, according to Catholic Scholastic Philosophy, a person is a substance that is integral and of an intellectual nature. With this kind of understanding, the nirguṇa-brahman of Kevalādvaita Vedānta is Personal from the metaphysical point of view, but also Impersonal from the psychological point of view, since there is no one to relate to. Be that as it may, the bhakti schools give more importance to the saguṇa-brahman than the nirguṇa-brahman. Often nirguṇa is interpreted as “not having imperfect characteristics” and saguṇa as “having perfect qualities”. Furthermore, I think saguṇa in Viśiṣṭādvaita is not the same as saguṇa in the tradition of Nimbārka, who understands it in a way similar to Vallabha’s Puṣṭimārga or Śuddhāvaita, an appellation given by his School. In any case, for Nimbārka, brahman is the Unconditioned, the Indeterminable, while the souls are limited and determined. The souls relate to this Unconditioned, Theistic Supreme Being as a great “Thou”, especially through loving devotion (bhakti). Nimbārka mentions five means to attain salvation, the most important being self-surrender (prapatti). In the state of salvation, the souls, on the one hand, become similar to Brahman; they acquire his nature (tadbhāvâpatti), and thus experience fulfilment and love. On the other hand, the souls also realize their own identity, their own essential nature (ātmasvarūpalābha). It should be pointed out that this realization of one’s own nature is qualitatively different from the Christian understanding, since, in Hinduism, souls do not really have a body, neither “Körper” nor “Leib”. However, in Nimbārka (and other Vaiṣṇavite schools), in the state of salvation souls do have a “body” made up of six perfect or transcendental guṇas constituting śuddhasattva or “pure matter”. When all is said and done, the difference and non-difference in all three, Nimbārka, Bhāskara and the Caitanya School, is in some way pointing to the Mysterium of Brahman, and to the sharing of the finite universe in brahmans Being. But the emanated universe does not exhaust brahman, the ever transcendent and infinite, and yet also ever immanent. Now we have the Catholic concept of the intrinsic analogy of being, viz., the concept of participation, i. e., that finite beings participate in the Being of the Infinite: they are in a finite way what the Supreme Being is in an infinite way. This concept implies a sort of difference and non-difference between the souls and matter on the one hand, and God on the other. When God creates the souls and the world, new beings come into existence, and yet the total amount of

The Bhedâbheda (Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka

349

Being is not increased. If the total amount of Being were increased, then God would not be the fulness of Being. The relationship that exists between one finite being and another, however intimate it may be, e. g., between husband and wife, cannot be compared to the intimate relationship between God and finite beings, because God is the Soul of human souls, and God is within every material object as well: God is present metaphysically in all souls and is also immanent in the whole of creation. And so in a very true sense, creation is not two (dvaita) or different (bheda), but one (advaita) with God or non-different (abheda) from God. And yet God transcends the whole of creation and so is different (bheda) from creation. There is, however, an important dissimilarity between the difference and non-difference of the three Hindu schools we have mentioned and that of Christianity, viz., that while in Christianity God creates out of nothing, in these Hindu schools God creates, or rather emanates, out of something, i. e., out of Godself. Brahman evolves into the souls and the world, which also dissolve into Brahman and then evolve again. This fundamental distinction is due to the different worldviews of the two different religious traditions. Christianity has a linear worldview in which everything moves in a straight line towards an ultimate goal. In contrast, in these Hindu schools there is a cyclic worldview: cycles of evolution and dissolution, and cycles of birth and death. These two different worldviews also account, in some way, for the difference between the understanding of the descent (avatāra) of God in the Hindu tradition, particularly in Vaiṣṇavism, and the Christian conception of the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity. I would like to conclude by mentioning the celebrated German mystic, Nicholas of Cusa, who proposed the idea of the coming together of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) in God. In my opinion, the difference and non-difference between God and creation or emanation is one more example of this coming together of opposites.

Robert Zydenbos

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism Madhva (who is also respectfully referred to as Madhvācārya, 1238 – 1317 CE), was chronologically the last of the three great vedāntācāryas or ‘teachers of Vedānta’, i. e., the founders of what today are the three main schools of living brahminical Hindu thought. Outside India, relatively little is known about Madhva’s system of thought, except among the more learned members of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, who recognize Madhva as one of the first teachers in their guruparaṃparā or succession of teachers. The term vedānta signifies that the thinkers who adhere to such a system of thought assume that their system represents an accurate elaboration of philosophical and/or religious truths whose history can be traced to the Vedas, the most ancient of Indian scriptures. There are some obvious problems here. The Vedas cannot properly be called philosophical texts, because they lack the systematic, rational coherence which we ordinarily expect of philosophy. Because there is no such original, self-explanatory coherence, three main branches of Vedānta developed from the eighth century CE onwards. They start out from basic concepts that are mutually irreconcilable. The first two of these systems or schools (known as Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta) are monistic systems of thought, whereas the third one, Dvaita, is not. Another contrast among these three schools is that Advaita teaches that the phenomenal world is illusory, whereas Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita teach that the phenomenal world is utterly real. Such fundamental differences alone already suggest that in any philosophical discussion, the term vedānta should be used with great caution.

Madhva’s Unique Place in the History of Vedānta Madhva’s school of thought focusses on the ultimate transcendent as Viṣṇu, a personal being, a demiurge whose will determines all that takes place in the universe. From a Western point of view, this focus is clearly ‘religious’ in nature. However, when in a Western context one speaks of ‘religion’ and ‘religious thought’, it is generally assumed that such thought is based on earlier authorities, especially scriptural authorities, that provide orientational guidelines for the religious thinker under discussion. Indeed Madhva’s use of older Vaiṣṇava (Viṣṇuite) Hindu scripture is very prominent and requires a detailed treatment https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-024

352

Robert Zydenbos

in our discussion, precisely because of the importance of his use of scriptural authority in his discussion of transcendence. Madhva’s system of thought, commonly known as Dvaitavedānta (a term which he himself did not use, but which was given to it by later authors), is not monistic like the two predecessors. The term ‘dvaita’ suggests dualism, but it can more fairly be described as a system of philosophical pluralism. In the philosophy of Madhva, Hari [Viṣṇu] is supreme, the world is real, distinctiveness is a principle, the incarnate souls that are born in lowly and higher states are the servants of the supreme lord Hari, liberation is the experience of innate happiness, pure bhakti is the means [to achieve liberation], perception etc. are the three instruments of knowledge, and Hari is the one subject of all scripture.¹

In this oft-quoted verse by Vyāsatīrtha (1478 – 1539),² popularly known as the prameyaśloka, it is said that Madhva emphasizes pañcabheda, five kinds of metaphysical bheda or distinctiveness: the fivefold absolute difference between god and souls, one soul and another, god and matter, soul and matter, and matter and matter. To a great extent, Madhva was an empiricist, and this sets him off from Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja. The three pramāṇas or ‘organs of knowledge’, through which reality is known, which he accepts are perception, inference, and scriptural authority – in this hierarchic order. Whenever an assumption that is based on one pramāṇa is contradicted by an assumption that is based on a different pramāṇa, the assumption prevails that is based on the pramāṇa which is balīyas or ‘stronger’. The relative strength of the pramāṇas is determined by the criterion of dependence: a stronger pramāṇa is upajīvya, ‘nourishing’, and a weaker one is upajīvaka, ‘dependent’ (in the sense of being ‘nourished’ by a stronger pramāṇa). The notion that everything in the world is ultimately one, as the monists claim, may be cleverly concluded through logical devices, but it is plainly contradicted by what we perceive. For Madhva, this is a matter of crucial importance. Inference as a pramāṇa is based on perception; therefore, if an inference contradicts what is perceived, then it must be wrong.

 śrīmanmadhvamate hariḥ parataraḥ satyaṃ jagat tattvato bhedo jīvagaṇ ā harer anucarā nīcoccabhāvagatāḥ | muktir naijasukhānubhūtir amalābhaktiś ca tatsādhanaṃ hy akṣ āditritayaṃ pramāṇ am akhilāmnāyaikavedyo hariḥ ||. The source of this verse has not yet been ascertained (perhaps the author was the 16th-century logician Vyāsatīrtha), but it is very often quoted in later Mādhva writings as an adequate summary of the particulars of Madhva’s teachings.  About Vyāsatīrtha (also known as Vyāsarāja and Vyāsarāya) see Sharma 1981: 286 – 296.

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

353

Among all philosophical opponents in the past and present, Madhva singled out Śaṅkara as his main opponent. One reason for this surely is that Madhva was raised in a religious and philosophical environment in which Śaṅkara’s Advaitavedānta was the accepted doctrine, and he had to justify why he deviated from what was the traditional doctrine in his family. The other reason obviously is that no other doctrine has a fundamentally more different epistemological basis. Madhva has dealt with these fundamental doctrinal differences in two short works, the Māyāvādakhaṇḍana (‘Refutation of the Doctrine of Cosmic Illusion’) and the Upādhikhaṇḍana (‘Refutation of Limiting Adjuncts’), in which he refutes an Advaitin concept that plays a central role in explaining how individuality illusorily appears to come into existence. For Madhva, devotionalism towards Viṣṇu was of supreme importance, and obviously a philosophy which claims that phenomenality and individuality are illusory, as Advaitin māyāvāda does, was unacceptable to him.³ Thus Madhva’s doctrine, which he himself did not call ‘Dvaitavedānta’ but tattvavāda (the ‘doctrine of that-ness’), stands out among the later and still living systems of brahminical philosophical thought as the one that is fundamentally not monistic. Naturally Madhva drew ideas and inspiration from earlier nonmonistic systems, such as Sāṅkhya and Nyāya; but what is very noteworthy is the extent to which he assimilated ontological, logical and epistemological ideas from Jainism.⁴ This is not really surprising, given the fact that Jainism was the dominant religion in Madhva’s home region and time. Still today Jainas form a remarkably large percentage of the population in that area. One topic where he seems influenced by Jainism is the question of transcendent knowledge, as we shall see.

Madhva’s Emphasis on, and Use of, Scripture When one compares the writings of Madhva with those of his declared arch-rival Śaṅkara, one notices that in comparison to the earlier Vedāntins, Madhva quotes from a large number of scriptures and evidently attaches great importance to those quotations. Here a few remarks on Madhva’s special use of scripture are appropriate. There is a significant philosophical reason for this, which he explicitly states: in order to know God, it is necessary to have a pramāṇa, an ‘organ of knowledge’ or ‘instrument of knowledge’, through which God can be known. God

 Zydenbos 2001: 125.  Zydenbos 1991.

354

Robert Zydenbos

is transcendent: he cannot be perceived by means of the ordinary senses. Madhva does not believe in a purely logical proof for the existence of God because, as he says, it is more or less just as easy to use logic to disprove the existence of God as to prove His existence.⁵ Therefore a different means of knowledge for establishing the existence of God as a transcendent entity is required. Madhva turns to the pramāṇa of āgama, scriptural authority, as the basis for the acceptance of God’s existence, as also other Indian thinkers centuries before him have done. Because Madhva sees his philosophy as a necessary corrective to the prevailing Advaitin thought in his environment, it becomes clear why he makes use of this pramāṇa to such a great extent. At the same time, it must be noted that his notion of what constitutes sadāgama or ‘valid scripture’ is remarkable. He explicitly gives an open-ended list of scriptures: The four Vedasamhitā s, the Mahā bhā rata, the entire Pan˜ carā tra, the original Rā mā yaṇ a, the Purā ṇ as which are in agreement with these, and all those writings which follow these aforementioned ones are valid scripture.⁶

This explicit definition, found in Madhva’s important work Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (‘Explanation of the Viṣṇu Principle’), shows a clear emphasis on Vaiṣṇava writings of a devotional character, such as the epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, in which the eighth and seventh avatāras or incarnations of Viṣṇu are central characters, and the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, the youngest of the mahāpurāṇas, which is one of the foremost sources of mythical material for all later Vaiṣṇava devotionalism. Madhva has written learned commentaries on all these texts, and in some cases more than one commentary: thus he wrote two different commentaries on the Bhagavadgītā. Also, the manner in which Madhva used scriptures is sometimes rather idiosyncratic. According to his definition, anuyāya or ‘agreement’ is a crucial criterion in determining which ancient writings are to be considered authoritative scripture. In other words, rational reasoning is called upon to determine what is a valid scriptural authority. A critical, historically-minded philologist will find it very difficult to assume that such a variety of texts, written over such a long period of time, should present a conceptual coherence. Madhva’s greatest exegetical effort is found in his Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya, the commentary

 Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (Govindacharya 1974: 16). See also Mesquita 2000: 355.  Ṛgādyā Bhārataṃ caiva Pan˜carātram athākhilam | Mūlarāmāyaṇaṃ caiva purāṇ aṃ caitadātmakam || ye cānuyāyinas tv eṣ āṃ sarve te ca sadāgamāḥ |. See Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (Govindacharya 1974, 11).

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

355

on the Mahābhārata, which was hailed by Madhva’s hagiographer Nārāyaṇapaṇḍitācārya as the greatest of Madhva’s works. Here Madhva also summarized the Rāmāyaṇa – which may appear odd, in a commentary about the Mahābhārata, but which makes a kind of sense when one assumes that all these works ultimately have the same objective, namely, to explain God. It should be noted that the ‘Rāmāyaṇa’ here is not, as one would expect, the famous epic work by Vālmīki, but the ‘Mūlarāmāyaṇa’ or ‘original Rāmāyaṇa’, the text of which supposedly has been lost. Sometimes Madhva’s exegetical arguments seem just a little bit too clever, e. g., when in the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya he states that the correct reading of one of the most famous mahāvākyas in the Upaniṣads is not tat tvam asi, ‘you are that’, but atat tvam asi, ‘you are not that’.⁷ His argument is that the initial a in atat (which in itself is a rather odd word) has been elided due to the preceding sa ātmā. Instead of sa ātmā tat tvam asi he reads sa ātmā ’tat tvam asi. Religious thinkers in any tradition can be highly selective in deciding which earlier authorities, which canonical writings etc. they recognize as relevant for their own thought. As the French Indologist Louis Renou has pointed out, the Advaita philosopher Śaṅkara supposedly propounded a ‘Vedic’ philosophy but quoted only an extremely small number of passages from the older Upaniṣads as scriptural authorities in support of his ideas. Madhva, like many religious reformers, claimed that his thought represents a return to roots, namely, to original Vedic thought. Alone among the three major Vedāntācāryas of ‘teachers of Vedānta’ he wrote a commentary on the Ṛgveda; he also wrote commentaries on later canonical religious literature, and in his other, independent, non-commentatorial writings he frequently quotes from these scriptures. But he also went a step further. Madhva’s contemporaries already had doubts about the accuracy of his quotes, and he was accused of thinking up his own, imaginary, fictive scriptural sources. His followers responded to such accusations by claiming that he quoted from genuine but rare texts in his personal library, which was stolen by philosophical opponents. Still today, traditional Mādhva scholars uphold this idea, which can already be found in the Madhvavijaya, the hagiographical account of Madhva’s life that was composed two generations after Madhva.⁸ Typ-

 Govindacharya 1974: 22, 26. See also Mesquita 2000: 127 n. 217.  Roque Mesquita went through all of Madhva’s writings, tried to locate the sources which Madhva has quoted, and concluded that Madhva not only has ‘quoted’ from texts that apparently have never existed, but has also ‘quoted’ from existing texts in which those ‘quoted’ passages cannot be found. The results of this research were subsequently published in book form in 1997, in German, as Madhva’s unbekannte Quellen (Mesquita 1997). Translations of this book in English (Mesquita 2000a) and Kannada have meanwhile appeared in India.

356

Robert Zydenbos

ically, as the Austrian researcher Roque Mesquita has demonstrated, such mysterious ‘quotes’ appear whenever Madhva puts forward thoughts which strongly differ from what the earlier, established forms of Vedānta taught. It therefore seems fair to assume that Madhva was a creative thinker who understood that his audience in the thirteenth century was not quite so intellectually courageous as he but demanded a high degree of tradition-bound conformism in order to be convinced of the correctness of his views. Hence he presented his own ideas as such, namely: scriptural. After this analysis of Madhva’s use of scripture, I hope it will be clear why I do not wish to enter into questions about the extent to which Madhva can be considered a ‘genuine’ Vedāntin, or a ‘true’ proponent of ‘Vedic’ thought, or not, but why I wish to treat him as an independent philosopher in his own right. The orthodox Mādhva claim that Madhva is a better ‘Vedāntin’ than Śaṅkara is rather hollow. On the other hand, this does not matter much, since Śaṅkara, too, cannot be considered a scripture-bound Vedāntin either but rather, as also Madhva like others before him has stated, a pracchannabauddha or ‘crypto-Buddhist’ who obviously borrowed basic ideas from Mādhyamika Buddhism. One might ask why Madhva thought it necessary to use scripture in his opposition to Advaita. One reason is quite simple. The illusionistic monism of Advaitavedānta needs to prove that phenomenal reality, as it is commonly perceived in everyday life, is illusory. This is done in two ways: firstly, doubt is cast upon the truthfulness of perception. Thus the Advaitin thinker undermines the validity of naive realism as based on perception. After thus doubting the absolute trustworthiness of perception, other pramāṇas are presented as more reliable ways of ascertaining the truth, namely, inference and scripture. Inference, however, is based on data that are derived from other sources, and therefore the data that are provided by scripture play an important role in Advaitin argumentation. However, the Advaitins are highly selective in their use of scripture (as Renou has shown in the case of Śaṅkara): they focus entirely on the so-called abhedaśrutis or advaitaśrutis, i. e., such Upaniṣadic statements that appear to teach the oneness of the universe. But Madhva, as a critical thinker who was well versed in the authoritative scriptures, was well aware that there are numerous Upaniṣadic passages that obviously teach something else. Because scripture was the only positive evidence which the Advaitins brought forward in support of their monism (apart from the claim that one can experience this all-encompassing unity in mystic experience), it was of crucial importance that Madhva demonstrated the shaky foundation of the Advaitin argumentation.

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

357

Toward Transcendence: Special Forms of Perception, and Madhva as an Avatāra of Vāyu By emphasizing the necessity of a proper pramāṇa for knowing a thing, Madhva denied the validity of key concepts in monistic Vedānta. The all-encompassing unity of all things simply is not perceived, and therefore it is not true. Perceptual knowledge of the immanent is used to refute the Advaitin assertions about the transcendent. To know about the transcendent, Madhva stated that āgama, scriptural knowledge, is acceptable as a pramāṇa for what is atīndriya or super-sensuous. A common characteristic of all the writings which Madhva considers sadāgama is that they were (supposedly) composed by one single author, Vedavyāsa, who is an avatāra of Viṣṇu. In other words: it is God himself who speaks through the scriptures; God who looks at things (his own creation) from a different vantage point. But this raises again other questions. If we assume that Vedavyāsa indeed is Viṣṇu himself, then how is it that he can communicate his thoughts in such a way that humans can understand them? How is communication at all possible? The answer to this fundamental question of communication is that, in a certain sense, God and humans share fundamental characteristics. Individuality, svarūpabheda, is something eternal. Among the various souls there exists traividhya, threefoldness, according to the preponderance in them of one of the three guṇas that were taught in ancient Sāṅkhya philosophy: sattva, rajas and tamas. Those in whom sattva predominates are muktiyogya, capable of liberation; those in whom rajas predominates are nityasaṃsārins, i. e., they will never be liberated but will remain in saṃsāra forever; and finally there are those in whom tamas is predominant, the tamoyogyas, who will be destined for eternal darkness after death. As for the liberated souls: not only do they remain separate individuals, but there are also four separate kinds of liberation, in agreement with their individual aptitude.⁹ Indeed, not to believe in this individuality endangers one chances of liberation.¹⁰

 These four forms of liberation are termed sālokya (presence in the same world), sāmīpya (proximity), sārūpya (having the same form) and sāyujya (union). Cf. Mesquita 2000: 524– 525.  jīvābhedo nirguṇatvam apūrṇaguṇatā tathāsāmyādhikye tadanyeṣāṃ bhedas tadgata eva ca | prādurbhāvaviparyāsas tadbhaktadveṣa eva catatpramāṇasya nindā ca dveṣā ete ’khilā matāḥ | etair vihīnā yā bhaktiḥ sā bhaktir iti niścitā See: Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya 1: 111– 113 (Govin-

358

Robert Zydenbos

In Madhva’s philosophy, the relationship between God and souls is termed bimbapratibimbabhāva, the relationship between the original and its reflection. Out of the sheer pleasure of creating, Viṣṇu has created the universe with all that is in it. He is the one being that is truly svatantra or independent; everything else, and everyone else, is paratantra or dependent, namely: dependent on his will. He is the one without whose will tṛṇam api na calati, ‘not even a blade a grass will move’. In His supreme independence, He could theoretically exist without the world and all that is in it; but the fact is that the world and all that is in it is there, and this is simply because He wanted it to be so. Viṣṇu is not incarnate in a material body, but is omnipresent and has the nature of sajjñānānanda: being, knowledge and joy, and he has the power to create. What differentiates living beings from what is not living are precisely these characteristics of knowledge, joy and creativity; but just as we are not omnipresent but limited, also these characteristics which we share with Viṣṇu are limited. Our power is limited, our knowledge and consciousness are limited, and our joy is limited. Whatever exists in the world is a small reflection of aspects of Viṣṇu, who is the supreme brahman about which the ancient scriptures speak and who is not nirguṇa, without characteristics, as Śaṅkara and his Advaitin followers claim, but precisely the opposite: Viṣṇu is sarvaguṇaparipūrṇa, replete with all characteristics, precisely because any characteristic that can be perceived in the world is a partial reflection of God. Viṣṇu is not only omnipresent and omnipotent, but also omniscient. Just as humans as mere small pratibimbas of Viṣṇu are of limited size and power, they are also limited in knowledge and in all other possible personal attributes. However, their individuality, which is caused by their innate svarūpabheda, also brings about their basic inequality. Other religious doctrines may teach that all souls are equal in the state of liberation (such as in Jainism), or that they dissolve and merge in an original all-encompassing unity (such as in monistic systems), or that they become ‘equal’ in the sense that they dissolve into nothingness (as in Buddhism); Madhva contends that the reasons for individuality are such that this fundamental inequality will not disappear as long as the cosmos exists. It is also possible to give everything in the world a relative ranking, as Kṛṣṇa does in the Bhagavadgītā when he speaks of himself in superlative terms in comparison with a variety of objects. Thus the whole of creation is characterized by tāratamya or ‘hierarchy’. Madhva gives lists of examples of hierarchies: rivers,

dacharya 1971: 10). Tantri 1990: 51, following a different redaction of the text, gives it as Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya 1: 114– 115.

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

359

trees, mountains, the gods, everything exists in a hierarchy.¹¹ This does not imply, however, that gods other than Viṣṇu are not worthy of worship: as he states in his short work Kṛṣṇāmṛtamahārṇava: “May all the gods be worshipped, because Hari is in all of them.”¹² What is worthy of worship in Viṣṇu is also found in the other gods, but only to a lesser degree. The same principle of tāratamya applies to people as well, who obviously have different abilities, and this is not merely a matter of circumstances, nor is it entirely the result of the karman of past lives. It is so because God has willed it so. Man differs from non-living phenomena in the world through his consciousness and through his ability to create order in his surroundings as well as to create new things. Just as we can notice how these characteristics differ from one individual to another, and certain individuals possess these characteristics to a higher degree than others, we can also imagine what the special characteristics of God are. The more highly our own consciousness is developed, the more we know, and the more we exercise our creativity, the more we realize what is godly within us. God grants us mokṣa, but we must give him a reason to do so, and the one possible reason is bhakti. ¹³ Madhva’s commentator Jayatīrtha has given a brief definition of bhakti: māhātmyajñānasnehasamudāyo hi bhaktir ity uktam. ¹⁴ This devotion is a combination of affection and of knowledge of God’s greatness. Through bhakti the self realizes its relation to God; this leads to aparokṣajñāna, a direct vision of God, through which all remaining karman is annihilated, and no new karman can be bound. Mokṣa, i. e., liberation from saṃsāra, the on-going chain of rebirths, for Madhva means the full realization of the inner potentialities of the soul: the realization of consciousness, knowledge, joy to the fullest possible extent of which an individual is capable. In other words, it is the full realization of the godliness that each soul carries within oneself: bhagavatprasādād aśeṣāniṣṭānivṛttiviśiṣṭānandādisvarūpavirbhāvalakṣaṇā muktir bhavatīti. ¹⁵ Here we have one example of how Madhva’s thought probably was influenced by Jaina philosophy,

 Siauve 1971.  arcitās sarvadevās syur yatas sarvagato hariḥ. Kṛṣṇāmṛtamahārṇava vs. 9 (Govindacharya 1974: 78).  bhaktyaiva tuṣṭim abhyeti viṣṇur nānyena kena cit | sa eva muktidātā ca bhaktis tatraikakāraṇam || Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya 1: 116. Govindacharya 1971: 10. Tantri 1990: 53, following a different redaction of the text, gives it as Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya 1: 118.  Nyāyasudhā (Jayatīrtha 1986: 1784).  Jayatīrtha’s summary of Madhva’s position in his Pramāṇapaddhati (Jayatīrtha 1982: 165, §13). See Zydenbos 1991: 259.

360

Robert Zydenbos

where (according to classical Jaina doctrine) the soul essentially is pure consciousness, and the soul which has succeeded in casting off the limitations of knowledge-limiting karman attains omniscience. For the omniscient beings in Jainism (the Tīrthaṅkaras and siddhas), the transcendent has become accessible to them through their omniscience. However, Madhva fundamentally disagrees with Jainism in that the Jainas assume that one pure soul is equal to any other pure soul, whereas for Madhva the principle of individuality, svarūpabheda, implies a fundamental inequality that can never be overcome. It is possible to develop one’s individual abilities, but only to a certain point, based on inborn individual capability. It is unclear why Madhva upholds this assumption, since there seems to be no logical necessity for it; perhaps he simply found that it was too much at odds with the empirical perception of individual differences. For Madhva, the only omniscient being is the supremely independent Viṣṇu; but other gods, even if they do not possess absolute omniscience, do possess a level of knowledge that far exceeds that of humans. In Jaina epistemology and ontology, which served as an inspirational model for Madhva’s epistemology and ontology, knowledge is a quality of the jīva or soul, and the form which knowledge acquires is determined by different kinds of jñānāvaraṇīya or knowledge-limiting karman. Thus the knowledge that is acquired through the senses is essentially not different from inferential knowledge, nor from varieties of knowledge which may be termed paranormal, such as clairvoyance and telepathic knowledge. The religious laws of Jainism have resulted out of kevalajñāna, the omniscience of the Tīrthaṅkaras, who communicated part of their all-encompassing knowledge to the rest of the world. In Madhva’s theism there is no place for such a source of absolute transcendental knowledge, since only God possesses such knowledge. But although such absolute transcendental knowledge is not available to humans (except through scripture), higher forms of knowledge can be reached. In his epistemology, Madhva recognizes two categories of pramāṇa: kevalapramāṇa and anupramāṇa. ¹⁶ The difference lies in that the second type uses external instruments (e. g., the senses), whereas the former is yathārthajñāna, ‘knowledge that conforms to the truth’, without sensory input.¹⁷ One of the forms of kevalapramāṇa is sākṣipratyakṣa or ‘perception through the sākṣin’. The sākṣin or ‘witness’ is a special feature of Madhva’s epistemology: it is jñānarūpa (has the form of knowledge), is pramātṛsvarūpa (has the form of the experiencer of truth) and

 Zydenbos 1991: 258. Madhva discusses his classification of pramāṇas in his short work Pramāṇalakṣaṇa (Govindacharya 1974: 65 – 68).  Govindacharya 1974: 65.

Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

361

possesses ātmasvarūpatva (the quality of being the nature of the self). In all questions of ascertaining truth, the sākṣin is the final authority, without which no truth at all can be ascertained. This in effect amounts to an acceptance of the ancient concept of the svataḥprāmāṇya or intrinsic validity of knowledge, which is one aspect of the Jaina theory of the soul. What a soul, a jīva, is, has been succinctly defined by Jayatīrtha.¹⁸ There can be no doubt that the individual soul exists, because this is directly given in experience. The epistemological consequences of the acceptance of Madhva’s concept of the sākṣin deserve further critical investigation. I wish to utter one important question to conclude my presentation: if the sākṣin is part of the self of each human, as Madhva states, and if it is the ultimate touchstone of truth, a kind of immediate intuitive grasping of truth, then why should Madhva’s view of the world be more correct than that of, for instance, Śaṅkara? Why should his perceptions, intuitions, selection and use of scripture be more correct? Ultimately, so it seems, Madhva appealed to faith: faith not only in a traditional concept of God as Viṣṇu, as given in scriptures such as the Purāṇas, the great epics, and the Pañcarātrāgamas, but also faith in himself. He seems to have been so convinced of the correctness of his system that he laid claim to being not just another incarnate soul, but a very special incarnation, an avatāra of the Vedic wind god Vāyu. Commenting on an obscure hymn from the Ṛgveda, the Baḷitthāsūkta, he stated that it refers to three special incarnations of Vāyu that will appear in due course: one is Hanumat (in the Rāmāyaṇa), the second is Bhīma (in the Mahābhārata), and the third one is denoted by the archaic word ‘madhva’ – the name which he gave himself, after he previously had had three other names (Vāsudeva, Pūrṇaprajña, and Ānandatīrtha). He apparently did not wish to wait till long after his death for such a divine status, as followers of Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja had meanwhile accorded to those earlier Vedāntins, and so he took the matter into his own hands.¹⁹

Bibliography Pramāṇapaddhati,Jayatīrtha. R. S. Panchamukhi (Ed.), Pramāṇapaddhati by Śrī Śrī Jayatīrtha. Dharwad: Śrī Raghavendra Pratishthana 1982.

 kartṛtvabhoktṛtvaśaktyupetaṃ sākāraṃ dehādivyatiriktaṃ rūpam aham iti sākṣisiddham. Quoted in Sharma 1991: 253.  Zydenbos 2001: 116 – 117. See the end of the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (Govindacharya 1974: 44, and Mesquita 2000: 234– 235).

362

Robert Zydenbos

Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha. Hā. Kṛ. Raghunāthācārya (Ed.), Śrīmaṭṭīkākṛtpādaviracitā Śrīman-Nyāyasudhā. Volume 3. Mulabagalu: Śrīmatprasannarāghavendramaṭha 1986. Govindacharya 1971. Bannanje Govindacharya (Ed.), Sri Ānandatīrtha Bhagavatpāda [Sri Madhvacharya], Sarvamūlagranthāḥ. Volume 2. [Itihāsa-prasthānam] Mahābhārata-tātparya-nirṇaya & Mahābhārata-tātparyam. Udupi: Akhila Bhārata Mādhva Mahā Maṇḍala 1971. Govindacharya 1974. Bannanje Govindacharya (Ed.), Sri Ānandatīrtha Bhagavatpāda [Sri Madhvacharya], Sarvamūlagranthāḥ. Volume 5. Prakaraṇāni, ācāragranthāḥ, stotrāṇi ca. Udupi: Akhila Bhārata Mādhva Mahā Maṇḍala 1974. Mesquita 1997. Roque Mesquita, Madhva und seine unbekannten literarischen Quellen: Einige Beobachtungen. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 24]. Wien 1997. Mesquita 2000. Id., Madhva. Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya. Der Nachweis des wahren Wesens Viṣṇus. Annotierte Übersetzung mit Studie. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 28]. Wien 2000. Mesquita 2000a. Id., Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 2000. [Translation of Mesquita 1997.] Mesquita 2003. Id., The Rank and Function of God Vāyu in the Philosophy of Madhva. Indo-Iranian Journal 46 (2003): 97 – 117. Mesquita 2007. Id., Madhvas Zitate aus den Purāṇas und dem Mahābhārata: Eine analytische Zusammenstellung nicht identifizierbarer Quellenzitate in Madhvas Werken nebst Übersetzung und Anmerkungen. [Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 34]. Wien 2007. Mesquita 2008. Id., Madhva’s Quotes from the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata: An Analytical Compilation of Untraceable Sources. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 2008. [Translation of Mesquita 2007.] Mesquita 2016. Id., Studies in Madhva’s Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 2016. [Translation of Mesquita 2000.] Renou 1965. Louis Renou, The Destiny of the Veda in India. Translated from the French by Dev R. Chanana. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1965. Sharma 1981. B.N.K. Sharma, History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1981 (2nd edition). Sharma 1991. Id., Philosophy of Śrī Madhvācārya. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1991 [Reprint of revised edition; 1st edition 1962]. Siauve 1968. Suzanne Siauve, La doctrine de Madhva. Dvaita-Vedānta. Pondichéry: Institut Français d’Indologie 1968. Siauve 1971. Id., Les hiérarchies spirituelles selon l’Anuvyākhyāna de Madhva. Pondichéry: Institut Français d’Indologie 1971. Tantri 1990. Agrahāra Nārāyaṇa Taṃtri, Śrīmanmadhvācāryara Śrīmanmahābhāratatātparyanirṇayavu pūrvārdha 1riṃda 3ra varegina adhyāyagaḷu kannaḍaṭīkā bhāṣāṃtara sahita. Udupi: Śrī Madhvamuni Sēvāsaṃgha 1990. Zydenbos 1991. Robert J. Zydenbos, On the Jaina Background of Dvaita Vedānta. Journal of Indian Philosophy 19 (1991): 249 – 271. Zydenbos 2001. Id., “Madhva and the Reform of Vaiṣ ṇ avism in Karnataka”. In: Charisma and Canon. Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. V. Dalmia, A. Malinar, M. Christof (Ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2001, 113 – 128.

Fabian Völker

“The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism”: Śaṅkara and Schelling on the Origin of the Finite World of Appearance In the Garland of Brahman Gnosis (brahmajñānāvalīmālā) attributed to Śaṅkara (between 650 – 780) the Advaita Vedānta point of view is compressed into the following concise and much-quoted verse: brahma satyaṃ, jagan mithyā, jīvō brahmaiva nāparaḥ: “Brahman is true being, the world is truthless appearance, the individual self is essentially identical with Brahman.”¹ However, if brahman, presented as without distinctions or attributes (nirviśeṣa/nirguṇa), is to exclude from itself all inner diversity and real multiplicity and is to exist “without a second” (ekam evādvitīyam), then what status should we ascribe to the objective phenomenality of the finite sensible world? The spatio-temporal reality of the world cannot be in the absolute, for then the absolute would no longer be the negation of the determinateness underlying all objective existence and subjective inwardness; but neither can the concrete existent be a second principle beside the absolute. If there were a ground distinct from brahman, then in view of this difference brahman would no longer be the absolute. In this supposed inability of Advaita Vedānta to determine consistently the relationship of the one to the many and give a consequent account of how manifold appearance can be reconciled with the relationless identity of the absolute, Eduard von Hartmann (1842– 1906) already insightfully detected the deepest and insoluble “embarrassment of abstract monism,” a monism he identified with the esoteric doctrine of Brahmanism as a whole and subsumed under the concept of supernaturalist acosmism: “If one has arrived at empty unity by abstraction from all many-sided determinateness, then there is no way back from this to the world.”² This metaphysical aporia is not a unique embarrassment that can be restricted to the historical forms taken by Advaita Vedānta, for it is utterly intrinsic to the position of abstract monism, and with it of any negative theology, which takes seriously the radical transcendence of the absolute and does not drag it down into the realm of finite concepts of reflection and ideas. Confirmation of  Brahmajñānāvalīmālā 20. In: Ramamoorthy 2006: 260.  Hartmann 1906: 283. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-025

364

Fabian Völker

this may be found in the identity philosophy (Identitätsphilosophie) of Schelling, for whom it was crucial at that phase of his thinking (1801– 1809) to clarify the intelligible connection between the infinite Absolute and the finite world of appearance, so that the two would not immediately fall apart. Schelling’s “acosmic monism of reason,”³ which destroys ontic difference and finitude, thus lends itself well to comparison with the acosmism of Advaita Vedānta. Schelling himself kept his distance from those contemporary “Indomaniacs” who sought the “lowdown on everything in Indian lore,” and in his lectures On the Deities of Samothrace (1815) he spoke “against any derivation of Greek ideas from Indian ones.”⁴ But he did devote a detailed investigation to the philosophical systems of India in his posthumously published Lectures on the Philosophy of Mythology (1857).⁵ Although this explicit engagement with Hinduism never reached the scale found in the writings of Schopenhauer and Hegel, in contrast to Fichte he was at least acquainted with “that mystical and theosophical system”⁶ of Advaita Vedānta and with the name of Śaṅkara, which further legitimizes a comparison of the two thinkers from a philosophical-historical perspective. However, despite his lifelong fascination with the Indian spiritual world, the Upaniṣads remained a “very unpleasant reading” for Schelling in view of their final systematic consequences, for he could find nowhere in them a “positive account of the supreme unity” or a “clear passage” on “how in God all is one or how all has proceeded from him as the original unity.”⁷ For Schelling, “the principal business of all philosophy” is the “solution of the problem of the existence of the world,” on which “all philosophers” have worked, “even though they have expressed the problem itself in so many different ways.”⁸ Śaṅkara is no exception to this, for, according to his systematic claim, Advaita Vedānta also wants to deduce the worldly God (saguṇa-brahman) from the worldless deity (nirguṇa-brahman) and demonstrate how the relation of the world of appearing names and forms (nāmarūpa-prapañca) to the identity of the immutable Absolute can be consistently conceived. In the following I shall reconstruct Śaṅkaras position on this question and contrast it with the aporia identified by Hartmann.

 Iber 1994: 7 f.  Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie (1856). In: SW XI: 23. Cf. Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrake (1815). In: SW VIII: 363. I cite Schelling’s works after Sämmtliche Werke (SW) edited by his son Karl Friedrich August Schelling (1815 – 1863), giving the Roman volume number and Arabic page number.  Cf. Philosophie der Mythologie (1857). In: SW XII: 431– 520.  Philosophie der Mythologie (1857). In: SW XII: 468.  Philosophie der Mythologie (1857). In: SW XII: 480.  Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (1795). In: SW I: 313.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

365

In a second step, this aporetic problem of mediation will be expounded on the basis of central writings from Schelling’s identity philosophy phase, so that Schelling’s own attempt at a solution can be retrieved.

The Origin and Status of the Phenomenal World in Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta To refer to the process of world appearance as well as the phenomenal world itself as its result, the later Śaṅkara school borrowed from the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, Bhartṛhari’s (450 – 500) Vākyapadīya and Bhavabhūti’s (690 – 740) Uttararāmacarita the term vivarta (Pāli vivaṭṭa), originally derived from Buddhism, which was introduced into Advaita Vedānta by Maṇḍana Miśra (660 – 720). However in the earliest Ātmādvaita of Gauḍapāda (c. 500), Śaṅkara, Sureśvara (8th/9th c.), Toṭaka (8th/9th c.) and Hastāmalaka (8th/9th c.) this term is still absent, only becoming a generally accepted part of the system after them.⁹ In contrast to the Old Vedic emanation doctrine brahman is taught here only in a figurative sense as the material cause of the world (vivarta-upādāna-kāraṇa) insofar as it serves as a substrate (āśrayā) and basis (āspada/adhiṣṭhāna) of ignorance (avidyā). Already in Padmapāda’s (8th/9th c.) Pañcapādikā and Vācaspati Miśra’s Bhāmatī (9th c.), the two earliest sub-commentaries to Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, ignorance (avidyā) was hypostasized as a metaphysical principle and the original stuff of the cosmos (pariṇāmi-upādāna-kāraṇa).¹⁰ We further know from the Brahmasiddhi that this position, later attributed to Śaṅkara himself by his epigones, already had adherents among the earliest Vedāntins, whom Maṇḍana Miśra calls Avidyopādānabhedavādins – those who claim that “difference (bheda) has ignorance (avidyā) as its material cause (upādāna).”¹¹ The writings of Swāmī Satchidānandendra Saraswatī (1880 – 1975) and Paul Hacker (1913 – 1979) have now convincingly shown that with the exception of Sureśvara, Toṭaka, and Hastāmalaka probably all the successors of Śaṅkara modified essential aspects of his doctrine with far-reaching and momentous con-

 Cf. Śvetāśvataropaniṣad 6, 2. In: Olivelle 1998: 431; Vākyapadīya 1, 1. In: Rau 2002: 3; Uttararāmacarita 3, 48. In: Hacker 1953: 22; instances from the Brahmsiddhi are found in Thrasher 1993: 39 – 50.  Cf. Pañcapādikā on Śaṅkaras preamble to the Brahmasūtras (adhyāsabhāṣya). In: Venkataramiah 1948: 10; Bhāmatī on Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 1, 1. In: Suryanarayana Sastri/Kunhan Raja 1992: 80 f.  Brahmasiddhi-Brahmakāṇḍa 10. In: Vetter 1969: 63.

366

Fabian Völker

sequences. Satchidānandendra’s Mūlāvidyā-nirāsaḥ, atha vā Śrī-Śaṅkarahṛdayam (1929), in a manner analogous to Neo-Kantianism and its slogan “So we must return to Kant,”¹² can be considered to mark the birth of a Neo-Advaitism in the 20th century, which intends to defend the master’s authentic teaching against the distortions of his epigones, while criticizing the theorem of a materialized root ignorance (mūlāvidyā) as the proton pseudos on which the entire Advaita metaphysics after Śaṅkara rests.¹³ However, the writings of Śaṅkara that are generally recognized as authentic show that he did not understand avidyā as an ontological principle but as a purely epistemic one. Along with craving (rāga), aversion (dveṣa), fear (bhaya), and confusion (moha), he counts ignorance among the innate (naisargika) mental affections (kleśa) that denote an individual evil (doṣa), but not a cosmic power (śakti).¹⁴ According to Śaṅkara’s only definition of avidyā, the basic evil of ignorance consists in the erroneous reciprocal transference (itaretarādhyāsa) of true and false (satyānṛte mithunīkṛtya), imperishable self (ātman) and impermanent non-self (anātman), as well as mental subject (viṣayin) and non-mental object (viṣaya), which are for him as contrary in nature as darkness and light (tamaḥ-prakāśavad-viruddha-svabhāvayoḥ).¹⁵ Avidyā is therefore synonymous for Śaṅkara with “false cognition” (mithyājñāna), which is expressed in the existential misjudgment that the inner self (pratyagātman) is individualized (jīvatva), embodied (saśarīratva), acting (kartṛtva), enjoying (bhoktṛtva), and entangled in saṃsāra (saṃsāritva). Only in this causative sense (avidyā-/mithyā-jñāna-nimitta) does Śaṅkara take everything to be originated from avidyā (avidyāprabhavaṃ sarvam), the state of delusion (avidyāvasthā) to be the seed (bīja) of saṃsāra, and the original state of the world (avyakta) and its appearance (prapañca) to be ignorance (avidyātmaka) in their very essence.¹⁶ In spite of these attributive determinations, which prima facie suggest an interpretation of avidyā as causa materialis (upādāna-kāraṇa), one is entitled to interpret Śaṅkara’s conception of avidyā purely in terms of efficient cause, because of a terminological peculiarity that distinguishes him from all later Advaitins. In order to designate the material cause of the world, Śaṅkara speaks of undifferentiated (avyākṛte) and differentiated (vyākṛte) names and forms (nāmarūpe), which for him are the real seed of the world’s course and world expansion (saṃsāra-prapañca-bīja). Thus, for example, the physical

 Liebmann 1865: 86.  Cf. Satchidānandendra 1997.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 3, 2. In: Panoli 2011: 238.  Cf. Adhyāsabhāṣya. In: Panoli 2011: 39; Bhagavadgītāśaṅkarabhāṣya 13, 26. In: Panoli 2003: 632.  Cf. Hacker 1950: 71– 77; Upadeśasāhasrī-Padyabandha 17, 20. In: Mayeda 2006: 162.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

367

body, as a limiting adjunct (upādhi) of the ātman, is made of names and forms, which in turn are brought forth by avidyā, i. e. they are falsely identified with the ātman and believed to be real (avidyāpratyupasthāpita-nāmarūpakṛta).¹⁷ In contrast to the Sāṅkhya system, which taught an original matter (pradhāna/prakṛti) independent of brahman, Śaṅkara equates the cosmic substance with the divine creative power (māyā/daivī śakti), which is completely dependent on the supreme God (parameśvarādhīnā/parameśvarāśrayā), who in turn as creator (sraṣṭṛtva) evolves the unevolved names and forms to form the phenomenal world: Name and form [nāmarūpe], fancied by avidyā [avidyā-kalpita] as though identical with the omniscient Īśvara, but which are undefinable as identical with or other than (Īśvara) [tattvānyatvābhyām-anirvacanīya], constituting the seed of the phenomenal world of mundane life, have been called the Māyā, Śakti and Prakṛti of the omniscient Lord, in both the Śruti and the Smṛti.¹⁸

As ideal and archetypal being, the concept of avyākṛte nāmarūpe also contains the causa formalis of the entire phenomenal world, equated by Śaṅkara with the eternal Veda word (vedaśabda) that existed before the creation (śabdapūrvo sṛṣṭiṃ darśayata) and which invites comparison with the Platonic cosmos of ideas (kosmos noētos).¹⁹ The avyākṛte nāmarūpe are located in the mind of God as eternal entities and defined forms (niyata-ākṛti) that are his sole guiding thread in every new creation of the world arising and perishing in beginningless cycles.²⁰ Although every kalpa ends up in a complete cosmic cataclysm (mahāpralaya), this does not spell complete annihilation of names and forms; rather, they become indistinguishably one with their cause, which in the original state (prāg-avasthā) lacks all differentiating characteristics. To the adversary’s objection that according to the testimony of the Chāndogya and Taittirīya Upaniṣads this original state must be absolute non-being (atyantāsat), Śaṅkara replies that the manifest object is usually called “being” (sat) and that before its manifestation it is as if it were “non-existent” (asat), which is to be understood only

 Cf. Hacker 1950: 81– 91; Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 14. In: Panoli 2011: 500.  Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 14. In: Satchidānandendra 1998: 9 f. Cf. Hacker 1950: 91– 99; Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 4, 3 and 1, 4, 9. In: Panoli 2011: 369 f. and 389 f.; Bhagavadgītāśaṅkarabhāṣya-Upodghāta. In: Panoli 2003: 11.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 3, 28: In: Panoli 2011: 306 f. and 310.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 3, 30. In: Panoli 2011: 323 f.

368

Fabian Völker

in an improper sense.²¹ If the differentiated (vyākṛte) names and forms were not already latent in the origin in undifferentiated form (avyākṛte), they could not arise from it, just as little as oil can be pressed from grains of sand.²² Because of his characteristic doctrine of names and forms, Śaṅkara takes precedence over all of his successors, who hypostasized avidyā into a preposterous cosmic substance and thus promoted the absurd idea that with salvation avidyā vanishes along with the manifold phenomenal world (dvaitaprapañca) formed by avidyā, so that with the salvation of one jīva the salvation of all would have to take place.²³ Not only Maṇḍana Miśra in his Brahmasiddhi, but also Śaṅkara in his commentary on the Brahmasūtras vehemently opposed this view: What does the discarding of the world of duality mean? […] Now if it be held that the existing world of plurality, consisting of the animated bodies on the physical plane and of the elementary substances such as earth externally, has to be annihilated, that is impossible for any man, and so the instruction about its destruction points to an impossibility. If it could be done, the man who attained liberation first would have annihilated the universe consisting of the earth etc. and in that case the universe at present should have become devoid of the earth etc.²⁴

Nor does our individual existence (jīva) end with avidyā and the complete dissolution of (our belief in the independent reality and our identification with) the world of duality (dvaitaprapañcavilaya/dvaitaprapañcopaśama), for who then should attain salvation and live as a jīvanmukta? Our salvation is not at all something that needs to be effected (na prasādhyam) but has always been realized (svayaṃ prasiddhaṃ) and can only be known as such in its timeless givenness, for the state of salvation, according to Śaṅkara, is the essence of brahman itself

 Cf. Chāndogyopaniṣad 3, 19, 1: asad evedam agra āsīt: “In the beginning this world was simply what is nonexisting”. In: Olivelle 1998: 214 f.; Taittirīyopaniṣad 2, 7: asad vā idam agra āsīt: “In the beginning this world was the nonexistent.” In: Olivelle 1998: 304 f.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 16. In: Panoli 2011: 503 f. According to this theory, called satkāryavāda, the effect is not different from its cause (kāraṇenānanyatvāt kāryasya). For Śaṅkara cause and effect are one in essence (tādātmya saṃbandha), and the shape of the effect is but the self-being of the cause (kāraṇasya ātmabhūta), insofar as one object never becomes another merely because it is perceived from a different viewpoint (viśeṣadarśanamātra). Cf. Chāndogyopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 6, 1, 4. In: Panoli 2008a: 556; Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 18 and 2, 2, 38. In: Panoli 2011: 512 and 641 f.  Cf. Brahmasiddhi-Brahmakāṇḍa 12: “If brahman itself wandered (and) was released, it would result that as soon as one is released, all are released [ekamuktau sarvamuktiprasaṅga].” In: Vetter 1969: 67.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 3, 2, 21. In: Panoli 2011: 904.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

369

(brahma-svarūpatvān mokṣasya/brahmaiva hi muktyavasthā).²⁵ It is merely our fateful identification with the non-self (anātman) that must be given up, and our individual ignorance that must be eliminated. This ignorance consists in the false knowledge (mithyā-jñāna) that the supreme self (paramātman), which in its essence is inactive (niṣkriya) and uninvolved (audāsīnya), is entangled in the cycle of re-death (saṃsāritva) and is the creator (sraṣṭṛtva) of this world, while his being as “mover” is based solely on māyā (māyā-vyapāśrayaṃ ca pravartakatvam).²⁶ This solves the “aporia of the substrate” (āśraya-anupapatti) formulated by Rāmānuja (11th – 12th c.) in the mahāsiddhānta of his Śrī-Bhāṣya as the first of his classic seven objections (saptavidhā anupapatti) against the Advaitic doctrine of avidyā. ²⁷ For Rāmānuja, who already presupposes the adulterated version of Śaṅkara’s teachings produced by the commentators, the Advaitin must choose between two mutually exclusive alternatives. Either he postulates the individual self (jīva-ajñāna-vāda), or brahman (brahma-ajñāna-vāda) as substrate (āśrayā) of avidyā. ²⁸ Both alternatives, according to Rāmānuja’s analysis, lead to insoluble problems and to consequences that are incompatible with the basic teachings of Advaita Vedānta: the individual self (jīva) cannot be the substrate (āśrayā) of avidyā because the existence of the jīva is causally explained through the action of the materialized avidyā. If the individual self were the substrate of avidyā, then the cause would have to depend on its effect, leading to an impermissible circular argument (anyonyāśraya). If to the contrary one postulates brahman as the substrate of avidyā, then avidyā as an integral part of brahman, cannot be eliminated and individual liberation from ignorance becomes absolutely impossible. The mere assumption of avidyā would also contradict the postulated secondlessness of brahman. Prakāśānanda (16th c.) in his Pearl-String of Vedānta Teachings (vedānta-siddhānta-muktāvalī) will indeed call saṃsāra absolute non-being (atyantāsat) and declare that the world as vivarta possesses no reality apart from the being of its substrate (brahman), but is the substrate itself,

 Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 1, 4; 2, 1, 14 and 3, 4, 52. In: Panoli 2011: 44, 490 and 1163.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 22 and 2, 2, 7. In: Panoli 2011: 520 f. and 560 f.; Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 4, 7: “Apart from the description of the Self and that arising from the passage refuting the non-Self [anātma-pratiṣedha], there is nothing further to be accomplished either mentally (internally) or externally.” In: Panoli 2008b: 191 f.  Cf. Śrī-Bhāṣya 1, 1, 1. In: Karmarkar 1959: 1‐194.  Śaṅkara’s unsystematic utterances on this question are found in Bhagavadgītāśaṅkarabhāṣya 13, 2. In: Panoli 2003: 562– 586; Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 4, 1, 3. In: Panoli 2011: 1180 f.; Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 4, 4, 6. In: Panoli 2008b: 1034 and Upadeśasāhasrī-Padyabandha 18, 46. In: Mayeda 2006: 177.

370

Fabian Völker

which appears through the effect of a state of evil in a form alien to itself. But even if the proliferating world does not genuinely exist for Prakāśānanda, it still ungenuinely exists, albeit only as a truthless appearance.²⁹ As such, extramental reality is not the abstract One (paramārthika), but a second instance (vyāvahārika) in, on, or beside it and not something merely subjectively posited, but is above and before all subjectivity, which Śaṅkara in opposition to Prakāśānanda strictly distinguishes from purely subjective imaginings (prātibhāsika) as a second-degree appearance.³⁰ Is Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta disproved with this irreducible difference? To solve this supposed aporia, a teaching from the Pañcadaśī is helpful, in which Vidyāraṇya (14th c.) explains that the absolute (sad-vastu) taught by Uddālaka Āruṇi in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad is free from all differences, of which he distinguishes three as vijātīya-, sajātiya- and svagata-bheda. ³¹ Vijātīya-bheda denotes the distinction between different genera or species, just as a tree belongs to the jāti of plants and botany, and thus is distinguished from a cow, which is counted under the jāti of animals and zoology; sajātiya-bheda, on the other hand, denotes the difference between individual specimens of a genus or species, such as that between a spruce and an oak tree, while svagata-bheda, in its turn, designates the differences between individual aspects of a specimen, as a tree subdivides into branches, stem, and roots. Brahman is free of this threefold difference: There can neither exist anything independent of brahman in an absolute sense (paramārtha-satya) nor something similar to it or any heterogeneity in brahman itself. The relative existence of the brahman-dependent world and the multiplicity of jīvas, which for their part function as the substrate of an always individual ignorance, is thus not in conflict with a rightly understood lack of duality. Thus, quite in accord with Śaṅkara, the jīva can be understood as āśrayā of avidyā and brahman as āśrayā of parameśvara and nāmarūpe, which persist as a subject-independent appearance of the absolute even after the end of avidyā: “When the reality has been comprehended and the world of duality has been dif-

 Cf. Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvalī. In: Venis 1975: 162.  Cf. Hacker 1952. The thought of the objectivity of the world of appearance is found particularly clearly in Śaṅkara’s anti-Buddhist polemic: Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 2, 28 – 32. In: Panoli 2011: 615 – 629. The merely subjective dream is for Śaṅkara a “specially qualified kind of appearance” (vaiśeṣikaṃ māyāmātratvam) inasmuch as its reality is refuted every day on awakening (bādha), while the reality of the empirical world of becoming is for him an objective appearance of the absolute for him, and its character as mere appearance is only recognized by the knowledge of brahman (brahmātmatvadarśana). Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 3, 2, 4. In: Panoli 2011: 863 – 866.  Cf. Pañcadaśī 2, 1925. In: Shastri 1965: 29 ff.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

371

ferentiated from the one non-dual existence, the objects of sense-perception will continue to appear as they did before the rise of the knowledge of truth.”³² Thus, while brahman is immutable eternity (kūṭastha-nityatva), the world of māyā is mutable eternity (pariṇāmi-nityatva) and, as such, not a transient illusion but a transcendentally ideal appearance of the absolute and thus utterly imperishable.³³ I therefore consider the use of the term “illusionism” in relation to Śaṅkara’s doctrine to be wholly inappropriate and misleading, for there is an essential difference between an unreal and a transcendentally ideal world. Transcendental logic, according to Fichte, shows clearly that “the entirety of Nature can be nothing but the presentation of our concepts,”³⁴ since “even the mere ‘something’ is only possible through being separated from all the rest, through the description of its opposition and relation to them, so that it is therefore a concept, the result of a process of thinking”: For let it be posited that the idea is only that of a something, separate and individual. It is this however only in opposition to everything else, as separated out from them, so that it is only in the flight of this separating, and through this flight. This somethingness in it is therefore only through this very separating and opposing; which again posits the stable unity of its image, therefore a concept, as we have portrayed it. It is a product of thinking. But what must be ascribed to every idea is that it is a something. The proof of transcendental logic is therefore rigorously carried out.³⁵

It is again in this transcendental-logical sense that I interpret Śaṅkara’s statement in his commentary on the Chāndogya Upaniṣad when he characterizes the conversion product (vikāra) of brahman as pure verbalization and name (nāmamātraṃ/nāmadheyam), which obtains its autonomy only through the linguistic denotation (vācārambhaṇam) and which as something known can never exist independently of the knowing.³⁶ It is only from this transcendentally ideal perspective that the Advaitic conception of the non-existence of the entire world-appearance can be meaningfully understood, and the endless series of relational phenomena can be understood as infinite denial of the non-relational beingin-itself of the world-less deity. For insofar as all phenomena are based on lan-

 Pañcadaśī 2, 99. In: Shastri 1965: 53.  Cf. Vedānta-Prabodha 8, 9. In: Paramānanda 2014: 78.  Vom Unterschiede zwischen der Logik und der Philosophie Selbst (1812). In: GA II/14: 201. I cite Fichte’s works after the complete, critical edition (Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften = GA) edited by Reinhard Lauth, Hans Gliwitzky, Erich Fuchs, Peter K. Schneider and Günter Zöller, giving the Roman part number and the Arabic volume and page number.  Vom Unterschiede zwischen der Logik und der Philosophie Selbst (1812). In: GA II/14: 207 f.  Cf. Chāndogyopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 6, 1, 4. In: Panoli 2008a: 556 f.

372

Fabian Völker

guage, and therefore on mere concepts of relation, they are, in Schelling’s words, “a mere ens imaginarium, an empty creature without inner unity, a simulacrum, which is and is not, depending on how it is considered.”³⁷ The crucial question, however, is not what ontological status the phenomenal world has, or how God (īśvara) and the avyākṛte nāmarūpe comport themselves toward the phenomenal world of differentiated names and forms (vyākṛte nāmarūpe), but rather how the transcendent and acosmic (niṣprapañca) absolute relates to these. Since neither the supreme god (parameśvara) as causa efficiens nor the avyākṛte nāmarūpe as causa materialis are real in an absolute sense (paramārthika), brahman must ultimately be the unified material and effective cause (abhinna-nimitta-upādāna-kāraṇa) of the world’s expansion (nāmarūpa-prapañca).³⁸ Śaṅkara uses a metaphor of light to explain the relationship between the absolute and its appearance, insofar as “all this” (sarvam idam) is enlightened by the light of brahman in a gnoseological and ontological sense: [T]he manifestation of all this consisting of names, forms, actions, their factors and results, is caused by the existence of the light of Brahman [sarvasyaivāsya nāmarūpakriyākārakaphalajātasya yâbhivyaktiḥ sā brahmajyotiḥsattānimittā], just as the manifestation of all sorts of colour is caused by the existence of the light of the sun.³⁹

He defines the relation between the absolute and its appearance as a form of asymmetrical nonduality, insofar as “the effect is the essence of the cause, but the cause is not the essence of the effect (kāryasya kāraṇātmatvaṃ natu kāraṇasya kāryātmatvaṃ)” or “the phenomenal world in its essence is brahman, but brahman is not in its essence the phenomenal world (brahmasvabhāvo hi prapañco na prapañcasvabhāvaṃ brahma).”⁴⁰ For Śaṅkara the world depends as existent and known on brahman as its being and knowing, as the pot’s shape depends on clay. While brahman, however, can exist independently of the world, the world cannot possibly exist independently of brahman. Thus, although the phenomenal world is essentially nothing else than brahman (tādātmya), in its form as world it cannot be designated as either identical or completely different from the absolute (tattvānyatvābhyām anirvacanīya): This [highest Ātman] is the Evolver of the unevolved name-and-form merely by being existent since It is possessed of inconceivable power. The unevolved name-and-form […] is the seed of the world, abiding in It, indescribably as this or something else [tattvānyatvābhyām

   

Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie (1806). In: SW VII: 164. Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 1, 2 und 1, 4, 23. In: Panoli 2011: 19 und 437 f. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 3, 22. In: Panoli 2011: 293. Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1, 9 und 3, 2, 21. In: Panoli 2011: 472 f. und 902 f.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

373

anirvacanīya], […]. Foam is neither [identical with] water nor absolutely different [atyantabhinna] from water since it is not seen without water. But water is clear and different from foam which is of the nature of dirt. Likewise, the highest Ātman is different from name-andform which corresponds to foam.⁴¹

On one side the relationship between the absolute and its appearance is thus utterly indeterminable (anirvacanīya) insofar as the appearance as appearance is neither identical with nor distinct from the absolute; yet on the other side Śaṅkara characterizes brahman as the cause of everything (sarva-vastu-kāraṇatvāt).⁴² Although Śaṅkara exemplifies the “non-acting action” of the absolute by the analogy of a magnet that is itself motionless and nonetheless moves the iron, but the analogies he gives either explain nothing or contain a transcendent use of the category of causality, which can only be applied within empirical experience.⁴³ Already Paul Deussen (1845 – 1919), in his presentation of Śaṅkara’s system, had faulted Advaita Vedānta for its problematic procedure of grasping in terms of causality the relationship of the absolute and the phenomenal world, so that brahman is seen as a cause and the world’s unfolding as its effect: For causality, which has its root in the organisation of our intellect, and nowhere else, is the bond which binds all the phenomena of the phenomenal world together, but it does not bind the phenomenal world with that which manifests itself through it. For between Being-in-itself and the phenomenal world there is no causality but identity: the world is the Thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as it displays itself in the forms of our intellect.

 Upadeśasāhasrī-Gadyabandha 1, 1819. In: Mayeda 2006: 216. Cf. Hacker 1950: 84 ff.; Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 1, 5; 1, 4, 3; 2, 1, 14 und 2, 1, 27. In: Panoli 2011: 69 f., 370 f., 498 f. und 531 f.  Cf. Taittirīyopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 1. In: Panoli 2008c: 315.  Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 2, 2, 2. In: Panoli 2011: 553 f. The so-called “problem of affection” is a core problem of transcendental philosophy, which already challenged the earliest Kant interpreters and found its classical formulation in Gottlob Ernst Schulze’s (1761– 1833) anonymously published Aenesidemus (1792): “According to the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding, provided by the Critique of Pure Reason, the categories cause and reality may only be applied to empirical intuitions, only to something apprehended in time, and apart from this application categories can have neither meaning nor reference. The object beyond our conceptions (the thing in itself), which according to the critique of reason is supposed to have furnished the materials of intuitions by influencing our sensibility, is not itself an intuition or sensuous representation, but must rather be something really distinct from these and independent from them. Thus neither the concept of cause nor that of reality may be applied to that object; and if the Critique’s transcendental deduction of the categories is correct, then one of the most excellent principles of the critique, namely, that all knowledge begins with the efficacy of objective objects upon our mind, is incorrect and false.” Schulze 1911: 199 f.

374

Fabian Völker

This truth has been correctly grasped by the Vedânta, which cannot free itself, however, from the old error of looking upon God as the cause of the world.⁴⁴

Can the relationship of the acosmic absolute to its appearance be meaningfully determined at all if it cannot be thought of as a causal relation, or must we see this connection as being necessarily indefinable? With this question, we turn to Schelling’s account of this problem and his proposed solution.

Schelling’s “Theory of the Unity of the All” (Alleinheitslehre) Schelling entered his phase of identity philosophy with the unfinished system fragment Presentation of My System of Philosophy (1801). He aimed to overcome the one-sidedness of both the subjective transcendental philosophy and the objective philosophy of nature as the “mutually opposed poles of philosophizing” by deducing both of them from a “point of indifference”⁴⁵ immemorially and irrecuperably anterior to all subjectivity and objectivity. The guiding idea consists in the knowledge that all individual and determined concepts obtain their meaning exclusively from their utterly inseparable opposition, insofar as in every case each of the mutually opposed concepts necessarily presupposes the other for its own determination. In all semantic differences, that which essentially is Schelling calls “the absolute bond, or the copula,”⁴⁶ which holds together all disjunctions of ideality and reality, identity and difference, unity and multiplicity, etc., in a higher unity, so that subject (intelligence) and object (nature) are distinguished only in form, but not in their continuing identity of essence. This truly real and eternal “original essence” is always absolute unity – “unity of the opposed and the divided”⁴⁷ – and, as a mid-point everywhere present, identity in totality. In order to rise to this presupposition-free principle of not only a formal logical, but an ontologically hypostatized identity, Schelling claims, one must abstract from all reflection based on opposing determinations and from all differences that “mere imagination mixes into thought.” Thereby reason immediately ceases to be something subjective or objective and becomes that “true

   

Deussen 1912: 256. Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801). In: SW IV: 108. Ueber das Verhältniß des Realen und Idealen in der Natur (1806). In: SW II: 360. Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen (1810). In: SW VII: 425.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

375

in-itself”⁴⁸ which he decrees to be the sole starting-point of all philosophy. Philosophy is always philosophy from the viewpoint of the absolute, and the absolute is reason itself, which can’t be mediated by logical-dialectical thinking and thus is the utterly unknowable for the separating reflection of the understanding. Insofar as every conceivable description of the absolute can come about only in opposition to the non-absolute, all forms of judgment (categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive) yield only conditional knowledge of what is intrinsically unconditioned and, as such, can never be “the absolute itself, in its true essence”. According to Schelling, no description of the absolute can ever bring irrefragable certainty and absolute evidence “before the soul”⁴⁹: For all possible forms of expressing the absolute are only modes of its appearing in reflection, and herein all are completely identical. but its essence itself, which as ideal is immediately real, cannot be known by explanations, but only by intuition; for only the composite is knowable by description, but the simple requires to be beheld in intuition.⁵⁰

In its differenceless simplicity, Schelling’s speculatively modified form of intellectual intuition consequently does not imply a synthesis of relata or a genitivus objectivus, so that intuition would be distinguished from what is beheld in it, but is unproduced reason itself as the pre-relational identity of cognition and being. Taking up the question posed by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 – 1819) – “Does the human being have reason; or does reason have the human being?”⁵¹ – Schelling explains apodictically that there is no reason “that we have, but only a reason that has us,” and its intuition proceeds only from “the annihilation of all subjectivity,”⁵² so that it cannot be a speculative organ of the human intellect by means of which one could, as it were, enter into the absolute from outside. This absolute cognitive ability, for which Schelling will later use the successor concept of ekstasis,⁵³ is rather the place where “God looks into God”⁵⁴ and which “constitutes the soul’s in itself, which is one with the absolute and is

 Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801). In: SW IV: 115.  Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 22.  Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 26.  Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn (1789). In: Jacobi 1789: 422.  Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie (1806). In: SW VII: 149.  Cf. Über die Natur der Philosophie als Wissenschaft (1821). In: SW IX: 229.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In. SW VI: 561.

376

Fabian Völker

the absolute itself”⁵⁵; in short: “It is not I that know, but only the universe knows in me, if the knowing I call mine is a real, a true knowing.”⁵⁶ How one should return from this intellectually beheld, static or Eleatic Being, which as absolute identity is exalted above every opposition of real and ideal, to the spatio-temporal world of the unfolded manifold, was already a grave problem for the contemporary interpreters. This decisive question had prompted Schelling’s Swabian compatriot and longtime correspondent Carl August von Eschenmayer (1768 – 1852) to continue his controversy with Schelling on some of the more controversial aspects of Schelling’s work. How, Eschenmayer asks in his essay on Philosophy in its Transition to Non-Philosophy (1803), is “the first opposition or the first duality called forth” from the absolute identity of reason as the last frontier of all speculation, which lies outside every difference and indifference, and what is “the determinant of difference, whether it be merely ideal or real as well?”⁵⁷ Though Schelling in his writings on identity philosophy hitherto had indeed addressed the question of the original genesis of difference as “investigation of the derivation of the finite from the eternal,”⁵⁸ this had led to no substantive solution.⁵⁹ Eschenmayer could not identify anywhere in Schelling’s writings a resolution of the problem, why “reason must recognize itself as the absolute identical and with this must differentiate itself,”⁶⁰ and interpreted this as evidence of an unacknowledged aporia at the heart of his identity system: “If this determinant lies in absolute identity, then clearly it casts a cloud over the latter; if it lies outside it, then opposition is absolute.”⁶¹ Eschenmayer’s critical statements were the external occasion for Schelling’s Philosophy and Religion, published in the spring of 1804. While Schelling himself had declared in his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (1795) that the question “How can the absolute go forth from itself and set up a world over against itself?” was “theoretically insoluble” and “utterly unanswerable,”⁶² he now devotes a whole chapter of his essay to the question expounded by Eschen-

 Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 23.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In: SW VI: 140.  Die Philosophie in ihrem Uebergang zur Nichtphilosophie (1803). In: Eschenmayer 1803: 70.  Bruno oder über das göttliche und natürliche Princip der Dinge (1802). In: SW IV: 257.  Cf. Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801). In: SW IV: 128; Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie (1802). In: SW IV: 378; Bruno oder über das göttliche und natürliche Princip der Dinge (1802). In: SW IV: 257 f.  Die Philosophie in ihrem Uebergang zur Nichtphilosophie (1803). In: Eschenmayer 1803: 70.  Die Philosophie in ihrem Uebergang zur Nichtphilosophie (1803). In: Eschenmayer 1803: 70.  Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (1795). In: SW I: 310 f.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

377

mayer on the “derivation of finite things from the absolute”⁶³ and their relation to it, in order to “completely lift the veil from this question.”⁶⁴ Schelling’s subsequent exposition shows very clearly what Fichte had already seen in his commentary On the Presentation of Schelling’s System of Identity (1801), namely that Schelling had not addressed the absolute in a sufficiently radical way, but had included difference in its concept. In his comment on the first paragraph of Schelling’s Presentation of My System of Philosophy (1801) (“I call reason absolute reason, or reason insofar as it is conceived as the total indifference of the subjective and the objective”⁶⁵) Fichte notes: [T]he one and absolute reason, without which nothing can exist, cannot be the indifference of the subjective and the objective, without at the same time being the difference between the two in the same undivided essence; that, therefore, besides the one [non‐]differentiating reason, a second differentiating one is retained in mind, which then may well render quietly good services, since it is the real unspoken motive for turning from empty and abstract indifference, with which nothing can get underway, just in order to get ahead. And this mistake is not merely a small and insignificant violation, but of the gravest consequences, in that the entire deduction is propped up on this initial confusion.⁶⁶

In fact for Schelling there exists neither the One as the One nor the Many as the Many, but only the “copula of both” as the “living unification of the One with the Many.”⁶⁷ This copula, again, cannot be thought of independently of the relata bound together in it, just as little as indifference without difference, or the absolute identity of reason derived from the difference between identity and difference as an absolute identity, can make any sense independently of this difference. Insofar as in the all-unity there is no absolute bond without connected things and conversely no connected things without an absolute bond, Schelling must not explain “a going forth of the absolute from itself, its self-division, a becoming differentiated,”⁶⁸ as Eschenmayer understands this, for the absolute in Schelling’s identity system is not an abstract, entirely indeterminate, and

 Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 28.  Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 29.  Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801). In: SW IV: 114.  Zur Darstellung von Schelling’s Identitätssysteme (1801). In: GA II/5: 487. Later Eschenmayer will add a quite similar objection: “I ask, if duality comes forth immediately from indifference, must it then not have been therein previously? It must then be neither therein nor not – who can understand that?” Briefwechsel mit Eschenmayer bezüglich der Freiheitsschrift (1810). In: SW VIII: 150.  Darlegung des wahren Verhältnisses der Naturphilosophie zu der verbesserten Fichteschen Lehre (1806). In: SW VII: 57, 60.  Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 31.

378

Fabian Völker

empty unity to which multiplicity would be added in a real sequence, but a “closed and self-contained identical triplicity”⁶⁹ and as such immediate. Only understanding constructs “the empty unity without fulfilment,”⁷⁰ while reason posits “the unmediated and ungraspable allness with one blow.”⁷¹ Consequently a transition from essence to form does not take place here anywhere, for “form is itself one with essence” and the universe in its totality “is equally eternal with God.”⁷² If in an accommodation to human language one were to speak of an act, this would only be an approximate expression for an activity that at the same time also signifies deepest rest, just as the light of the sun is distinguished yet not divorced from it and immediately flows from it without any alteration.⁷³ In the all-unity of essence and form, Schelling claims, two points of view can be distinguished from one another: In the abstract way of looking we abstract from the indivisible and absolutely simple essence as the absoluteness in things and look only at its form, which in itself is essenceless and as such dependent in its being and so can never subsist for itself; in contrast reason has a way of looking that focusses only on the absoluteness of a thing, insofar as the thing is the one essence, for “all that is, insofar as it is, is God”⁷⁴ and only God is independent in being; however, in regard to the absolute this phenomenal difference is unthinkable, for in true all-unity we find no mere synthesis of contraries but a nonduality of the finite and the infinite that cannot be recuperated by the standpoint of reflection, insofar as both – essence and form – are not only connected but identical; and God in consequence is “not the cause of all, but the all itself.”⁷⁵ Given this, subject and object may “change as they will”⁷⁶; in every transformation of the form and alternative prevalence of ideality and reality (quantitative difference) the qualitative unity of the indivisible essence will never be abolished. In this absolute totality, which comprehends in itself both the real unity

 Ueber das Verhältniß des Realen und Idealen in der Natur (1806). In: SW II: 359.  Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie (1806). In: SW VII: 146.  Aphorismen über die Naturphilosophie (1806). In: SW VII: 241.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In: SW VI: 161, 177.  Cf. Philosophie und Religion (1804). In: SW VI: 32. When Śaṅkara describes the “non-acting action” of the absolute he too uses the image of the sun. Cf. Brahmasūtraśaṅkarabhāṣya 1, 1, 5. In: Panoli 2011: 68 f.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In: SW VI: 157.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In: SW VI: 177.  System der gesammten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (1804). In: SW VI: 156.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

379

and simultaneously the ideal opposition of real and ideal, Schelling sees “the socalled mystery of unity in multiplicity and of multiplicity in unity.”⁷⁷ The aporia denounced by Eschenmayer thus spells not an abolition but a “doubling of the essence,” not a diminution but a “heightening of unity,” such that difference may be thought along with the “integrity of absolute identity,”⁷⁸ without contradiction: “If we now become conscious – if light and darkness separate in us – then we do not thereby step out of ourselves; for the two principles remain in us as their unity. We lose nothing of our being, but now possess ourselves only in twofold form, namely, once in unity, then in division – like God.”⁷⁹

Śaṅkara, Schelling, and the Comprehension of the Incomprehensible Looking back at Śaṅkara, Schelling’s answer can be reconstructed as follows in advaitic terminology: Neither does the One truly exist as the One (nirguṇa brahman) nor the Many as the Many (avyākṛte nāmarūpe), but only the copula of both as the living formation of the One with the many who, for their part, cannot be thought of independently of the relata associated with them. It is true that even for Śaṅkara the immutable eternity of brahman is in fact never given without the mutable eternity of māyā and vice versa, but, as far as I can see, there is no equivalent to Schelling’s concept of the copula in Advaita Vedānta. Moreover, Śaṅkara would probably reject Schelling’s concept of the absolute as a closed and self-contained identical triplicity as a form of Bhedābheda Vedānta, which asserts the simultaneous existence of distinction and non-distinction (bhedābheda) within the absolute and according to which both duality and non-duality essentially inhere (dvaitādvaitātmaka) in the absolute, just as the many waves and the one water constitute the sea.⁸⁰ Śaṅkara in contrast identifies the absolute exclusively with the worldless godhead, which is found in a relation of asymmetrical nonduality to the ideal and archetypal being of the avyākṛte nāmarūpe, whereas Schelling rejects such an empty unity as a mere construction of the understanding and instead postulates an all-unity and symmetrical nonduality of the finite and the infinite that cannot be recuperated by the standpoint of reflection.

   

Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie (1802). In: SW IV: 390. Die Philosophie in ihrem Uebergang zur Nichtphilosophie (1803). In: Eschenmayer 1803: 76. Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen (1810). In: SW VII: 424 f. Cf. Bṛhadaraṇyakopaniṣadśaṅkarabhāṣya 5, 1, 1. In: Panoli 2008b: 1140 – 1148.

380

Fabian Völker

It can be said in conclusion that we are faced with a twofold aporia in the face of Śaṅkara’s and Schelling’s failed attempts to explain the origin of finite things from the absolute: Either one takes difference into the concept of the absolute itself as Schelling does, thus introducing finite rational determinations into the absolute, which undermines and destroys the absoluteness of the absolute, or one preserves the concept of the absolute, as Śaṅkara does, ultimately conceding an hiatus irrationalis between the absolute and its appearance, which are neither identical nor different from each other and between which no causal relation can be thought. It seems to me that a constructive further thinking of Advaita Vedānta is possible only through an engagement with Fichte’s exposition of the Wissenschaftslehre (science of knowledge) from 1804 on, since here a transcendental-critical concept of the absolute is found, which in its radical apóphasis is closest to Śaṅkara’s. Fichte’s Absolute is neither originally structured nor reflexive in itself; neither is it sovereignly free or dynamic, nor is there anything primitive or unactuated in it; it has neither the form of infinite self-knowledge, nor does it come to itself in the world as spirit; it is not power, nor light, nor life, nor love, nor person in a non-equivocal sense; the absolute is neither free from the world nor free to the world: the absolute is nothing at all.⁸¹ It can only be pronounced as unspeakable and understood as incomprehensible. Correspondingly, the connection between the absolute and its appearance remains necessarily unintelligible for Fichte, insofar as it is simply impossible to explain how a difference follows from the absolute.⁸² But since for knowledge there always remains “something quite impenetrable by the concept, something incommensurable with it and irrational,” it is the task of philosophy to make the incomprehensible comprehensible as incomprehensible, as Fichte writes in a letter to Jacobi: “What if the essence of philosophy lay precisely in this insight, and if this essence consisted entirely in nothing other than the comprehension of the incomprehensible as such?”⁸³

 “The absolute itself, however, is neither being, nor cognition, nor identity, nor the indifference of the two: but it is precisely–the absolute–and every other word is an evil.” Letter to Schelling dated January 15, 1802. In: GA III/5: 113.  “But […] this knowledge can, by no means, in itself, understand or see how it itself arises, and how from out the inward, self-comprehensive being (Seyn) an existence (Daseyn), manifestation or revelation can proceed”. Die Anweisung zum seeligen Leben (1806) In: GA I/9: 88.  Letter to Jacobi dated March 31, 1804. In: GA III/5: 237.

The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism

381

Bibliography Deussen 1912. Paul Deussen, The System of the Vedânta. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company 1912. Eschenmayer 1803. Carl August Eschenmayer, Die Philosophie in ihrem Uebergang zur Nichtphilosophie. Erlangen: Walthersche Kunst- und Buchhandlung, 1803. Hacker 1950. Paul Hacker, “Eigentümlichkeiten der Lehre und Terminologie Śaṅkaras: Avidyā, Nāmarūpa, Māyā, Īśvara”. In: Paul Hacker. Kleine Schriften. Lambert Schmithausen (Ed.). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner 1978, 69 – 109. Hacker 1952. Id., “Die Lehre von den Realitätsgraden im Advaita-Vedānta”. In: Paul Hacker. Kleine Schriften. Lambert Schmithausen (Ed.). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner 1978, 120 – 136. Hacker 1953. Id., Vivarta: Studien zur Geschichte der illusionistischen Kosmologie und Erkenntnistheorie der Inder. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1953. Hacker 1968. Id., “Śaṅkara der Yogin und Śaṅkara der Advaitin: Einige Beobachtungen”. In: Paul Hacker. Kleine Schriften. Lambert Schmithausen (Ed.). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner 1978, 213 – 242. Hartmann 1906. Eduard von Hartmann, Das religiöse Bewußtsein der Menschheit im Stufengang seiner Entwicklung. Bad Sachsa: Hermann Haacke 1906. Iber 1994. Christian Iber, Das Andere der Vernunft als ihr Prinzip: Grundzüge der philosophischen Entwicklung Schellings mit einem Ausblick auf die nachidealistischen Philosophiekonzeptionen Heideggers und Adornos. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1994. Jacobi 1789. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn. Neue vermehrte Ausgabe. Breslau: Gottlieb Löwe 1789. Karmarkar 1959. Raghunath Damodar Karmarkar, Śrībhāṣya of Rāmānuja. Part I: Catuḥsūtrī. Poona: University of Poona 1959. Liebmann 1865. Otto Liebmann, Kant und die Epigonen: Eine kritische Abhandlung. Stuttgart: Carl Schober 1865. Mayeda 2006. Sengaku Mayeda, Śaṅkara’s Upadeśasāhasrī. Volume II (Introduction and English Translation). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2006. Olivelle 1998. Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers 1998. Panoli 2003, 2008a-c. 2011. Velayudhan Panoli, Prasthanathraya. Volume I-VI. With the complete text and Bhashya in the original Sanskrit, English translation, explanatory notes and footnotes. Kozhikode: Mathrubhumi Grandhavedi 2003 – 2011. Paramānanda 2014. Swāmī Paramānanda Bhāratī, Vedānta Prabodha. Bangalore: Jnanansamvardhani Pratishthanam 2014. Rau 2002. Wilhelm Rau, Bhartṛharis Vākyapadīya: Versuch einer vollständigen deutschen Übersetzung nach der kritischen Edition der Mūla-Kārikās. Oskar von Hinüber (Ed.). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2002. Ramamoorthy 2006. H. Ramamoorthy, Advaita-Prakaraṇa-Mañjarī: A Bouquet of Nondual Texts by Adi Sankara. Santa Cruz: Society of Abidance in Truth 2006. Satchidānandendra 1997. Swāmī Satchidānandendra Saraswatī, The Heart of Śrī Śaṃkara. Translated from the Sanskrit by A. J. Alston. London: Shanti Sadan 1997. Satchidānandendra 1998. Swāmī Satchidānandendra Saraswatī, Misconceptions about Śaṅkara. Holenarsipur: Adhyatma Prakasha Karyalaya 1998.

382

Fabian Völker

Schulze 1911. Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Aenesidemus oder über die Fundamente der von dem Herrn Professor Reinhold in Jena gelieferten Elementar-Philosophie. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard 1911. Shastri 1965. Hari Prasad Shastri, Panchadashi. A Treatise of Advaita Metaphysics by Swami Vidyaraṇya. London: Shanti Sadan 1965. Suryanarayana Sastri/Kunhan Raja 1992. S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri and C. Kunhan Raja, Bhāmatī of Vācaspati on Śaṁkara’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (Catuḥsūtrī). Madras: The Adyar Library and Research Centre 1992. Thrasher 1993. Allen Wright Thrasher, The Advaita Vedānta of Brahma-siddhi. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1993. Venis 1975. Arthur Venis, The Vedānta-Siddhāntamuktāvalī of Prakāśānanda. With English Translation and Notes. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia 1975. Venkataramiah 1948. D. Venkataramiah, The Pañcapādikā of Padmapāda. Translated into English. Baroda: Oriental Institute 1948. Vetter 1969. Tilmann, Vetter, Maṇḍanamiśras’s Brahmasiddhi. Brahmakāṇḍaḥ. Übersetzung, Einleitung und Anmerkungen. [SbÖAW 262/2 = Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Sprachen und Kulturen Süd- und Ostasiens 7]. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1969.

Steven P. Hopkins

Theology in Poetry: Divinity, Humanity, and the Natural World in Veṅkaṭanātha’s Haṃsasandeśa tṛṇam api vayaṃ sāyaṃ saṃphullamallimatallikāparimaḷamucā vacā yācāmahe na mahīśvarān We will not beg even a piece of straw from kings with our words so sweet they rob the full-blown night-flowering jasmine of its heady fragrance Veṅkaṭanātha, Vairāgyapañcakam 3.¹

Introduction: The Philosopher as Poet It is some years ago now that I first encountered Friedhelm Hardy’s wonderful essay “The Philosopher as Poet,” a study of Veṅkaṭanātha’s Dehalīśastuti. ² Hardy argues in this splendid essay that combines analysis with skilful translation, that Veṅkaṭanātha’s poem, with its “correlation between grace and beauty” and its vision of a “totality of being” as “one bubbling, sparkling and brilliant flow of sheer beauty and enjoyment,”³ reveals a “certain discontinuity” between the poem and the philosopher-poet’s own philosophy. “Choosing the medium of poetry,” Hardy notes, “Veṅkaṭeśa could construe the free poetic play of symbols and associations a structure that did not have to conform to any pre-given notional system.”⁴ And he follows with an argument that edges us, perhaps precariously, into areas of psychology and the unconscious:

 This is a remarkable verse from a remarkable text, and a fit example not only of the “heady” claims of poetry by this poet-saint philosopher, but of the innate strength of Veṅkaṭanātha’s poetry itself. The context of this phrase from verse 3 of the Vairāgya Pañcakam is the praise of kings: the poet states that he (a royal “we” in the verse) “will not beg even a piece of straw from kings with (his poet’s) words that drip/send forth/set free (Tamil commentator glosses vīcukiṉdṟa, “strew, scatter, sow”), or even more radically, “rob” or snatch away (as some gloss parimaḷamucā), the heady fragrance of the exquisite full-blown night-flowering jasmine.”  See Hardy 1979.  Ibid.: 307.  Ibid. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-026

384

Steven P. Hopkins

That [Veṅkaṭeśa] also drew on unconscious levels of his imagination, and that he was not fully aware of the discontinuity with his philosophy, is conceivable. It would be however nonsensical to ask who the ‘real’ Veṅkaṭésa was, whether the kavi or the tārkika. But it appears to me to be eminently sensible to ask whether it might be very profitable to explore such spiritual backgrounds also for other Indian philosophers; unfortunately, few were also good poets, so that the task will not be as easy as it has been for Veṅkaṭeśa. But the advantage of such an approach would be, that our picture of the history of Indian ideas would thereby acquire less of the character of a series of monolithic blocks of doctrines and notional systems.⁵

The play of the literary unconscious and psychological ambivalence aside, this is an extremely important insight which has haunted me for the almost thirty years I’ve been reading and translating the remarkable poetry of Veṅkaṭeśa – poetry, that in the poet’s very own (fighting) words, is able to “rob the full-blown nightflowering jasmine of its heady fragrance.” In my first book, Singing the Body of God, I argued for such a poetic “fluidity” beyond the strictures of Veṅkaṭeśa’s own Vaṭakalai Śrīvaiṣṇava theological positions in my reading of the term avyāja in the Varadarājapañcāśat, though in that book I also argued ultimately for the “primary” creativity of commentaries and the more or less “complementary” relationship between the poet and the philosopher in the work of Veṅkaṭeśa.⁶ We cannot forget that in the theological and philosophical works of Veṅkaṭeśa that focus on ritual and bodily practices, such as the magisterial maṇipravāa treatise, the Rahasyatrayasāram, original (and in many cases memorable) poetry in Tamil and Sanskrit, embedded in the mixed Tamil and Sanskrit prose text, is effectively marshaled to serve the main arguments of the theologian’s pratitantra, the core distinctive (superior) doctrine.⁷ The colourful rhetorical energies of Tamil and Sanskrit poetry in Veṅkaṭeśa’s popular theological treatises give an undeniable “bubbling, sparking, and brilliant flow” that artistically serve and adumbrate the arguments of the philosopher-theologian’s Viśi Ibid.  Hopkins 2002: 172– 180; 235 – 236.  The Rahasyatrayasāram itsef, as a treatise on the “three mysteries,” is seen as the “quintessence (sārastamamāṉa rahasyatrayattiḷē) of all passages that concern the nature of jīva and Īśvara, and which contains the best part of all main doctrines (pratitantra).” Rahasya, Chapter One, Upodghātādikāra: 67. For a summary of the pratitantra, see Chapter 3, Pradhānapratitantrādikāram: 82– 101. I also think here of Veṅkaṭeśa’s maṇipravāa treatise on the poetry of Tiruppāṇāḻvār, Śrī Munivāhanapōkam, discussed in Hopkins 2002: 135– 165. It is important that the rahasya texts overall address a more or less “general” (elite) audience of Śrīvaiṣṇava practitioners. They do not, for instance, cite the Upaniṣads, considered more suitable for purely philosophical discourse. I am indebted to Francis X. Clooney for drawing my attention to this point.

Theology in Poetry

385

ṣṭāvaita notional system; here poetry gives to reasoned and rigorous debate a powerful, and often refreshing, emotional texture that enriches the persuasive power of the text. Poetry warms up the proceedings; it opens us up to being persuaded. It is hard to emerge from the prologue of the Rahasyatrayasāram, the traditional praise of the orthodox line of gurus, without being charmed by the image of Rāmānuja the rampaging elephant; the fierce and frightening neighs of Hayagrīva who delights to sit on the tongues of the gurus, blowing into little tufts of cotton the doctrine banners of all opponents; or of the “sweet music of the Tamil Veda forgotten by the world” (taraḷam vaḻaṅkit tamiḻ maṟaiyiṉ ṉicai).⁸ One tends to forget the ordered lists amid images that charm and seduce on their own terms. The first chapter is elegantly structured not only around the literary narrative of the prince brought up among low-caste hunters, but is framed – in prose and verse – around the single vivid image of the jīva as a precious jewel like the Lord’s own gem kaustubhā,⁹ which he wears on his body. This image pushes the fact of divine-human intimacy, makes us feel almost an erotic and tactile closeness, literally, to the body of God, beyond prosy formulations. Verses in Veṅkaṭeśa’s prose are far more than mechanical theological gists in such treatises; read closely, they are primary literary forms that appeal to the emotions and to an experience of intense and sometimes overpowering beauty. This is all seemingly at the service of doctrine, though the lyrics can sometimes draw all the attention to themselves alone; possessing their own affective trajectory, they lift off the page and take flight. But where do they go? And to what purpose? Only persuasion? Only humble service? The verses, alive with Hardy’s unconscious forces, may indeed sometimes push the boundaries of the prose formulations beyond the role of servant to a master (śeṣa to śeṣī). After all, we are dealing here with poetry, and we still lack a detailed understanding of the “primary” performative work of lyric poetry in the philosophical prose of Veṅkaṭeśa. The text of the Rahasyatrayasāram strikingly concludes with a stream of ecstatic poetry, a liquifaction – a fragmenting and breaking apart – of the scholastic prose, as if to argue that, in the final analysis, the only truly effective verbal witness to divine mysteries is poetry.¹⁰

 For Hayagrīva, see Rahasya, Śrīguruparamparāsāram verse 3: 41; for Rāmānuja, verse 4: 42; for the image of the sweet music of Tamil, see verse 6: 44.  Rahasya, Chapter One, Upodghātādikāram: 45 – 69. See especially the final Tamil verse I.8: 67.  See the final chapter (32) of the Rahasyatrayasāram, the Nigamanādikāra: 1190 – 1216. After a summary of all the themes treated, in their proper scholastic order, followed by a series of descriptions – studded with literary citations from the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata – of the journey after death for those blessed and a vision of Viṣṇu/Kṛṣṇa and Śrī/Lakṣmī in heaven, the text

386

Steven P. Hopkins

At one point, in his maṇipravāḷa commentary on the saint-poet Tiruppāṇāḻvār’s Tamil prabandham Amalanāṭippirāṉ, Veṅkaṭeśa speaks of the Untouchable bard’s poem as anupava kana rasam āyirukkiṟatu, a “thick nectar of relish/enjoyment/experience,” and more simply, anupava parīvāhamāha, an “outpouring of ecstatic enjoyment,” an outpouring or overflowing/flowing along of imaginative vision or, using Henry Corbin’s phrase, “creative imagination,” or Blake’s, “poetic genius.” Anubhava, as a transformation of bhāvanā, implies not only experience or enjoyment or relish – with a focus on emotion and a kind of passivity vis-à-vis the experience – but also the self-fashioning creative imagination, artful prayer, spontaneous or otherwise. Veṅkaṭeśa wants us to see here a saint-poet’s devotion expressed in a spontaneous expressive imaginative faculty, and Tiruppāṇ’s anubhava of Viṣṇu is thus a creative “reimagining” of the body of the god in the temple in the form of a poem. We have here within this Sanskrit and Tamil devotional world the vision of a spontaneous outpouring of complex imaginative forms, formal composition that flows from the heart, something that confirms both spontaneous inner outflow and a rigorous and self-conscious verbal art.¹¹ It is also important to note, using the insightful recent studies of Marcus Schmücker on Veṅkaṭeśa’s philosophical-theological and polemical works, that this image of flow, or “flowing along” (pravāha), is hardly alien to the saintpoet’s philosophical thinking, especially when it comes to his work on time (kāla), time as both dravya (substance) and a series or succession of “states” (avasthāsantāna).¹² Though it is beyond the scope of this paper, I would argue that for Veṅkaṭeśa, the spaces of “poetry” precisely unfold in the continuous actualized material transformations (pariṇāma), beginningless (anādi) and infinite (ananta), of the one and the same “substance,” whether this is “Time” (kāla), the “Self” (ātmā) as Lord, or the “individual self” (jīvātman), and these transformations are not different (in a particular nuance of the advaita intuition) from their “source” or eternal base. The key to “poetry” in the philosophy of Veṅkaṭeśa would be in his ideas about “flow” and “flowing along” (pravāha), kāla as pariṇāma, the time-experi-

becomes a series of luminous image-rich verses in Tamil and Sanskrit. One could argue that there is a kind of necessary liquifaction of scholastic prose at the very end, given the pivotal performative role played by poetry in throughout Veṅkaṭeśa’s text. But this is matter for another paper, as is a comparison that immediately comes to mind – granted in a very different, far more radical, context – in Nietzsche’s use of poetry and song in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft.  See Hopkins 2002: 138 – 145.  See Schmücker 2020: 79 – 95.

Theology in Poetry

387

ence (kālānubhāva) of the continuous successive flow of forms.¹³ Seen in this light, poetry, rather than outright contradicting the “philosophy,” would serve to magnify the intensity of the ideas, making ideas vividly concrete, actualized in the world. But it is also true that when abstractions, however vivid and dynamic, become activated or actualized (bhāvanā, “reimagined”) by literary forms, we find ourselves in a very different field of discourse, not entirely translatable to the prose theology. This is what Hardy has called a field of “free play” and “sparkling” flow (citrapravāha, as it were), whose thought-forms can touch upon subconscious energies of the imagination beyond rational formulae. Veṅkaṭeśa’s theo-philosophy speaks of an “ordered succession” of states, one in which we experience only one mode at a time, unconfused and unmixed, whether this be past, present, or future, or various spiritual states or forms of god. The poetry itself, on the contrary, will place much emphasis on simultaneity, the often confusing mixing and mingling of more than one state of being, more than one form at a time. And as we will see, there precisely lies the difference between the poem and the prose. Any consideration of poetry and philosophy in Veṅkaṭeśa thus demands a nuanced argument, though I must say that over years of working with this poetry and reading through commentaries and pondering the rich “notional systems” of Śrīvaiṣṇava theological allegory, my thinking has drawn more closely to that of Hardy, who saw more tension than easy “complementarity” between poetry and philosophy in Veṅkaṭeśa, particularly in the independent works of poetry (kāvya, stotra-kāvya, and prabandham). But I would always want to keep the vision of “flow” wide open here. I think a deeper look at the poetry on its own terms will ultimately help us look back at the philosophical works with a new eye. But such a project is far beyond the scope of this paper. I have argued more on the side of tension and the particularity inherent in poetry in my most recent book on Veṅkaṭeśa, The Flight of Love, a study of the poet-saint and philosopher’s Haṃsasandeśa, a masterful Sanskrit messenger poem that depicts – in medias res – a drama of love and longing in the pan-Indian story of Rāma and Sītā, rooting its protagonists in a turbulent world where separation, overwhelming desire, and anticipated bliss, are written into the particularized bodies of lover and beloved, in the “messenger” goose and in the beloved landscapes that surround them.¹⁴

 Schmücker 2020: 78 ff. This is a subject worthy for a separate paper or thesis that would focus on “images of flow/flowing” in the works of Veṅkaṭanātha.  Hopkins 2016: 140; 242. See also Clooney 2014. Clooney uses both Hopkins (through the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar) and contemporary poet Jorie Graham to describe the irreducibly par-

388

Steven P. Hopkins

Keeping in mind the spirit of Hardy’s provocative insights on poetry and philosophy, the images of “reimagination,” “experience” (anubhava), and “flow” (pravāha; parivāha) in Veṅkaṭeśa’s poetry, and addressing themes central to the Twin Conference here in Schwerte, our interrogation, in Bernhard Nitsche’s words, of “god” or “divine,” “religious transcendence beyond monism and theism, between personality and impersonality,” I will focus my remarks on this most remarkable sandeśa by one of the most remarkable poet and philosopher/theologians of medieval South India.

A Theology in Poetry Veṅkaṭeśa’s sandeśa provides us with very complex and plural imaginative models of divine and human, of theology between monism and theism, transcendence and immanence, universals and irreducible particulars, and a vision of the love of god (objective and subjective genitive) intimately connected to the love of human persons, in a literary imaginary far more fluid than Veṅkaṭeśa’s own formal discourses – in scholastic commentary and in independent treatises – on the theology of Viśiṣṭādvaita, even in hybrid prose texts focussed on practice for a general audience like the Rahasyatrayasāram. ¹⁵ As I have already noted, the situation is curious, and demands nuance, though it is not entirely unique. In the works of a philosopher like Veṅkaṭeśa, who is also a poet, the poetry will seldom strictly conform to the philosopher’s own classificatory scruples. There are certain tensions, articulated or left in silence. What if we paid more attention to the poetry of the philosopher/poet than the theology or logic or philosophical formulations? Mad poetry-rivers run through the mental constructions, and the swift “disorderly rush” is dominant, in Veṅkaṭeśa as in the great Śaiva philosopher-poet Appayya Dīkṣita,¹⁶

ticular and resolutely material (and untranslatable) nature of poetry on its own terms. Clooney 2014: 21– 22; 33; 97; 115; 147, n.47; and esp. 26 – 31; 36 – 44.  For a sense of Veṅkaṭeśa’s style of systematic doctrinal summary, see especially Rahasya Chapter Three, Pradhānapratitantrādikāram (82– 101) and the first few pages of Chapter 32, the conclusion of the treatise, the Nigamanādikāram: 1190 – 1193, before the text dissolves into citation and lyric poetry.  See the discussion of Appayya Dīkṣita’s Ātmārpaṇastuti in Bronner/Shulman 2009: xlviii–lvi. See also their perceptive reading of Veṅkaṭeśa’s Haṃsasandeśa and Dayāśatakam, with an emphasis on the originality and “amazing directness and vibrancy” of the the saint-poet’s poetry. They note, with insight, in the intense and passionate epilogue to the Dayāśatakam that, in spite of the poet’s literary craft, “the gift of poetry is remembered as a disorderly rush, beyond the poet’s control, and almost too much for his readers to contain”(xlvii). Cf. also the reference to

Theology in Poetry

389

or in saint-poets like San Juan de la Cruz or the Sufi saint-poet philosopher Ibn al-‘Arabī (the Dīwān to his beloved Niẓām in his Tarjumān).¹⁷ Anand Venkatkrishnan, in his recent work on Śaiva commentaries on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, has drawn attention to the work of the 15th century Kerala poet-commentator Pūrṇasarasvatī – a Śaiva-Vaiṣṇava intellectual with advaitic tendencies. When this Kerala poet chooses to write a sandeśa, the “relatively sedate, philosophical view of bhakti” of his commentarial works is not only set aside, but transformed by tones of erotic intimacy, the unpredictable withdrawal of divine presence, and intense and unstable longing.¹⁸ What this all boils down to is a matter of literature; religiousness seen through the eye of literature. Venkatkrishnan points to another “Malayali maverick,” and Pūrṇasarasvatī’s 15th century contemporary, Rāghavānanda, who appreciated the Bhāgavata Purāṇa not merely for its sectarian philosophical/theological content, but as “literature,” and as so, viewed it as the “way to hold earthly and transcendent bliss together, more immediately that any theological stance would offer.” For Rāghavānanda – a philosopher/theologian who was also a literary connoisseur, a sahṛdaya – the text’s attraction transcended its sectarian claims.¹⁹ Beauty has ontological power; beauty itself can save. To briefly return to comparison: as Hans van Buitenen asked many years ago, in his study of Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṃgraha, how do we read the hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas’s alongside his Summa? ²⁰ Do we take their religo-literary aspirations seriously? How do Rinaldo d’Aquino’s Sicilian love lyrics in the mode of the Occitan troubadours, particularly those in the voice of the girl separated from her beloved, speak back to his brother Thomas’s theology? La croce salva giente e me facie disviare, la croce m’fa dolente: non mi val Dio pregare Oi croce pellegrina, perchè m’mài sì distrutta?

Appayya Dīkṣita’s datura-inspired meditation on Śiva that led to the composition of the Ātmārpaṇastuti (xlix).  See Hopkins 2007.  See Venkatkrishnan 2016. The talk is based on Chapter One of Venkatkrishnan’s forthcoming book MS Love in the Time of Scholarship.  Ibid.  Van Buitenen 1956: 32– 33. See also Hardy 1979: 317; 324. This of course includes the question of studying Rāmānuja’s gadyas alongside of his commentaries and independent treatises, giving equal weight to the “poetry.” We are still used to viewing the gadyas as “secondary” and (merely) devotional.

390

Steven P. Hopkins

Oimè lassa tapina, Ch’io ardo e ‘nciendo tutta The cross saves people and makes me lose my way the cross makes me sad I pray to god and it is useless o homeless pilgrim cross why do you destroy me ah dear god look at me a spent and wretched woman for I burn and flame out²¹

In Dante we have the two brothers, Thomas and Rinaldo, in one poet; and the sacred hymn, the secular troubadour lyric, and expository theology in the miraculous terza rima. And look what Dante did to Aquinas in his “sacred poem” that “leaps.” In Dante, to truly imagine paradise, and not simply theologize about it, the sacred poem must “leap” “like one who finds his path cut off:” e così, figurando il paradiso convien saltar lo sacrato poema, come chi trova suo cammin riciso. (Paradiso 23: 61– 63)²²

We begin with the simple idea that poetry keeps open what systematic philosophy and theology work to close, including most remarkably the dangerous spaces of love, love which captures us all, even a god (man), in its crazy whirly-gig motions well beyond the tight and domesticated borders of theological allegory.²³

 See section on Rinaldo d’Aquino in Kay 1965: 24– 31. This particular stanza comes from Già mai non mi conforto, ibid. 25.  Interesting to note as well that the reader with an acute ear will immediately recognize the reason Dante swoons (“totally confounded with sorrow,” di tristizia tutto mi confise) when he hears the lovely and tragic discourse of Francesca da Rimini out of the whirlwind of lovers in Inferno V: 88 ff.: she speaks his own poetry back to him, with grace beyond any other speaker in the “sacred poem,” and defends the damned lovers their irreducible and eternal particular love using Dante’s own poetic idiom, implicitly challenging Dante’s own ridged theological salvific scholastic structures of “divine justice,” and even his comparatively tepid theological transformation of the love lyric in the figure of Beatrice. See Dronke 1984: 378 – 379.  On thinks here of the charming verse of the Kāmasūtra, after a typically exhaustive scholastic listing of the various ways of sexual embrace – listing and classification in the Kāmasūtra is often hardly “erotic,” but are more about control and scholastic “order” – “when the wheel of sexual ecstacy is in full motion/there is no textbook at all, and no order.” See Doniger/Kakar 2009: xviii; 41– 42.

Theology in Poetry

391

The Wings of Thought The term viśiṣṭādvaita was not used by the great 11th–12th century bhakti theologian Rāmānuja, but was adopted by his later followers, partly on the basis of a passage in one of Veṅkaṭeśa’s treatises on logic and epistemology.²⁴ In Veṅkaṭeśa’s formulation, meant to systematize Rāmānuja’s position, Viśiṣṭādvaita describes ultimate reality (brahman) as being one “differentiated unity” (viśiṣṭaikya) that “has as its modes all sentient and insentient things” (aśeṣa-citacit-prakāraṃ brahmaikam eva tattvam). The term viśiṣṭādvaita thus preserves a sense of the divine both as one and yet organically related to the many. It asserts neither a theology of ultimate identity between person and cosmos with the divine, or one of ontological difference, but rather one of “identityin-difference” preserved at the highest level of being.²⁵ The divine in Rāmānuja both transcends and is in intimate relationship with the world and with creatures. It is “supreme” (para) and also “accessible” (saulabhya). The nature of this relationship is described by Rāmānuja in organic but unmistakably hierarchical terms, as that between self and body; container and contained; controller and controlled; ruler and realm; master and slave.²⁶ The poles of divine and human form one indivisible whole, yet inner hierarchical distinction and relation is eternal. Thus Rāmānuja’s vision – carefully elaborated in Veṅkaṭeśa’s systematic theological work – seems to be situated in a rational middle between monism and dualism.²⁷

 The Nyāya Siddhāñjana (Madras, 1953), jaḍadravyapariccheda, p. 2. Cited in Chari 1987: 2.  Rāmānuja argued against the ancient teachings of the Bhedābhedavāda, a philosophy that defended the view that there is both difference (bheda) and non-difference (abheda) between God and the universe. The Bhedābheda, associated with the philosopher Bhāskara, is perhaps one of the earliest forms of Vedānta. It is said that one of Rāmānuja’s first teachers belonged to the Bhedābheda school. See Carman 1981: 28 – 29.  See Carman 1981: 124– 157, for detailed analyses of these various pairs of relations: ātmaśarīra (self-body); ādhāra-adheya (container-contained); niyantā-niyāmya (controller-controlled); and śeṣī-śeṣa (master/controller/ruler-servant/liege/vassal/bond-slave/disposable property). See also Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter 3, Pradhānapratitantrādikāra: 82– 101.  Julius Lipner has observed, though with some reservations, that viśiṣṭādvaita comes close to the western notion of panentheism or “all things being in (one) God. For a discussion of what Lipner calls Rāmānuja’s “polarity theology,” see Lipner 1986: 120 – 142. This is also essentially the position of Srinivasa Chari 1987: 2. It must also be added that Rāmānuja’s notion implies not only extra-divine but also intra-divine polarities. One can distinguish a dynamic tension within the divine nature itself. Carman 1981: 77– 113, has analyzed in some detail two sets of intra-divine polarities central to Rāmānuja’s doctrine: paratva (“supremacy”) and saulabhya

392

Steven P. Hopkins

Rāmānuja’s doctrine of God is strikingly summarized in the following passage, taken from Rāmānuja’s gloss on Bhagavad Gītā X. 42, where Kṛṣṇa says: “I stand sustaining this entire world with a fragment of my being:”²⁸ This [verse] means “Having entered into this infinitely varied and amazing universe as its Self by an infinitesimal part of Myself and supporting everything by My will, by virtue of this form possessing an infinitely great realm [ananta-mahā-vibhūti], I remain an ocean of immeasurably generous qualities, for I am incomparably amazing.” [The Lord] says the same thing in the verse, “Who can comprehend the incomprehensible form of Brahman, who being one, is many and being many, is one?” By being its ruler, He is One. He enters into the magnificent variety [vicitra] of intelligent beings and material things as their inner Self, and in their several forms He has a variety of modes and causes a variety of actions. Thus He shares in the plurality of forms. In thus entering and supporting the universe of varied forms containing all amazing things – doing this with an infinitesimal part of Himself – He who is the Lord, the Supreme Brahman, the Supreme Person, Nārāyaṇa … though He exists in plurality, remains nevertheless essentially one. ²⁹

As we will see, many of the above careful theological distinctions are often broken down in the literary spaces of the “sacred poem.” Veṅkaṭeśa’s Haṃsasandeśa both extends (at times to paradox) and makes more dynamic and fluid – direct, materially activated, and vibrant – the very carefully articulated Viśiṣṭādvaita categories he so passionately defends in his independent theological and philosophical works.³⁰ So much for the wings of thought: we move now to the flight of love.

The Flight of Love With this in mind I will read through some selected stanzas from Veṅkaṭeśa’s Haṃsasandeśa, where we will see the difference poetry makes in Veṅkaṭeśa’s theology of divine, human, and natural worlds, Nitsche’s three-fold cosmomor-

(“easy accessibility”) and svarūpa (“essential nature”) and svabhāva (“inherent nature” or later “attributes/qualities”).  This is Barbara Stoler Miller’s translation of viṣṭabhyāham idaṃ kṛtsnam ekāṃśena sthito jagat; in Miller 1986: 95.  From Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṃgraha, paragraph 81, quoted in Carman 1981: 143 – 144. Cf. also translation and annotation in van Buitenen 1956: 239 – 240.  I might mention again that a careful study of the division of labour of poetry in Veṅkaṭeśa’s maṇipravāḷa prose treatises is needed.

Theology in Poetry

393

phic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic vision.³¹ The poem is seen by later early modern and contemporary Śrīvaiṣṇava commentators as an allegory, where Rāma is god, the abducted Sītā is the jīva or individual human soul, and the messenger goose is the guru/ācārya, a structure foreign to the literary textures and conventions of the Sanskrit poem itself, though important to any study of Veṅkaṭeśa’s theology in poetry.³² First the setting: after a sleepless night spent longing for his absent wife Sītā, Rāma, god-prince and future king, surveys his armies on a clear autumn morning and spies a white goose playing in a pond of lotus flowers. Seeing this radiant creature that so resembles his lost beloved, he begins to plead with the bird to give her a message of love and fierce revenge. So who is this god here – our hallowed self, controller, and master – and what is the nature of his grief?

A God in Pieces In the very first stanza (1.1) Rāma, the god and future king of the Sun Lineage, the cosmic Lord who honors humanity in his human birth, is sleepless and vigilant (jāgarūka) in the forest of Kiṣkiṇḍha, suffering in love (kāmī) like a mortal man, somehow lasting through a night that seems as long as a world age or kalpa: ³³ Born into a line of faultless solar kings, giving honor to the human form this god who was never without his shining goddess Śrī pined away in the dark for Janaka’s daughter with wide open sleepless eyes: deep in love and firm in resolve after the return of the Wind’s son Hanumān he somehow endured until dawn a black night long as a world age (1. 1)

 Der kosmomorphe Zugang; der soziomorphe Zugang; and der noomorphe Zugang. See Nitsche paper p. 17 (in this volume). I also think here of the triune “cosmotheandric” vision of Raimon Panikkar. See Panikkar 1993. All translations from the Haṃsasandeśa are my own and are taken from my recent book Hopkins 2016.  See my reading of selected passages from the Haṃsasandeśa with an eye on traditional Śrīvaiṣṇava commentaries in Hopkins 2016: 139 – 209.  kalpakārām katham api niśāmāvibhātam viṣehe. See Hopkins 2016: 144.

394

Steven P. Hopkins

We have fine psychological touches here and in subsequent verses. Rāma is pondering the message given to him by his monkey servant and devotee Hanumān, and this inspires in him an obsessive vision of Sītā in agony, a captive in Rāvaṇa’s palace in Laṅkā, alone in the aśoka grove, tormented by demonesses (rākṣasīs) and languishing in separation. Though as the high god Viṣṇu he somehow eternally possesses in perfect union his consort goddess Śrī/ Lakṣmī, as the normative theologies will proclaim,³⁴ as Rāma the king, having taken on a human body in time, he has lost her in her form as Sītā, and is longing for her in growing despair and mental torment. The verse itself does not resolve the tension between divine and human here, the “I” of the god and the “I” of the human godman: they settle uneasily, as if one identity were above the other, with a broken middle between them. The poem right at the outset does not concern itself with a splendid ordered array of the Lord’s incarnations, from para to vyūha to vibhāva. ³⁵ In terms of Veṅkaṭeśa’s own analysis of time, we do have here an “ordered succession” of states, where each state “has its own time in which it has its being,” without confusion or simultaneity or overlap.³⁶ The god (devaḥ) as god is equally jāgarūkaḥ, insomniac and suffering, longing for his lost beloved in the dark. And if we remember, as religious readers of a theological allegory, Sītā is also the lost and abducted, violated jīva, the individual “soul” or “life(force),” we are also lost, and our controller seems out of control; our master rather out-mastered. There seems to be far more here than simple divine “self-forgetfulness,” a recurrent theme in Rāmānuja’s bhakti theology, seen as an aspect of the god’s compassion.³⁷ We have a god in pieces here, closer to the divided self in a purely secular lyric of the contemporary Palestinian poet Maḥmūd Darwīsh, where the poet ponders and questions two dispersals of himself on the Jordan Bridge: I am two in one or am I one who is shrapnel in two? O bridge

 See Veṅkaṭeśa, quoting Nammāḻvār, on the Lord who “is always standing, dwelling with Lakṣmī adorned with shining bangles,” or who dwells, seated on a royal couch, in the “pure realm in the air” (Vaikuṇṭha, heaven) with his great lady queen, in Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter One, Upodghātādikāram: 53.  See Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter 5, Tattvatraya: 201– 203.  See Schmücker 2020: 90.  See Carman 1981: 197– 198.

Theology in Poetry

395

which of the two dispersals am I?³⁸

Veṅkaṭeśa’s verse does not resolve the tensions of a god in pieces; we have here, and throughout the poetry of the Haṃsasandeśa, juxtaposition rather than the exposition of an esoteric theological treatise (rahasya). The poet lets the oppositions sit on the page and in the ear of the reader/listener. The emotional instability of the god-man reaches a pitch-point when he sees a white goose playing in a pond of lotus flowers, and, falling into a delirious swoon (ceto vilaya), is overwhelmed by fierce emotion: His eye fixed unwavering on the slow sensual walk, just like Sita’s, on the lovely white body like the bodies of geese woven into her fine dukūla forest dress, on its sweet call like the low threshing ring of her anklet, our hero lost for some time sense and self, his mind steeped in her alone: as they say the call of the Fish-Bannered God of Love can be cruel sometimes (1. 3)

For a moment here in his swoon Rāma loses himself and fuses with Sītā; he loses himself in her who is still absent, out of his longing for her presence. Separation unites them for one moment, a richly paradoxical experience that Veṅkaṭeśa will return to later in the poem. Somehow recovering, though still confused and obsessed, this “brother of Lakṣmaṇa” begins to speak to the gander as if it were human, offering it tender lotus petals, cajoling it, in a kind of a dark vehement madness (gāḍhonmādaḥ) brought on by separation. It would be his messenger, he thinks, greater than aerial Hanumān, his servant; it would send his love back to “the daughter of Mithila” – literally breathing life-breath back into her, jīvayiṣyan, with a message of deepest tenderness, sandeśena pranayamahatā – before he and his armies reach Rāvaṇa’s gardens. Veṅkaṭeśa the poet then muses (1. 4): like all lovers in the world who burn in separation, Rāma takes almost more solace in the messenger, in the tender message sent, than in the physical embrace of the beloved:

 “Dense Fog over the Bridge,” from Exile (2005). Darwish 2009: 163.

396

Steven P. Hopkins

for those mad with love finding the right messenger brings more bliss than even a lover’s passionate kisses.³⁹

One of the major 20th century Śrīvaiṣṇava commentators, Vīrarāghavācārya, mutes the strangeness of this verse by allegoresis: the deeper “transcendental” “spiritual” ādhyātmika and implied (vyañjita) meaning here is that the guru’s praises (the goose as the Paramahaṃsa or great Ācārya) are superior to a lover’s embrace.⁴⁰ The theological commentaries on the poem will consistently transport us far from the dangerous excesses of the immediate erotic context of deep feeling, fragmentation, loss, momentary unity, and delirium, returning us to structure. But the poetry remains, resonating in its primary power. And to return to the god’s delirious swooning, why not a goose, thinks Rāma in the following verse: have not lovers in the past, crazy with love, asked insensible things – clouds, mountains, trees – to bear their messages? Honoring that royal gander in greater measure than he honored his old friend and servant Āñjaneya, in a dark vehement madness he worked hard to win the confidence of a creature who could tell him nothing: those shaken by love in separation are reduced to pleading with clouds, begging mountains and trees insentient things – how much more we expect from an animal that knows feeling (1. 5)

Rāma’s love madness here dissolves the rational doctrinal theological boundaries of divine-human as self-body, master-servant, and controller-controlled, placing an emphasis on divine vulnerability to losses and fragmentation associated with human particular love. In Veṅkaṭeśa’s poem love’s feelings are disruptive and turbulent, even for a god, who has gone very quickly out of control, outmastered by passion.⁴¹ Even for Rāma, who takes on his humanity (manuṣyatvaṃ) to “honor” the human. This leaky, unstable, vulnerable, turbulent world of love – where one becomes porous, where one’s fixed boundaries are inundat-

 We observe here another dispersion and disassociation of “self” in the god.  See Haṃsa 1973a: 7 (Rahasya 2).  For a powerful set of verses that describe the confused, violent emotions of Rāma’s love-inseparation from Sītā in Kampaṉ, see Irāmāvatāram, Āraṇiyakāṇṭam 11, Ayōmuki Patalam, 1– 34, translated beautifully in Hart/Heifetz 1988: 266 – 274 (citing the critical edition, where the passages occur in chapter 9: 1– 34 (3642– 3675).

Theology in Poetry

397

ed by emotion, by a flood of tears, haunted by the memories of the past, tormented by present loss, and fearful for the future – is linked to patterns of Tamil poetry, with ideas of pittu, “lunacy,” mayakkam, “confusion,” and Veṅkaṭeśa’s Sanskrit text exudes its dark residue.⁴² We are far here from the daylight ordered structures of Viśiṣṭādavita propositions, pure and simple. We are confronted with disordered leakage rather than the ordered “flowing on” of theologies of ascent and descent. The next verses combine Rāma’s over-weaning praises of the goose (1. 6) with equally exaggerated claims concerning his own mere humanity and mortality (1.7); he juxtaposes without comment his terrible state of distracted madness with self-praise and claims of power, for after all, at the same time he is one born with such great and perfected powers in the bloodline of Ikṣvāku kings who could turn all the blue worlds upsidedown with the flick of a finger (1. 8)

Such is the picture of our high god as a man, the god (for the moment) in pieces, suffering love, addressing a bird, speaking “goose” to get his beloved a message. What theology do we have here? A literary vision of viśiṣṭādvaitatic saulabhya, divine “accessibility” distorted and stretched to extremes. Divine “self-forgetfulness” for the sake of whom? Any drop of divine condescension or theology of descent is gone. Rather we seem to have a vision of “horizontality” emerge: “god” and jīva equally vulnerable to suffering. The theology of this poetry seems to make a virtue out of vulnerability, even for the god. But this is not merely a negative thing. Love as pathos (karuṇā) also opens us up, melts boundaries, breaks through constriction and control in a positive way.⁴³ It melts the master, and the controller is forced to give up control, well beyond the mechanics of selfforgetfulness. Excessive suffering in love precisely melts stubborn boundaries

 For an account of this kind of emotionalism in Sītā in Kampaṉ’s Rāmāyaṇa, see Shulman 1991. This episode emphasizes Sītā’s intense emotionalism and Rāma’s stony silence. Suffering will also come, eventually, to Rāma himself. Shulman’s descriptions of Sītā’s experience in the fire-test episode (agniparīkṣā) in Kampaṉ well describes Rāma in the opening of Veṅkaṭeśa’s sandeśa: “Dynamic flux, instability, emotional excess and imbalance, the flooding of memory, the mingling of past and present, an inner experience of potential unity, the hesitations of language – this is the range of associations that Kampaṉ calls up at the outset of Sītā’s ordeal.” Shulman 1991: 99.  This “karuṇā pattern” of love is connected to the work of the 8th century poet-playright Bhavabhūti from Vidarba, particularly in his Uttararāmacaritam. See discussion in Hopkins 2016: 149; 200 – 202. See also Shulman 2001: 80 – 82.

398

Steven P. Hopkins

between the lovers, bringing Sītā and Rāma – god and jīva – together, almost telepathically, beyond the constrictions of space and time.⁴⁴ The poem activates a vision experience of horizontality and contiguity, not hierarchy. After this initial breakdown, Rāma comes to life as he begins to describe to the goose the idealized southern geocultural landscape he is to travel on his way to Sītā on the distant island mountain of Laṅkā. The literary energies of natural description light up the pages, and, in the words of Veṅkaṭeśa, we are made to “see what the heart hears:” With thin rays of sunlight as its ribs bits of Indra’s rainbow as dye for the cloth on its knotted colored tassels and wind at your back to bear it o king of geese the autumn clouds will be for you a royal parasol wide as the sky (1. 13)

A God Dispersed in Space These vivid descriptions contain many references to multiple and simultaneous forms of the divine (Viṣṇu with Śrī), personal and impersonal, “God” and the “divine,” scattered forms of Rāma himself in a landscape rich with shrines. We see this “god” spread out in dense vividly particular sociomorphic forms, to use Nitsche’s term. We see Viṣṇu on Lamp Black Hill, with the hill as the coiled body of the serpent Śeṣa himself its hooded peaks hung with bright jewels and scudding clouds like freshly shed skin (1. 21)

And there is the transgendered “inscrutable god, mother of worlds” (kapi devatā) in Kāñcīpuram (1. 32), a cloud the color of dark emerald swollen with the flood waters of mercy, its body caressed by a slender streak of lightning, the goddess Lakṣmī (1. 33)

 The above discussion is indebted to the discussion in Hopkins 2016: 143 – 150.

Theology in Poetry

399

Rāma’s ecstatic imaginative description (bhāvanā; anubhava) juxtaposes the experience of an indescribable mass of grace far beyond any single conceptual form (what we are calling here the noomorphic dimension) to the personified (sociomorphic and sexy) glances of the goddess Lakṣmī; from a “primordial” and “divine light,” “self-illumined in each particular form” at the shrine of White Mountain (1. 39), to the lovely material icon of the future Raṅganātha “taking bodily form out of its own sheer will” (1. 45 – 46). There is no single stable form of god (Viṣṇu or Śrī) in the religious landscapes of the poem, but forms simultaneously cross and re-cross socio- and noo-morphic visions of the transcendent. All forms are present at one and the same time in Veṅkaṭeśa’s “flowing along” (pravāha).⁴⁵ At one quite remarkable point, Rāma, seemingly out of devotional excess, in religious awe (a variation of our love swoon) before a proleptic vision of his own temple icon in future Śrīraṅgam, composes a formal stotra to himself. The god falls in love with his own image (“my mind runs to that primordial god”), a future already made present in mental vision and in the material form of the lyric praise: His splendor takes bodily form out of its own sheer will and shines in his most holy and pure royal shrine like a dark emerald in a golden jewelbox: my mind runs to that primordial god who reclines with one long arm stretched back behind his head as pillow, on the coils of Śeṣa king of cobras – it runs to the deep sidelong glances of his eyes, to the one who is precious life to the beloved ocean’s daughter (1. 46).

What was once, at the beginning of the poem, the damaging breakage of a god in pieces here becomes a kind of ecstasy of dispersion in space, a god who is indeed only “one,” though present particularly – most real, most concrete, most distinct – in each illumined and illuminating form, and the poet experiences these forms as simultaneously activated. This is Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta in its most poetic form, what Rāmānuja would have termed the god’s ananta-mahā-vibhūti, in a dazzling and amazing power of endless greatness, one god entirely whole in each particular form, and what Veṅkaṭeśa himself speaks of as the “uncountable forms of Kṛṣṇa” (kṛṣṇarūpāṇy asaṃkhyāni) in the Rahasyatrayasāram, citing the systematic enumerations of

 See again references to pravāha in Schmücker 2020: 79; 95

400

Steven P. Hopkins

the Pāñcarātra Āgama. ⁴⁶ But it is poetic form, so the system evaporates in the intensity of experience (anubhava).

Never Merely “Nature”/Visionary Forms in the Natural-Cosmographic Vision A reader of the sandeśa will also note throughout Veṅkaṭeśa’s poem what we are calling, after Nitsche, the “natural-cosmographic” ways of relating to “transcendence.” Veṅkaṭeśa’s depiction of the natural world is always compounded of multiple bodily visionary forms: in an almost Blakean sense, a rock, grove, or river is never merely a rock or a grove or a river in this Sanskrit sandeśa landscape, but rocks and groves, seen with the “devotional” (visionary) eye, are animated embodied forms – of gods, goddesses, spirits (animal and human), ghosts, ancestors, theriomorphs, demons – everything, sentient or insentient (the distinction is often meaningless), lives and breathes as personified (divine) bodies. This is done technically by skilful deployment of utprekṣā, the “fanciful” poetic vision of things as “more than” usual – bringing into visual imaginal form true but latent identities – combined with a vigorous use of atiśayokti, hyperbole, and śleṣa double entendre. We have the Kāvērī river swiftly blown by the wind from the broad lap of her father, the Sahya Hills, to flow to the sea blessed with all good fortune by charmed prayers of twice-born priest-birds like you, and at dawn the wet wild palms scent as if with sweetest perfumes this shy smiling river girl with showers of areca nut flowers dripping with honey (1. 43)

Or the Tāmraparṇī, in whose waters the goose will lose himself. Rāma tells him to taste long kisses from her fragrant lotus mouth and cooled by close caresses of lapping waves, her delicate white arms

 Veṅkaṭeśa, Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter 5, Tattvatraya: 201– 202. These are the vyūhas in a theology of descent.

Theology in Poetry

401

lie down at your ease in her moist sandy lap fanned by breezes from sandalwood hills: may all weariness wear away before you take flight over the dark sea (1. 52)

Sexual passions are mirrored back as mostly positive in these natural-cosmographic forms of divine presence that resonate with human feeling. As the goose flies away from land at the southern tip of South India, “like an arrow shot from the longbow of the shore,” he sees natural forms transparent to divine animated essence mirrored in ocean waters as he heads for the island mountain: Then look down and see jungles on fire, the red sky at twilight, a royal elephant daubed with bright vermilion, the black Lord wrapped in his beloved yellow waistcloth, a blue monsoon cloud split by lightning: the dark ocean o friend flows through coral reef gardens, two bodies become one in the blind ecstasy of love (1. 55) And there in the depth of blue shore waters you will see massive red coral beds, long braids of dried blood that once flowed from the mountain’s severed wings, their luster blurred then brightened by restless sea tides: with your reflection as the moon and bright pearls dropped by the waves its stars, they will seem the very image of an endless twilight on the earth (1. 58)

As we head for the mountain it is as if we have forgotten the inner turmoil of the opening scene, the mental travail at the very heart of this message for the goose. We have turned our gaze entirely outward, focussing on the majesty of god in temple towns, shrines, and the divine presence in the material universe, all of this material grace flowing. But in the second “message” portion of the poem, we will return to the broken present, the poignancy of absence, and the temporal struggle between memory (the past and past union) and the continuing force of desire (a willed “tempiternal” present and the future and future union). As for our natural-cosmographic vision, it actually reaches a kind of crescendo in the description of mother earth’s laments echoing Rāma’s (still) mad vehement passion near the close of the poem (2. 39) when Rāma says:

402

Steven P. Hopkins

Often perhaps seeing me so overcome by my mad vehement passion, a mass of dark clouds lets loose out of thin air some kind of inarticulate sobbing cry, and rain falls, as it always does, from the eyes of the sky, causing your own mother earth to fill with tears – transfixed by hot vapors, too much of grief, her own laments echo in the mountains (2. 39)

I Hurt in my Sītā: Pain as Unity In the second part of the poem we rejoin Rāma’s suffering, but not on his own terms, from his side of things, but through that of his Sītā. In Śrīvaiṣṇava allegory we shift from the suffering of the god to the suffering of the jīva, the individual person who is in pieces, and who laments the loss of her lover, her god. But this is not literally Sītā, but Sītā through, or rather “in” Rāma’s eye as the “apple of his eye.” But even more radically the verse speaks of Sītā herself as Rāma’s eye (sā me dṛṣṭih): her waist the slender altar of sacrifice lovely in every perfect limb she hides inside her body the secret treasure of love’s essence itself equal to the goddess of luck and blessing she is my eye (2. 10)

The message section contains a rich re-imagination (anubhava; bhāvanā) of the lamenting body of Sītā. She is seated under her “solitary śiṃśupa tree,” where her jeweled anklet hangs, partly hidden in the heavy foliage; she is dressed in her dukūla dress with its designs of geese, and is languishing in the fires of separation, just as Rāma first imagined her. We are made witness now, in vivid literary presentational reality, to a suffering body, to a body marked by desire, separation, and lament.⁴⁷ The extended anubhava depicts the striking intimacy between lover and beloved, self and body, controller and controlled, “master” and “servant/slave” in the depiction of Sītā (the jīva) and Sītā’s suffering through Rāma’s grieving “eye.” Their identities – god and jīva, husband and wife, divine and human – are some-

 Hopkins 2016: 182– 192.

Theology in Poetry

403

times entirely confused – and fused – in the striking and critical image of Sītā being Rāma’s eye. We are very far from the proper theological order of descent, with Rāma first, as Bhagavān; Śrī second as patroness of the jīva; and Lakṣmaṇa third and “last” as the jīva. ⁴⁸ Through their suffering they are one, to the point that Rāma can be said to feel pain in his Sītā – the god feels pain in his jīva. This seems to approach a certain kind of Advaita pure and simple, non-duality “without” difference, at least for the moment. The temporal fusion of past, present, and future is also imaginatively activated for the reader, as the grammatical tenses subtly shift to the present, and we see (and speak to) Sītā as if she were actually there, right before our eyes (“set straight in the path of his two searching eyes” (nayanoḥ vartmani sthāpayitvā). And this texual non-duality seems to be mirrored in the experience of Sītā as jīva when she is inspired, after great suffering, to perform a bit of love metaphysics: She quiets the flow of conscious thought by cutting off all contact with external things, following the secret dictates of the Scripture of Love, her mind focussed on me alone: with the absolute power of a mental poetry that delights in no other thing but me, her heart’s hard core softening with love and dissolving, she slips into a deep space beyond all distinction (2. 22)

And we must always remind ourselves: Rāma himself is narrating an account of a union with himself, his true self as “the Self,” the very ātmā of the jīva. Yigal Bronner and David Shulman remark of this verse that, in Rāma’s “imagination of her imagining him, the union or even fusion is already complete.”⁴⁹ In the poem, most radically for Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, unity and identity without difference. The fulness of the noomorphic – what Raimón Panikkar would call the “tempiternal” – present. Theology will identify this moment as one where the jīva experiences the very svarūpa of the Lord as the antaryāmin, the Lord (Īśvara) dwell-

 See the fascinating passage on the three-fold symbolism of OṂ (AUṂ) in Veṅkaṭeśa’s Rahasyatrayasāram, where he cites a Rāmāyaṇa text “Rāma went first, Sītā walked in the middle, and Lakṣmaṇa, bow in hand, walked behind, following them.” The text he says implies a certain hierarchical order of descent: Bhagavān the Lord (Īśvara) is first; Śrī/Lakṣmī is second, and Lakṣmaṇa as the jīva is third. Such a systematic “order” is absent in the sandeśa’s emotional world. Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter 3, Pradhānapratitantrādikāram: 94– 95.  Bronner/Shulman 2006: 25. See also Shulman 2012: 134– 135.

404

Steven P. Hopkins

ing in the heart, keeping god and heart functionally separate.⁵⁰ The poem blurs, or rather obliterates boundaries. Here the general truth of noomorphic fulness, through the controlling power of love-yoga, seems to conquer individual, particular loss, but not for long.⁵¹ Particularity – stubborn apartness – will reassert itself rather abruptly – and crucially – in verse 2. 23, we return to Sītā’s body in pain, the essential co-truth of separation, immediate and irreducibly particular. We enter here the turbulent landscape of lament (vilapana): A vacant stare, unbounded sighing, too much of grief, lotus face shut tight as a bud, yet tears flow from closed eyes in fierce rushing torrents of rivers, lament without end: by what inexorable law or fate has she, so deeply bound to me, been drawn into such inconceivable misery – her slender sweet body – o my heart now burns within me (2. 23)

In Veṅkaṭeśa’s poem, the most sublime experiences of fusion and fulness between creator and creature as lover and beloved (in 2. 22) are juxtaposed, like Rāma’s humanity and divinity that began our journey, with moments that evoke sheer particularity, bodily separation, difference, and lament over physical loss (2. 23); again, the poetic juxtaposition without exposition. ⁵²

 See Veṅkaṭeśa, Rahasyatrayasāram Chapter 5, Tattvatrayam: 201– 203.  Bronner and Shulman emphasize the ultimately positive nature of this imaginative fusion of Rāma and Sītā. See Bronner/Shulman 2006. I would stress a more paradoxical “unity” in the fact of their separation. Rāma and Sītā are made most real to one another through their pain in separation.  Hopkins, 2016: 192– 195. For a suggestive theological exposition of a religious experience of advaita that does not contradict, at least on an abstract level, particularity and particular love of a distinct other person, the beloved as “person,” see Panikkar 1969: 230 – 239. For an expanded form of the piece see Panikkar 1979: 278 – 289. “I love you, my beloved,” summarizes Panikkar, “without any ‘why’ beyond nor any ‘because’ behind my love; I love you simply, for in you I discover the Absolute – though not as an object, of course, but as the very subject loving in me. I love you with an inclusive and unique love, for it is the currents of universal love that passes through you, as it were, for in this my love to you universal love is kindled and finds expression” (236). This is an impressive and subtle theology of love, though we find no such domesticating and taming theological balance in Veṅkaṭeśa’s poem. The advaita moment, when the above might be true, lasts only for an instant. Then we have fracture, loss, liquifaction of the body

Theology in Poetry

405

We have here a world at times fused into a kind of momentary monistic ecstasy, and then broken into two pieces; we briefly actively re-experience bliss and sexual union through the proleptic power of the lyric form, but then plunge again into present agony and separation: velātīta praṇayavivaśam bhāvam āseduṣor nau bhogārambhe kśaṇamiva gatā pūrvamāliṅganādyaiḥ | saṃpratyeṣā sutanu śataśaḥ kalpanāsaṇgamais te cintādīrghair api śakalitā śarvarī nāpayāti || In the old days o lady of sweet body consumed by a madness of passion that seemed to have no limit we had barely begun to make love our bodies pressed close together in tight embrace when the night would vanish in an instant: but now broken into pieces by a thousand acts of love in my mind this same night made even deeper dark long with memories of you never ends (2. 33)

At best we paradoxically experience a kind of love metaphysics of union through suffering and separation when Rāma, still physically distant, though willingly emotionally fluid and vulnerable, accepting his vulnerability, finds, touches, and, in an image at once metaphysical and sexual-physical, still “enters” Sītā: dehasparśaṃ malayapavane dṛṣṭisambhedam indau dhāmaikatvaṃ jagati bhuvi cābhinnaparyaṅkayogam | tārācitre viyati vitataṃ śrīvitānasya paśyan dūrībhūtāṃ sutanu vidhīnā tvām ahaṃ nirviśāmi || I touch your body in the warm Malaya wind our eyes meet in the moon we live together in a single house this world and lie together on the same bed this good earth with the sky full of stars our shimmering royal canopy you see o lady of sweet body even though fate has driven us so far apart I still enter you (2. 40)

and senses, and lament as the work of melancholy. Panikkar’s work leaves no room for experiences of loss, separation, and the common “resistance” of the real and utterly “individual” other (person) in love. Such resistance, and duality, is suppressed throughout his theological work, which operates through the lens of “Man,” the utrum subject (an Androgynous “whole”) that seems to have transcended the messy realities of sexual difference. See also Panikkar 2010: 212– 232 on “advaita and trinity.”

406

Steven P. Hopkins

The poem seems to hints at a reality quite remote from rational theological notional structures. In terms of difference and non-difference, we seem to have the insight here that it is through their pain – through their separation – that Rāma and Sītā, and so god and jīva, become most real to one another; it is through pain and the severing of connection, and not merely through yoga samādhi, that they are one.⁵³ And we reader/listeners are also meant to feel this in our bodies. Description here, for Rāma, for the goose, and also for us who look through the “eye” of the text – Rāma’s eye (which is “Sītā”) – is also participation. Rāma loves as we are meant to love, in full particularity, no matter the suffering.⁵⁴ The poem tracks an unsteady oscillation that at times more resembles the paradoxical formulations of acintya bhedābhedavāda, simultaneous “difference” and “nondifference,” in its later refractions in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theology, than the comparatively domesticated and “rational” hierarchical categories of Viśiṣṭādavita, simply understood.⁵⁵ And this is true, in spite of the fact that Veṅkaṭeśa himself, as a philosopher and theologian, was so deeply opposed the bhedābhedavāda school of thought, at least as he understood it in his time.⁵⁶ As for the “unconscious levels of an author’s imagination,” we will leave that for another paper.

Poetry Leaping The rigorously rational structures of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, in its preservation of difference and “distinctions” within the godhead and between god and creatures, indeed opens up dynamic spaces for love and most vividly the irreducibly

 I am indebted to Katherine Ulrich for this insight regarding Rāma’s and Sītā’s “union” in pain and suffering. See also Shulman 2001: 76 – 82.  Hopkins 2016: 197.  Again one thinks here of the carefully delineated boundaries between śeṣa and śeṣī, master and servant/slave (dāsa) in the author’s own Rahsyatrayasāram. See Rahasyatrayasāram, Chapter 3, Pradhānapratitantrādikāram: 98 – 99.  One thinks here also of the way of union through pain and the oscillating and at times tortuously disrupting experiences of divine presence and absence – beyond any simple rational hierarchical “ascent” model or single unitary “ladder of love” – in the accounts of late medieval female Christian mystic Angela di Foligno, who claimed to have been “in the God-man almost continually,” the key word here being quasi, “almost,” used quite frequently in her “book” (Il libro della Beata Angela da Foligno). See Lachance/Guarnieri 1993: 205; 301 (“Transformed into God, without having lost its own substance, its entire life is changed and through this love it becomes almost totally divine.”)

Theology in Poetry

407

particularized love of lover and beloved. But as theology it also seeks to domesticate and order the boundaries of love, to preserve neat bounded hierarchies, such as self and body, master and slave, or the “ordered succession of forms” from the true source, in ways quite foreign to the works of passion in Indian literatures and vernacular forms of South Indian bhakti poetry. Veṅkaṭeśa’s remarkable poem, as I have briefly shown, blurs such neat boundaries set by theological formulations or scholastic allegories, even when the poet himself is also a philosopher who is busy constructing such scholastic and allegorical systems in his prose works. His poem makes leaps that systematic theology (narrowly defined) cannot entirely imagine. In the Haṃsasandeśa of the philosopher Veṅkaṭanātha the borders of divinity, humanity, and nature (the “wild”) are not so carefully bounded and cultivated, but, through the act of the creative imagination (bhāvanā), they are porous, fluid wetlands that flow and bleed through boundaries, mixing and mingling the landforms and soils of “god” and “divine,” human and god, personality and impersonality, often simultaneously. The god adds depth dimension to the human; the human enriches the god with feeling; and the natural world around them mirrors their suffering and separation in love – as we see mother earth’s laments echo in the mountains in response to a god’s sorrow – but also, in warm spring breezes, Sītā’s mother the Earth will eventually give blessing, the dangerous but enticing gift of love, and future fecundity. The “divine” in the “sacred poem that leaps” (to apply Dante’s phrase to Veṅkaṭanātha’s sandeśa), is thus simultaneously natural-cosmographic (present in “nature” and the natural world); sociomorphic (present in personal bodily forms, of deities and god fully in humanity); and noomorphic, a divine spirit always at work in everything, in an absolute non-dual and tempiternal present “now.”

Bibliography Primary Literature Rahasyatrayasāram, Veṅkaṭeśa/Veṅkaṭanātha. Śrīmat Rahasyatrayasāram with Sāravistara commentary by Śrī Uttamūr Vīrarāghavācarya. T. Nagar, Madras (Chennai): Ubhaya Vedanta Granthamala 1980

408

Steven P. Hopkins

Secondary Literature Bronner/Shulman 2006. Yigal Bronner, David Shulman, ‘A Cloud Turned Goose’: Sanskrit in the Vernacular Millennium. Indian Economic and Social History Review 43/1 (2006): 1 – 30. Bronner/Shulman 2009. Yigal Bronner, David Shulman, “Self-Surrender,” “Peace,” “Compassion,” & “The Mission of the Goose”: Poems and Prayers from South India by Appayya Dikshita, Nilakantha Dikshita & Vedanta Deshika. New York: NYU Press and JJC Foundation 2009. Chari 1987. S. M. Srinivasa Chari, Fundamentals of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: A Study Based on Vedānta Deśika’s Tattva-muktā-kalāpa. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1987. Carman 1981. John B. Carman, The Theology of Rāmānuja. Bombay: Ananthacharya Indological Research Institute 1981. Clooney 2014. Francis X. Clooney, His Hiding Place is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2014. Darwish 2009. Mahmud Darwish, If I Were Another. Translated by Fady Joudah. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 2009. Doniger/Kakar 2009. Vatsyayana Kamasutra: A NewTranslation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar. [Oxford World’s Classics] Oxford, New York 2009. Dronke 1984. Peter Dronke, “Francesca and Heloïse”. In: The Medieval Poet and his World. Peter Dronken (Ed.). Roma: Edizione di storia e letteratura 1984, 359 – 387. Hardy 1979. Friedhelm Hardy, The Philosopher as Poet: A Study of Vedāntadeśika’s Dehalīśastuti. Journal of Indian Philosophy 7 (1979): 277 – 325. Hart/Heifetz 1988. George Hart, Hank Heifetz, The Forest Book of the Rāmāyaṇa of Kampaṉ. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1988. Hopkins 2002. Steven P. Hopkins, Singing the Body of God: The Hymns of Vedāntadeśika in their South Indian Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press 2002. Hopkins 2016. Id., The Flight of Love: A Messenger Poem of Medieval South India by Veṅkaṭanātha. New York: Oxford University Press 2016. Hopkins 2007. Id., Extravagant Beholding: Love, Ideal Bodies, and Particularity. History of Religions 47/1 (2007): 1 – 50. Kay 1965. George Kay, The Penguin Book of Italian Verse. Harmondworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1965. Lachance/Guarnieri 1993. Paul Lachance, Romana Guarnieri, Angela of Foligno. Complete Works. Translated, with an introduction by Paul Lachance, O.F.M., Preface by Romana Guarnieri. New York: Paulist Press 1993. Lipner 1986. Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth: A Study of Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja. Albany: State University of New York Press 1986 Miller 1986. Stoler Miller, The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. New York: Bantam 1986. Panikar 1993. Raimón Panikkar, The Cosmothenadric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness. New York: Orbis 1993. Panikar 2010. Id., The Rhythm of Being: The Gifford Lectures. New York: Orbis Press 2010. Pannikar 1969. Id., Advaita and Bhakti: A Letter from Vrindavan, Bhagavan Das Commemoration Volume. Varanasi: Kashi-Vidyapeeth University 1969. Pannikar 1979. Id., Myth, Faith & Hermeneutics. New York: Paulist Press 1979.

Theology in Poetry

409

Schmücker 2020. Marcus Schmücker, “Soul and Qualifying Knowledge (Dharmabhūtajñāna) in the Later Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of Veṅkaṭanātha”. In: Ayon Maharaj (Ed.), The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta. London: Bloomsbury 2020, 75‒104. Shulman 2001. David Shulman, “Bhavabhūti on Cruelty and Compassion”. In: Questioning Rāmāyaṇas: A South Asian Tradition. Paula Richman (Ed.). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 2001, 49 – 82. Shulman 2012. David Shulman. More Than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press 2012. Shulman 1991. David Shulman, “Fire and Flood: The Testing of Sītā in Kampaṉ’s Irāmāvatāram”. In: Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Paula Richman (Ed.). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1991. Van Buitenen 1956. J.A.B. van Buitenen, Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṃgraha. Introduction, Critical Edition, and Annotated Translation. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute 1956. Venkatkrishnan 2016. Anand Venkatkrishnan, Śaivism and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies 2016.

Timothy Cahill

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator Between Personal and Impersonal Transcendence Scholars may reasonably question the utility and relevance of Indian aesthetic ideas in understanding theological topics such as transcendence, the unconditioned absolute, and processes of religious transformation. Concepts adduced in Indian literary texts about a millennium ago by Abhinavagupta and others may shed light on contemporary issues formulated and debated by systematic theologians. In particular, aspects of a literary approach to aesthetic universals we can perhaps gain traction in considering issues of human embodiment, social interactions, and self-reflective agency. It is generally accepted that Abhinavagupta’s literary work as a commentator stands apart from his writings on tantra – though the order in which he composed them is unclear. What is clear is that as a commentator he inherited the comprehensive systems of dramaturgy and aesthetics from his predecessors. Perhaps in a tentative way, then, we can be optimistic about the possibility that a study of Indian poetics can be instructive for categorizing central philosophical and religious concepts and helpful in identifying a type of transcendence that is both between monism and theism and also between personality and impersonality. A familiarity with some of the basic concepts of this school is necessary for meaningful and comparative reflection on their relevance to theology.¹ The rasadhvani system of literary analysis synthesizes an emotional component (i. e., rasa, some would say call this the theory’s telos) with a linguistic hermeneutic called implicature (dhvani) that basically streamlines a full range of literary devices and places them in relation to rasa. ² Additional concepts (camatkāra, bhāvanā, sādhāraṇīkaraṇa) will be considered as a way of opening up the literary possibilities that include themes of devotion and other forms of religious experience as they are presented on stage or depicted in literature. The conceptual triad that Bernhard Nitsche has set before us relate three basic dimensions of human existence to: i. our human worldly existence within our bodies ii. our social roles and the interpersonal construction of identity, and

 For a fine summary of this complex system see the introduction of Roberts 2014.  See McCrea 2008. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-027

412

Timothy Cahill

our relation to ourselves, including spiritual consciousness and ways of subjectivization.

I will outline below a triad first formulated by Ānandavardhana (Abhinavagupta’s Kashmiri predecessor) that may have some relevance to these three concerns. For the initial, corporeal topic we find in the Indian literary materials an emphasis on human emotions, understood as a component of cognition embodied within living beings. Further, since Ānanda’s aesthetic system presumes language, signs and the full range of devices through which dramas are staged, its social nature is implicit – and the construction of characterological identities and their reception by an audience whose nature is itself transformed offers intriguing parallels to Nitsche’s second concern. Finally, the contribution of Abhinavagupta represents a new way of understanding actualization (bhāvanā) and aesthetic rapture (camatkāra) as components of a sort of aesthetic self-reflection that uniquely positions an audience (or readers) as egoless subjects, liberated witnesses to the beauty before them.³ We see in this a mode of subjectivity that approximates a (temporary) construction of identity, simultaneously appropriating characteristics of the transcendent. This aesthetic mode of subjectivity relates to the categories of rasa as they are conveyed through a process of implicature (dhvani – often translated as ‘suggestion’). This most indirect capacity of language manifests aesthetic beauty in three modes: i. the eight or nine fundamental emotions (i. e., rasa plus its permutations) ii. the artistry of verbal and semantic symbols (i. e., figures of speech) iii. any type of discursive idea (i. e., whatever can be adequately expressed in language). Abhinavagupta elaborates upon this tripartite analysis in his Locana commentary on Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka. Of course, this semantic triad cannot be made to match up exactly with Nitsche’s three basic dimensions of human experience, but perhaps elements from this theoretical triad of Indian aesthetics can be profitably examined in relation to one or another of these basic dimensions. Given the enormous scope of the challenge taken up by comparative theologians, pessimism might be justified. But I think that ancient literary critics would respond that their task is equally challenging, insofar as any conceptualization of reality can be mirrored by artistic attempts to represent that same reality. They conceive this as a universal theory not linked to any specific language

 For an analagous treatment with reference to Abhinavagupta’s Śaiva/Tantric ideas see Larson 1976: 371– 387.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

413

or regional literature. (So it is a mistake to speak of this as a Sanskrit aesthetic – or even an Indian one, although I will provisionally use the latter term.) Additionally, many literary critics of the rasa-dhvani system were trained in philosophy, grammar and theology, and so felt comfortable treating issues of epistemological and ontological importance. If we accept that comparative theology is still a young discipline, one that needs to respond to philosophical questions and theological issues relating to ideas like unconditioned reality, then a consideration of these ideas from fresh vantage points may prove useful, especially since similar questions (e. g., of time and scriptural authority) hover in the background of Indian attempts to identify aesthetic universals.⁴ In the case of the literary concepts traced below, it will be appropriate to narrow the boundaries a bit, to bracket some claims and to remember the significant caveat that aesthetic experience (i. e., the experience of rasa) lasts only as long as we interact with an art object. If nothing else, perhaps considering the development of a successful, millennium-long, aesthetic theory will prove interesting and serve as an inspiration for further exploration. At the outset of any comparative theological project, certain doctrinal juxtapositions seem to share an approach to similar problems identified within separate traditions, as for example in recent discussions of the comparison of the Christian trinity with the Buddhist trikāya formulation.⁵ But we should also look deeper, to uncover less apparent patterns and structures that bear upon the problems of broad or even universal importance. One philosophical concern of ancient India, taken up by literary critics (and others), was the incorporation of human emotions in epistemology and ontology. This was not merely because they were enumerated and briefly described by the sage Bharata in an ancient work known as the Nāṭyaśāstra (circa 300 AD) a heterogeneous work of roughly six thousand verses that deals with drama and all of its accoutrements, but also because emotions were seen as integral to worldly beings and how they come to know this world. The Nāṭyaśāstra originally recognized eight rasas or heightened emotional states, to which a ninth was later added. This set of heightened emotions matches a set of mundane emotional counterparts, each forming the basis for its corresponding rasa. The set of heightened emotions were identified and singularly defined to differentiate the aesthetic from the mundane. Bharata’s famous Rasasūtra states that a rasa arises through a combination of dramatic factors (i. e., characters and settings), reactions (between these) and any of thirty-

 See especially David 2016: 125 – 154.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit corresponding to Dharmakāya, Nirmāṇakāya, Sambhogakāya respectively. See for instance Cleary 1986.

414

Timothy Cahill

three temporary emotions from a given list. Oddly, the sūtra does not mention the mundane, foundational emotions from which the rasa develops (transforms, or manifests), but these eight basic emotions are listed later. The precise nature of the shift from emotion to rasa was a subject of intense debate. foundational emotion

=>

rasa (developed/transformed/ manifested emotion)

love pity/pathos tranquility wrath/fury valor wonder humor/ridicule terror horror

=> => => => => => => => =>

the the the the the the the the the

erotic rasa (śṛṅgāra) tragic rasa (karuṇa) peaceful rasa (śānta) violent rasa (raudra) heroic (vīra) fantastic rasa (adbhuta) comic rasa (hāsya) fearful rasa (bhayānaka) macabre rasa (bībhatsā)

In other words, rasas arise from imaginatively experiencing a poem or drama such that an ordinary emotion is heightened, augmented or transformed qualitatively. How they are communicated (or experienced) is most important, and this is where Ānandavardhana introduced a novel concept that would change the course of Indian aesthetics. For ‘implicature’ (dhvani) is introduced as a third signifying power of language, after the primary power of denotation (abhidhā) and a secondary metaphorical power (lakṣaṇā) that includes things like metonymy and irony. Abhinavagupta held this work in such esteem that he wrote a commentary on it that helped to seal its enduring relevance to the field. According to this reorientation of aesthetic principles, a drama or a poem need not give rise to rasa to qualify as art (minimally), but the highest type of verbal art is evoked through a process of manifesting a rasa via implicature (dhvani). Other elements can also, in a single poem or play, coexist with these heightened aesthetic emotions, elements that sometimes come to the fore as the work’s major theme. When a potential rasa presented onstage is thus subordinated, it gives way to a figure of speech or some other striking content. This predominant element (fact or figure), when subtly conveyed, is the ultimate source of aesthetic delight along with the subordinated rasa. This aesthetic system assigns specific labels within its architecture for various combinations of predominant and subordinated elements. The most widely read manuals provide poems to exemplify the major rasas (manifested through implicature), their subordination to other

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

415

emotions, the implication of a message or theme, and the implication of prominent literary devices. Throughout this system of literary analysis, themes of predominance and subordination are employed to provide a structure for the experience of sensitive critics. The system so devised presumes a certain elitism that ensures the possibility of a consistent experience from a given play or poem. The Indian theorists who shaped the rasa-dhvani system faced some challenges similar to those that comparative theologians face today. They were committed to the idea that literature is universal in the same way that theologians understand religion to be universally open to all humans. Similarly, the experience of a sensitive audience in viewing a play, for example, was paramount in their consideration just as comparative theologians must appreciate and value the varieties of religious experience. Such aesthetic experiences were subjective, of course, and yet this subjectivity can not be merely dismissed – much in the same way that individual religious expression can not be minimized by theologians. The theory of ‘rasaimplicature’ is a reception theory in the sense that an audience’s experience of art is valued over and above the production of artist, poet, actor or playwright. Yet, as we will see, Abhinavagupta and others liken this experience to the manifestation of ultimate liberation, particularly as attained by spiritual adepts engaged in programmatic efforts – but art experience relieves us of toil and effort even as it fails to deliver any sort of enduring salvation. By including Abhinavagupta’s conception of aesthetic delight (camatkāra) in our study we can take the opportunity to consider an artwork’s major emotional content, one that resonates with a non-egological unity for the duration of the art frame. The Abhinavabhāratī in particular provides ample critical material to consider what these literary critics were trying to convey by the term rasa. We may also explore how this temporally limited aesthetic experience sometimes subordinates and distances such major emotions (the ‘would-be’ rasas) to pursue the ‘lesser’ literary examples that evoke specific messages, or highlight the ornamentation of a poem’s language. Some of these examples convey religious themes. Somewhat surprisingly, when a work’s main theme is devotional (or political, for that matter), it has no chance to evoke rasa as the primary element according to Abhinavagupta and those who follow his lead. We will explore why this is so further below. The apparatus for integrating the nine fundamental rasas with all the forms of human experience suitable for artistic exploration is sophisticated. More sophisticated is the overall aesthetic system which allows potential rasas to be subordinated to other elements via the subtle mode of verbal conveyance, i. e., implicature (dhvani). The subjective subordination of any of the nine rasas within an artistic time-frame allows for a myriad of possibilities, beginning with a

416

Timothy Cahill

range of thirty-three minor emotions. Additionally, a thirty-fourth is a non-carnal love that is distinguished from the ardent, heterosexual love that transforms into the rasa of romance (śṛṅgāra). Accordingly, the literary work that depicts a character showing love towards a parent, a child, a god or goddess, is characterized with artworks featuring these minor emotions. One or more of these ‘transitory emotions’ typically coincide with the major or enduring emotion at various points in a play. Given the preponderance of religious poems in Indian literature, it is noteworthy that Abhinava maintained this view. Many of India’s major literary critics place devotion (bhakti) into this category of minor emotions that are subordinated to the nine rasas, often in order to supplement and highlight the main emotional theme of a work. The devotional poems provided in these theoretical texts focus on praise and adoration of Viṣṇu, Śiva and the goddess; no sectarian bias seems to be involved in the decision. The reasons why so many literary critics chose to disqualify religious poems from this process of rasa transformation are various, and will be explored below. In any case, the position taken by Ānandavardhana and elaborated by Abhinavagupta proved influential over literary theorists for many centuries.⁶ Somewhat ironically, the comparison of the rasa experience to an experience of Brahman is regarded as instructive, but somehow poems with religious themes fall beyond the analogy. The literary critics, like other Indian intellectuals whose motives and interests do not always match ours, seemed to have little interest in elaborating why this is so. Later, Vaiṣṇava theologians would take up this question with zeal, reversing the literary critics’ principle in dramatic fashion.⁷ Abhinava’s reluctance to valorize poems dealing with devotion (bhakti), religiosity (dharma) and ritual behavior (niyoga) might seem puzzling given his vast and important contributions to Śaiva theology and his active involvement in ritual life. He does explain the logic behind adopting his predecessor Bharata’s stipulation that the number of rasas were fixed at eight, at least with regard to drama. Arguments to add a ninth were controversial but ultimately successful in the case of the peaceful rasa (śānta), and Abhinava’s comments certainly helped to establish the peaceful rasa within the old system. And, similar to the nine hundred problematic cases of Vedic ritualism,⁸ literary critics had to face the ramifications of synthesizing nine rasas, thirty-three transitory emotions, and fifty-one types of implicature (dhvani); they quickly reached a prelimi Rūpagosvāmin adopted a radically different view in the 16th century (see Haberman 2003) and contrast this with Abhinavagupta’s gloss on bhakti in his Gītārthasaṅgraha (12. 2): māhes´varyaviṣ ayo yeṣ āṃ samāves´aḥ akṛ trimas tanmayībhāvaḥ .  For a good summary of Rūpagosvāmin’s system, see Delmonico 1998.  See the contribution of Francis Clooney in this volume pp. 283 – 302.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

417

nary set of 2,142 discrete categories.⁹ Literary accounting procedures for systematic aesthetics were based first on a straightforward criterion: is the literal meaning unintended or is it intended. The former category had two subtypes, both exemplified by poems. The latter category had two subtypes, but with seventeen subtypes.¹⁰ Turning to the idea of aesthetic delight (camatkāra), we should note that Abhinavagupta often uses a set of terms that relate to relishing, or tasting an object (rasanā, carvaṇā, bhoga, āsvāda). This terminology springs from the underlying meaning of rasa as a sap or essence that carries flavor. So terms for savoring are met with often in these texts. A sensitive critic savors manifested emotions continuously while simultaneously appreciating literary figures and imagining potentially suggestive messages – of any type. One difference between rasa and other appealing dramatic elements is that for rasa paraphrase is impossible. R. Gnoli, in his pioneering work on rasa, points out a corporeal dimension: This (form of) consciousness without obstacles is called camatkāra; the physical effects of it, that is to say, trembling, horripilation, joyful motions of limbs (ullukasana), etc., are also camatkāra. … Indeed, camatkāra may be likewise defined as an immersion in an enjoyment (bhogāvesaḥ) which can never satiate and is thus uninterrupted (tṛptivyatirekeṇācchhinnaḥ).¹¹

At the level of implicature (dhvani), where an emotion can be made subordinate to any type of message (vastu) or be made subordinate to a figure of speech (alaṅkāra), we come across examples where an incipient rasa takes a back seat. In such cases, an inclusive concept was required that would not detract from the novel force of implicature in Ānandavardhana’s system, nor from the traditional centrality of rasa. This term was camatkāra, described as onomatopoeic when smacking one’s lips. It has been translated as a sense of rapture or sudden wonder of aesthetic experience that takes place when one suddenly recognizes a new avenue of beauty that emerges through the art work.¹² Ānandavardhana uses the word camatkṛti just once but Abhinavagupta employs it more often in the sense of a highly distinctive delight that can be triggered at a partic-

 Mammaṭa, a 10th century literary theorist, worked out 10, 455 types of implicature (dhvani). See chapter four in his Kāvyaprakāśa. He later says that when factoring in the various rasas, the number would expand exponentially. See Poona 1983: 215.  All exemplary poems in which the literal meaning is intended exhibit their respective theorized distinctions. An unstated groundrule took root compelling critics to supply at least one literary example for any theoretical position.  Gnoli 1956: 59. (I cite the reprint, Varanasi 1985.)  Masson and Patwardhan 1969.

418

Timothy Cahill

ular moment in a poem or during a performance. In keeping with the gustatory theme, it derives its sense from a sharp or zesty flavor brought out while tasting something super sour or sweet. Abhinavagupta uses a related term, carvaṇā, to emphasize the savoring of the rasa as it emerges or is manifested or transformed.¹³ Camatkāra (or camatkṛti) can come into play in cases where a rasa has been subordinated. That is, the sharp savoring of a poem or a play can survive whatever might trigger the subordination (guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya) of a minimally developed rasa. Once more, we face the (subjective) issue of subordination.¹⁴ We can skip past Ānanda’s somewhat prosaic example and turn instead to a later poem exemplifying the same point.¹⁵ On the peaks of the Sahya Mountains toasted by the blaze which was Rāghava’s separation, the monkeys, sleeping happily through the winter, become vexed with Hanumān, the Wind god’s son.

From the context a sensitive auditor will know that Hanumān (Rāma’s simian envoy) has brought news to (the exiled) Rāma of Sītā’s safety – though she is held captive by Rāvaṇa in his fabulous palace. This news brings great relief to Rāma, whose fiery anguish was so great as to produce heat throughout the camp – so keeping the monkeys warm in their arboreal berths. This loss of warmth provokes their ire. The verse requires familiarity with the Rāma story, and beyond this considerable imaginative effort in ‘savoring’ the various factors and emotional reactions situated in the verse. The subtle implication here is that Rāma’s torment has been relieved by Hanumān’s report and the fire of his temper cools down. This could have been the prominent element of the poem, were it not for the presence of the monkeys. According to sensitive critics (including the author of this verse), the receptive process leads to an unexpected twist when it clicks that this coolness accounts for why the monkeys are so annoyed at Hanumān. The final resting point of the verse, then, forces us to subordinate the subtle implication, even as it accounts for the monkeys’ sudden irritation at Hanumān. Literary critics liken the beauty that this subordinated suggestion brings forth as bearing a special beauty, “just like a queen who must undergo servitude due to a

 For a full analysis of the term and its contexts see Shulman 2010.  Dhvanyāloka, 485. For an English translation, cf. Ingalls/Masson/Patwardhan 1990: 625.  Rasagaṅgādhara 166: rāghavavirahajvālāsaṃtāpitasahyaśailiśikhareṣu | śiśire sukhaṃ śayānāḥ kapayaḥ kupyanti pavanatanayāya ||.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

419

curse or some other misfortune.”¹⁶ By this extra step (or further savoring) in reestablishing the primary meaning, the sublime is trumped. Its subtly implied sense is not the ultimate source of aesthetic delight. What is prominent requires a greater (or sometimes longer) imaginative effort to complete the sense of the poem. For Ānandavardhana, the linguistic mechanism of implicature (dhvani) normally accounts for the subordination of any content that is explicitly stated in the poem. Another example deals with a more explicitly religious theme:¹⁷ Having traversed the world, including oceans, continents, and the Kula Mt. as well as the entire seven-sphered sky, Hari slowly – and with a smile, looked at Bali, best of demons, who – right then – burst out with goosebumps manifested from his extreme joy, and, baring his neck in prostration, set down – that moment – his diadem in front.

The verse refers to Viṣṇu’s descent into the world as Vāmana, the dwarf who conned King Bali into granting him whatever land he could cover in three presumably short strides. Vāmana morphs into a giant and his first two strides cover the whole known world. This verse captures the moment after the first two strides to had been completed – and Bali knows that he has been duped, but also that Vāmana must be divine. Our imaginations must rest in this moment, in the pause that Hari supposedly takes before taking this third and decisive stride. Here Viṣṇu-as-Vāmana is a character whose gaze at Bali stimulates our interest. Bali’s goosebumps signal his awareness, an effect (anubhāva) within the poem. Since the coinciding emotion is joy, we first experience the subtle manifestation of the heroic rasa, since, after all, we sense a certain dynamism preceding this great act of devotion. The Lord’s intervention is at work, and for sensitive critics the religious context cannot be missed. However, the critics find something more, something that subordinates the heroic rasa. The scene is wondrously described by an anonymous viewer – not the poet, but an unnamed witness whose presence we infer by his or her astute observation of the correspondence between Vāmana’s gaze and Bali’s goosebumps. The perceptive observation and

 Rasagaṅgādhara 166: prose section after the verse.  Rasagaṅgādhara 216: sābdhidvīpa-kulācalāṃ vasumatīm ākramya saptāntarāṃ sarvāṃ dyām api, sasmitena hariṇā mandaṃ samālokitaḥ | prādurbhūtaparapramoda-vidalad-romāñcitas tatkṣaṇaṃ vyānamrīkṛtakandharo ’suravaro mauliṃ puro nyastavān ||.

420

Timothy Cahill

statement of this observer serves to elevate this praise of Bali’s impending devotional act. In short, this is ultimately a poem recognizing Bali’s extraordinary devotion. So while it may be true that Viṣṇu’s beauty is a “beauty that saves”,¹⁸ poems about such salvific events fit neatly into the category that critics label as “second best” (madhyama).¹⁹ As scholars have noted, Abhinavagupta appropriates the linguistic innovation that Ānanda had introduced and reworks it into a psychological principle,²⁰ utilizing for example the well established term citta-vṛtti (lit. ‘state of mind’) that occurs so famously in Patañjali’s Yogasūtra and occasionally in Ānanda’s Dhvanyāloka. The term presumes a cognitive complexity as underlying any and every mode of consciousness. This follows the long precedent in Indian traditions of regarding emotions as a particular form of cognition. Commenting on the ways in which Abhinava recasts the rasa, Daniele Cuneo observes that the great tantra master adopts the view that “the aesthetic experience becomes a path to the gustation of one’s own Self, a relish consisting at the same time of detachment and active involvement, namely a complete and totalizing absorption in the emotional experience.”²¹ Abhinava’s turn to drama marks it as a special domain that every viewer actualizes as his own through the process of generalization (sādhāraṇīkaraṇa). Accordingly, experiencing a rasa now amounts to experiencing one’s own pure consciousness. Although the motivation for this rasa experience does not involve divine transcendence, its noomorphic character is patent. The constraints on rasa experience are considerable, including the potential for rasa to be subordinated by other poetic elements. Nevertheless, we have to ask, along with Abhinava himself: is rasa a genuine transcendence? Our interrogation relates to understanding rasa as an apposite microcosm of a liberation from rebirth and suffering, the goal of a religiously oriented existence in saṃsāra. Abhinava, while presenting the ideas of Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka on rasa, introduces the analogy of the rasa experience to a yogin’s experience of the highest transcendence in brahman. How far can we push the analogy, apart from limitations of time (for rasa is temporary) and space (for rasa requires proximity to an art object)? Here is his formulation of the analogy: This enjoyment is like the bliss that comes from realizing [one’s identity] with the highest Brahman, for it consists of repose in the bliss which is the true nature of one’s own self, a

 Hopkins 2002: 130.  This is Mammaṭa’s term; see the Kāvyaprakāśa. The term madhyama roughly corresponds to Ānandavardhana’s subordinated manifestation (guṇībhūtavyaṅgya); see Dhvanyāloka 3.34– 3.40.  See Pollock 2016.  Cuneo 2007: 26.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

421

nature which is basically sattva but is intermingled with the diversity of rajas and tamas. It is this aesthetic pleasure (bhoga) alone that is the major element [i. e., the purpose of poetry] and it is something already [eternally] accomplished (siddharūpa).²²

Implicit in this characterization are other factors that place further constraints on the analogy. For example, the variation among different rasas implies awareness of their differences; so the self is not utterly left behind and we retain the ability to recognize and differentiate the foundational emotions exhibited by characters in the scenes. Moreover, many of the circumstances that involve the suspension of disbelief may be considered as limitations upon the rasa experience, a fact that has little relevance to the experience of aesthetic beauty. The concept of appropriateness (aucitya) relates to socially accepted norms that, if broken, will certainly inhibit the experience of rasa. Once again we face a bit of irony since applying ‘appropriateness’ to literary contexts can often involve matters that fall under the purview of dharma, a term whose social-dialogical orientation includes soteriological eligibility (via the varṇa system), gender roles, and life stages (āśrama) marked by rituals of eligibility. From a philosophical perspective these additional limitations place a heightened tension upon the analogy, forcing us to reconsider the implications of achieving an ‘unconditioned’ aesthetic state under any circumstances. If the system of “rasa-implicature” can be considered a system of surplus meaning, we can perhaps gain a new sense of the barely noticeable contours of a Hindu idea of the unconditioned by considering these limits to aesthetic transcendence. For an example of this approach we now turn to a consideration of Abhinava’s reasoning on limiting the number of rasas. Francis Clooney has recently observed that scholars who study many religions often become alienated from all religions, including their own. They describe the manifold religiosity they have studied as just so much “human production.” Let us view this against the broad orientation that Abhinavagupta and other literary critics expressed towards an aspect of religiosity, that is, the human expression of love towards God. Their attitude emerges in the context of considering whether human expression of love towards God (bhakti) deserves to be added to the Bharata’s list of eight (or nine) rasas. A precedent had already been set through adding the tranquil rasa (śānta) by the time of Ānandavardhana, based upon literary instances where its foundational emotion (either dispassion or knowledge of ultimate truth) served as the emotional base shared by all

 Dhvanyāloka 183. See the translation of Ingalls/Masson/Patwardhan 1990: 222.

422

Timothy Cahill

who experienced it.²³ Bhakti, however, did not gain acceptance among literary critics in great part because of arguments Abhinavagupta introduced in his vast commentary on the Nāṭyaśāstra. ²⁴ His brief and somewhat cryptic treatment of religious devotion (bhakti) as a category unworthy of elevation to the level of rasa may seem like a demotion of sorts. Yet, on the other hand, Abhinavagupta’s concern for systematizing Śaiva methods for religious transcendence is well documented.²⁵ Abhinavagupta argues that each of the nine emotions is permanently fixed within each of us. As Cuneo aptly puts it: “These emotions turn out to be constitutive of human nature as such, whose uniformity stems from the universally common patrimony of vāsanās (latent karmic impressions)[…]”.²⁶ While it may be true that certain individuals have a propensity for certain emotional states, all share the same set as creatures of this world. It goes without saying that these latent karmic impressions are rooted in actions performed (or ‘committed’) in previous days or previous lives. Of equal significance, each of the nine rasas enshrined within this aesthetic system is perceived vis-à-vis objects that fall within the realm of our human sense organs – and these objects are always oriented towards our aesthetic pleasure. This specific set of emotions involving, potentially, by all auditors seems to be what qualifies them for inclusion in Bharata’s list, and this stands out in Abhinava’s reasoning. He extends this even to the tranquil rasa (śānta) when its fundamental emotion is dispassion or resignation at the sight of death and destruction.²⁷ This is not the case with religious devotion (bhakti). All aspects of religious behavior are learned and must be cultivated – often with considerable effort. We may forget this at times since the socialization of religiosity starts so young, but we must be instructed, encouraged and reminded as to how things are to be done. Additionally, and this follows up on Abhinava’s further point: the object of bhakti is beyond our innate, perceptive capacities.²⁸ Here we have evidence that a hermeneutics of transcendence has been employed in a theoretical system

 Dhvanyāloka: 390. The corresponding emotional state (bhāva) according to Ānanda is “the happiness that comes from the dying off of desire” (tṛṣṇā-kṣaya-sukhasya). See the translation of Ingalls/Masson/Patwardhan 1990: 520.  Some scholars propose that deference to tradition (i. e., the precedent set by Bharata) was the decisive factor in limiting the number of rasas to nine.  For a recent contribution to the study of emotions in Abhinava’s Śaiva corpus, including a related reference to camatkartā (“the one who tastes it with wonder”), see Torella 2015.  Cuneo 2007: 32.  See Masson/Patwardhan 1969: 113 – 143.  See Sastry 1982.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

423

that explicitly excludes religious devotion from its highest category of aesthetic experience. A careful reading of Abhinavagupta also supports the conclusion that religious devotion cannot be a rasa in part because it is inelegible to be suppressed. By this Abhinavagupta seems to take seriously the faith commitments of all who hold them, and who from time to time enjoy literary and dramatic art. According to the authoritative theorists of Indian aesthetics, however, art experience requires the suppression of details of space, time and personal involvement; this suppression is part and parcel of the aesthetic theory. Maintaining an awareness of religious attitudes does not bar one from aesthetic experience, it merely limits the removal of barriers to the process of generalization in cases involving devotion to God. The nature of bhakti poetry is considered distinct from romantic love, and is therefore treated as a special type of affection along with the other thirty-three secondary emotions (vyabhicārihāva). Since religious expressions in verbal art are consistently excluded from the primary category of the rasa-dhvani aesthetic, we have paid some attention above to the process of subordination. Poems and plays can be about anything. When they subtly convey any of nine particular emotions, they hold a place of highest esteem in the rasa-dhvani system. The suppression of obstacles (vighna) to rasa is important in this process. These obstacles need to be removed for a sensitive critic to gain full access to the beauty of the art object. The obstacles involve basic notions of a person’s identity, such core issues as one’s place in history (time) and where one lives (space) and the failure to become totally absorbed in the art object. V. K. Chari makes Abhinavagupta’s ideas about letting go of attachments clear, describing how obstacles such as an attachment to – or even simply a mindfulness of – one’s own age or gender are included, as is the issue of being part of the story: and so all sensitive reader’s of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “How do I Love Thee” qualify – except Robert Browning, the one to whom she wrote the poem as a personal communication.²⁹ One of the implications of accepting that personal obstacles need to be removed in order to utilize generalizaton as a component of rasa experience is that personal commitments, including apparently religious commitments, must be temporarily set aside. Was this the intent of Abhinavagupta as he envisioned and expanded upon the rasa-dhvani system? As we saw above, his rejection of religious devotion is based on broader arguments presented in his two great commentaries on aesthetics. His analytical approach allows no scope for allowing devotion (bhakti) as a basis for rasa experience – in spite of the fact that its foundational rasa is a type love (rati).

 Chari 1990: 225.

424

Timothy Cahill

This aesthetic system, being based upon the implicature of rasa, may help to locate human experience that lies between personality and impersonality. For this aspect of understanding rasa experience, we must turn to one of Abhinavagupta’s predecessors, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, who championed two seminal ideas: actualization (bhāvanā) and generalization (sādhāraṇīkaraṇa).³⁰ The former works to make us realize – that is, a making real – the elements of a play. The latter is the process by which the elements are imaginatively shared from the characters, via the actors and among sensitive auditors assembled in the theater. Literary critics also discuss what it means to be neutral (but not ‘indifferent’) as a sensitive viewer (sahṛdaya). This sort of “engaged neutrality” must have a basis for involvement, for the general attitude is connected with an action-oriented perspective (pravṛtti) rather than a reclusive, noninterventionist perspective (nivṛti). One must be involved or personally engaged, but not personally ‘invested’ in the staged actions. In other words, a sensitive viewer is interested in the dramatic goings-on without investing them with personal attachments. This seems to approximate Bernhard Nitsche’s idea of a non-egological participant, though this of course relates strictly a mode of subjectivity that relates to a presentation of art. Moreover, a successful audience temporarily attains the “unconditioned subjectivity” that, as we have seen, is compared to the immersion of the self in the bliss of brahman (brahmānandāsvādam iva). Speaking to the notion of generalization (sādhāraṇya), R. Gnoli writes: “Generality is thus a state of selfidentification with the imagined situation, devoid of any practical interest and, from this point of view, of any relation whatsoever with the limited Self, and as it were impersonal.”³¹ Taking up this same idea, Viśvanātha, a 14th century poet and critic from Kaliṅga, provides an apt characterization: Rasa is tasted by qualified persons. It is tasted by virtue of the emergence of inherent goodness (sattva). It is made up of intelligence, bliss and self-luminosity. It is void of contact with any other knowable thing, twin brother to the savoring of brahman. It is animated by an aesthetic delight (camatkāra) of a non-ordinary nature. It is savored as if it were our very being, in indivisibility.³²

In this context we can consider what transpires during the time a devotee worships. In his recent work on the power of imagination in India, David Shulman

 Cf. Hugo David’s remarks on bhāvanā (‘effectuation’) in David 2016.  Gnoli 1956: XXII note 1.  My translation of Viśvanātha closely follows Gnoli 1956: 47.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

425

describes an adept’s identification with the goddess. He identifies six components, saying, We have (1) an act or process of imaging that is (2) highly patterned, determined, and probably irreversible, a process that (3) reflects a true but latent identity that is (4) made manifest largely by linguistic means. Such images are what reality is about. So (5) the end result is entirely real, just as the goddess is now fully real and alive—but only (6) insofar as one imagines her as such, interactively. A mutual determination works itself out in this manner. Stated negatively, and extrapolating slightly on the basis of the textual evidence, the goddess is not there until you imagine her to be there, and you will not become this goddess unless her imagination locks into yours.³³

This is an elegant description of the sensory process of identifying with the goddess. Shulman’s “act or process of imaging” the goddess glosses the same term that Abhinavagupta borrowed from Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka: actualization (bhāvanā). The mutual construction between goddess and adept captures the power of the ritual, and the reality of the identification. Abhinavagupta, of course, knows similar ritual processes performed in Śaiva contexts. The potential for ritual activities to bring about a permanent dissociation from our negatively conditioned world can be contrasted with the temporary power of art to effect a temporary facsimile. As one 20th century commentator on both the Dhvanyāloka and the Rasagaṅgādhara, puts it, “these two experiential events are closely related since they share the same center (nābhi).”³⁴ It is also interesting to note that Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, as reported by Abhinavagupta, may have worked with a stronger formulation than we might have supposed, considering that the rasa experience exceeds the worldly experience of Brahman.³⁵ While reviewing Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka’s position on rasa, Abhinavagupta uses two examples to explain why we cannot understand rasa as something that we perceive. Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka seems to start with an idea that perception is regularly linked to memory; perhaps he recalls the Nyāya example of seeing smoke and recalling the invariable concomitance between smoke (the effect) and fire (its cause). He states that while viewing a well known heroine on stage we do not recall our own lover as part of this experience. Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka goes on to a second example involving such objects of perception as deities. When they appear on stage, perception would not explain rasa since the process of generalization could not operate for all in the audience. R. Gnoli explains that for Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, such things as deities “cannot be perceived as ‘general’; the deeds of the

 Shulman 2012: 124.  See the commentary by Badarīnātha Jhā in Rasagaṅgādhara: 291.  This according to Ingalls/Masson/Patwardhan 1990: 228 note 16.

426

Timothy Cahill

gods are too different (from human affairs).”³⁶ This is a plausible interpretation given the terse nature of the text. Another interpretation might be that the particular deities (devatā) depicted on stage might not be recognized as divinities by the audience. Alternatively, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka might envision an audience that cannot generalize what is happening when the gods are center stage. That is to say, the audience might not be able to set aside their personal duties to and relationships with deities and other such entities. (But what other such entities could the text have in mind?) Abhinagupta considers a similar example elsewhere when he considers the case of a king who attends a play that commemorates the deeds that he himself has accomplished during his reign. The challenge of viewing such a presentation in a neutral mode would be especially difficult for the king.³⁷ So we must understand that in special cases the obstacles brought along by viewers may be insurmountable. Out of Abhinavagupta’s many contributions to aesthetics, we have considered how the process of generalization culminates in a sudden delight that characterizes an overall principal of aesthetic savoring (rasa). By my reading, these concepts open the door for a broader consideration of topics acknowledged by later literary critics and theologians who appropriated many of these ideas. For it is through these concepts that we see the opportunity to appreciate not just rasas but also heightened forms of secondary emotions that accompany a rasa. When identified within a single stanza especially, sudden aesthetic delight (camatkāra) can, in rare cases, be seen in isolation. To my knowledge, Abhinavagupta nowhere pursues this with sustained argumentation directed towards the case of religious devotion (bhakti). He does, however, offer interpretations that acknowledge the special sort of beauty that emerges when a manifested meaning has been subordinated to one of the thirty-three secondary emotions. It is difficult to argue that religious devotion was foremost among these examples, but it seems reasonable to conclude that beautiful poetic examples of religious devotion may have contributed to the decision of later literary critics to elevate camatkāra to a separate critical principle.³⁸ Even within the tradition of rasa-dhvani systematics we find camatkāra gaining new prestige. One much

 Gnoli 1956: 44 note 1.  A king’s experience might typically extend to bouts of making love to a wife. To bar the imaginative enjoyment of one’s own love scene Abhinava stipulates: “Moreover, how can this be [considered] an aesthetic experience at all when one becomes preoccupied with one’s own natural reactions such as embarrassment, disgust, or sexual desire.” Abhinavabhāratī: 278: pratyuta lajjājugupsāspṛhādisvocitacittavṛttyantarodayavyagratayā kā sarasatvakathāpi syāt.  Most famously in the case of Viśveśvara’s Camatkāracandrikā. See the introduction to the edition of Śrirāmamurti 1969; also Mohan 1972.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

427

later definition of poetry for example, makes a strong case for the principle that the essential property of poetry is the possessions of this sudden, striking, aesthetic delight.³⁹ In making an attempt to see the entirety of human endeavors both coherently and systematically, aesthetic theorists in India addressed anthropological themes that touch on the embodied nature of the emotions, and on the nature of aesthetic experience as it involves a heightened, uninterrupted consciousness. The resulting mode of aesthetic subjectivity involves self-consciousness of a peculiar nature since it lacks the usual characterological traits that mark one’s identity. In setting aside these identity markers, we pay attention to claims of transcendence, wary that ‘extraordinary’ claims may better be understood literally as non-ordinary, involving novel modes of subjectivity that retain certain constraints. The theological adequacy of adopting fundamental human structures to explore transcendence is an important intellectual pursuit, and we hope that presenting some Indian concepts has contributed, if not certainties, at least some perspectives for further reflection.⁴⁰

Bibliography Primary Literature Nāṭyaśāstra, Abhinavagupta. Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharatamuni with Commentary Abhinavabhāratī on Adhyāya VI Only. M. Ramakrishna Kavi (Ed.). Revised and critically edited K. S. Ramaswami Sastri. Baroda: Oriental Institute 1980. Rasagaṅgādhara, Jagannātha. Rasagaṅgādhara of Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja. Vidyābhavana saṃskṛta granthamālā 11. Badarīnātha Jhā and Madana Mohana Jhā (Eds.). Varanasi: Chowkhamba Vidyabhavan 1987. Kāvyaprakāśa, Mammaṭa. Kāvyaprakāśa of Mammaṭa with the Sanskrit Commentary Bālabodhinī by Vāmanācārya Rāmabhaṭṭa Jhalakīkar. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 1983. Camatkāracandrikā, Viśveśvara. Śrirāmamurti, P. (Ed.), Camatkāracandrikā of Viśveśvara. Waltair: Andhra University Press: 1969. Camatkāracandrikā, Viśveśvara, Camatkāracandrikā. See under Mohan (1972) and Śrirāmamurti (1969).

 Cf. Jagannātha’s definition of rasa at the start of his Rasagaṅgādhara.  Cf. the remarks of Francis Clooney in Clooney 1993: 186.

428

Timothy Cahill

Secondary Literature Chari 1990. V.K. Chari, Sanskrit Criticism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990. Cleary 1987. J. C. Cleary, Trikāya and Trinity: The Mediation of the Absolute. Buddhist-Christian Studies 6 (1986) 63 – 78. Clooney 1993. S.J. Francis X. Clooney, Theology After Vedānta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology. Albany: State University of New York 1993. Cuneo 2007. Daniele Cuneo, The Emotional Sphere in the Light of the Abhinavabhāratī. Rivista degli studi orientali 80 (2007): 21 – 39. David 2016. David 2016. Hugo David, Time, Action and Narration: On Some Exegetical Sources of Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetic Theory. Journal of Indian Philosophy 44 (2016): 125 – 154. Delmonico 1998. Neal Delmonico, Sacred Rapture. The Bhakti-Rasa Theory of Rūpa Gosvāmin. Journal of Vaishnava Studies 6 (1998) 75 – 98. Gerow 1994. Edwin Gerow, Abhinvagupta’s Aesthetics as a Speculative Paradigm. Journal of the American Oriental Society 114 (1994): 186 – 208. Gnoli 1956. Raniero Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience according to Abhinavagupta. Rome: ISMEO 1956. 2nd revised edition: [Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies 62]. Varanasi: Chowkhamba, 1968. (I cite a reprint of the revised edition, 1985). Haberman 2003. David L. Haberman, The Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmin. Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts 2003. Hopkins 2002. Steven P. Hopkins, Singing the Body of God: The Hymns of Vedāntadeśika in Their South Indian Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002. Ingalls/Masson/Patwardhan 1990. D.H.H. Ingalls, J. M. Masson, M. V. Patwardhan, The Dhvanyāloka of Ānandavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta. Gary Tubb (Ed.). [Harvard Oriental Series 49]. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1990. Larson 1976. Gerald James Larson, The Aesthetic (rasāsvāda) and the Religious (brahmāsvāda) in Abhinavagupta’s Kashmir Śaivism. Philosophy East and West 26 (1976): 371 – 387. Masson/Patwardhan 1969. J. L. Masson, M. V. Patwardhan, Śāntarasa and Abhinavagupta’s Philosophy of Aesthetics. [Bhandarkar Oriental Series 9]. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 1969. Mohan 1972. P.S. Mohan (Ed.), The Camatkāracandrikā of Śrī Viśveśvara Kavicandra. Critical Edition and Study. Delhi: Meharchand Lachhmandas 1972. Pollock 2012. Sheldon Pollock, “Rasa after Abhinava”. In: Saṁ skr ̣ta-sa ̄dhuta ̄: Goodness of Sanskrit. Studies in Honour of Professor Ashok N. Aklujkar. C. Watanabe, M. Desmarais, Y. Honda (Eds.). New Delhi: D. K. Printworld 2012. Pollock 2014. Sheldon Pollock, A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press 2016. Sastry 1982. J. Prabhakara Sastry, “The Status of Devotion to God as an Aesthetic Element and the Development of the Kāvya Genres in Sanskrit.” In: Summaries of papers, XXXI All-India Oriental Conference. R. C. Dwivedi (Ed.). Jaipur, University of Rajasthan 1984. Shulman 2010. David Shulman, “Notes on Camatkāra”. In: Langauge, Ritual and Poetics in Ancienty India and Iran. David Shulman (Ed.). Jerusalem 2010, 249 – 276. Shulman 2012. Id., More Than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2012.

Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator

429

Torella 2015. Raphaela Torella, “Passions and Emotions in the Indian Philosophical-Religious Traditions.” In: Emotions in Indian Thought-Systems. P. Bilimoria, A. Wenta (Eds.). London: Routledge 2015, 57 – 101. Voss Roberts 2014. Michelle Voss Roberts, Tastes of the Divine: Hindu and Christian Theologies of Emotion. New York: Fordham University Press 2014.

Christine Büchner

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance? Resonance as a Notion for Describing the Process of Comparative Theology My article will focus on three main aspects: Christian theology, Hinduist theology and resonance. I will begin with the last (resonance) because I think it might be fruitful for describing the relationship between two religious traditions from a comparative theological perspective. Thus, it will serve as a hermeneutic framework within which I will later examine the problem of Divine action in the world as an exemplary subject of theological comparison. The notion of resonance is central to the thought of the social scientist Hartmut Rosa, who has been strongly influenced by Charles Taylor. His book Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung ¹, has been widely received, not only within the scholarly community, but also by more popular media.² This is not without reason, as I suggest. Rosa is correct in his analysis that in our times, people have nearly completely lost an immediate and vivid relationship to the world. Nonetheless, there is something like a hunger or longing for authenticity and sense that we cannot find in everyday life, a life that is ruled by efficiency and forces us to become alienated from ourselves, from the world and, thus, from experiencing a sense of meaning. Rosa therefore speaks of a disastrous lack of resonance in post-modernity.³ It is disastrous because relationships of resonance are an essential part of human life. They are the decisive factor for the “vitality” of life. Human beings need a response. If there is nothing that answers their call (not because there really is nothing, but because the response does not touch them or they cannot hear it), there is nothing they can experience except themselves. The answer one longs for is replaced by an echo.⁴ Here Rosa refers to Martin Buber, who

 Rosa 2016. An English translation of Rosa’s book was published in 2019. Rosa was born in 1965. He has taught social and political sciences at Jena University since 2005.  E.g. Heise 2016; Thöne 2016.  Eine “Resonanzkatastrophe” (a “catastrophe of resonance”); Rosa 2016: 517– 598 (Rosa 2019: 307– 356).  Ibid., 2016: 281– 293; 435 – 453. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-028

432

Christine Büchner

draws a fundamental distinction between me-you relationships and me-it relationships; with the first, the self is touched, opened, challenged, transformed – or even fulfilled. The latter produces no resonance. Resonance only arises if there is a moment of being influenced by another that is beyond my control. This is the link that allows us to bring religion into play, since the me-you relationship (from a theological viewpoint) opens us not only to the richness of the world we live in, but also to God as the eternal you. Rosa – with Buber – conceives of God as “both origin and vanishing point of all desire for resonance”.⁵ But as in other typical places for experiencing self-transcending resonance (such as nature or art, but also social communication, learning and professions, if these are not dominated by competition and efficiency), also religions have more and more lost their ability to really reach people. One might question whether Rosa’s analysis is true, namely, that this is only a post-modern development. But this is not the point. He is undoubtedly correct in saying that without resonance, not only is life dead, also religion is dead. And that is exactly the situation we are confronted with in Western Christianity. During the 20th and 21st century, the Christianity of the traditional denominations has increasingly lost its vibrancy. Many people – amongst them also theologians – feel increasingly at a loss with traditional theological language. It does not find any resonance within them; they are not caught on fire. Also texts like religious or philosophical scriptures can be either a “you” or an “it” – depending on whether they cause something to resound within me or not. It is all the more significant when such resonances arise when studying a foreign religion. In the encounter with other religions, faith suddenly becomes alive again. I therefore understand comparative theology as a method for examining such resonance – not expecting to find something common behind all religions, but following the hypothesis of the Catholic philosopher Richard Schaeffler, namely, that it is precisely the differences that generate meaning.⁶ Despite the fact that in the end there might be more questions than answers, the deeper one is involved in another religious tradition, the more resonances arise. Thus it is important to consider the complexity of religion and not evade the phenomena of religious crisis through simplification and fundamentalism. If Christian theology wants to encounter these phenomena in a productive way, the study of another religion from one’s own perspective is essential. Contemporary theo Rosa 2019: 261: “[Buber] defines God or the fundamental principle of religious experience as an ’Eternal You’ both origin and vanishing point of all desires for resonance, and thus an ineluctable promise of resonance and responsiveness.” (Italics H.R.).  Cf. Schaeffler 1995.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

433

logians have actually already learned that they do not need to fear losing anything; they have the great chance to gain far more if they allow fixed doctrines to be questioned, doctrines that supposedly are obvious and set in stone. We find ourselves in a challenging and exciting process that allows us to discover the plurality of our own tradition and to open ourselves up to the vitality of truth. It is a vitality that transcends all our attempts to define or fix it. If one becomes involved in this process (which is a life-long process), resonances arise spontaneously, already on the basis of the concrete tradition that has been chosen for detailed study. Hence, the choice is not arbitrary, but is done with careful thought. To put it another way (using the terms of resonance): You are not only the active one in this process; you find yourself in a more receptive attitude, whereby texts also find you and make something resound in you. And these expanding resonances help us understand even more religious traditions because they make us more open to hear. In the words of Hartmut Rosa: they enhance our sensibility for resonances. Since the notion of resonance does not mean a mere emotion, but a “mode of relationship,”⁷ it can refer to intellectual processes as well. In particular, it is important for theological knowledge, which from this perspective is a life-long process. When I cultivate a sensibility for resonance and confidently allow myself to encounter reality, this continually transforms me. This has to do with a methodical and desired disorder that inspires understanding and leads to a certain flexibility that enables me to stay lively and creative. This coincides with a genuine criterion of Christian theology: referring to Jesus of Nazareth, it should not isolate itself, but must be a living, worldly or incarnate theology.⁸ The Western perception of Hinduism was long one-sided. We only began to notice that Hinduism is not only defined by Advaita Vedānta after deeper insights were gained – into religious poetry, Kashmir Śaivism, Dvaita- and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, the works of bhakti-saints, of women and outcasts. These insights were brought by Indological research of the last decades and new approaches taken by comparative theology. The present volume alone presents an impressing and compelling panorama of traditions that enables us to see many common concerns between Hinduism and Christianity. Hinduist thinkers seem to have been long aware of the treasure of plurality. Although the various schools have often argued polemically against each other,  Rosa 2016: 296.  This does not mean that we must affirm everything without any criteria. Indeed, criticism of interreligious theology is regularly voiced. What is meant here, however, is if one remains sensitive to resonances and, thus, is able to cultivate a formal openness, this leads to increasing differentiation regarding content.

434

Christine Büchner

they have nevertheless been fundamentally consonant in their objective to find truth through reasoning and not anathema. It is more significant when such rivalry is overcome or at least broken up. This is what the medieval Indian philosopher and theologian Rāmānuja is referring to when he says in his Śrībhāṣya: The Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Pāñcarātra thought, the Vedas and the Pāśupāta teaching too, are all sources of knowledge (pramāṇa) of the self (ātman); they must not be dismissed by polemical reasoning.⁹

In the following part of my study I intend to illustrate through examples how resonances arising out of comparison can give a fresh and creative impulse to Christian theology, an impulse that helps us gain a deeper understanding of different religious concepts. I will therefore focus on an area upon which I am currently doing research ‒ God’s action in the world and through humans. I will first examine this from a Christian perspective and then in comparison to Rāmānuja. To conclude, I will take a look at how resonances have expanded. In this I share Bernhard Nitsche’s intuition that we must innovate and overcome fixed traditional models for describing the relationship between transcendence and immanence, these being impersonal monism on the one hand and personal theism on the other.¹⁰ Comparative theology reveals to us that theology is a discipline that never comes to an end, but forces us to query again and again what we have discovered.

The Problem of God’s Agency from a Christian Theological Perspective In my approach to the issue in question, I conceive divine action as fundamentally different from the modes of natural and human agency, and at the same time as nearly indistinguishable from them due to the fact that it eludes a logic of rivalry. I shall develop this in a few sentences. If we think about God’s action in the world, we can scarcely do this other than from the perspective of human action. From this perspective we ask, for instance: Why did God save the people of Israel with his mighty arm in those long ago days? And why don’t others receive such salvation – then and now? If we ask  Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya (hereinafter ŚBh) 2.2.48 – cit. in: Lipner 2014: 345 (= ŚBh 2.2.43, in: Thibaut 1904: 531): “Hence Smriti says, ‘The Sâṅkhya, the Yoga, the Pañkarâtra, the Vedas, and the Pasupata doctrine – all these having their proof in the Self may not be destroyed by arguments.’”)  Cf. his article in this volume.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

435

this, we are not reflecting on the fact that the story of Israel’s salvation was written in the context of exile, a situation that forced Israel to claim what was anything but evident. And Israel exaggerated the glory of its rescue in order not to despair. This makes us aware of a general problem in our discourse about the action of God. The human perspective is very often (although not always) a perspective of rivalry: the larger the armies of Egypt that were killed, the more magnificent Israel’s salvation from Egypt becomes. We must therefore be cautious when applying a perspective of rivalry to God’s action and, in doing so, subordinating God to our limited outlook. And yet we cannot act differently if we aim to show this action in an affirmative way, because it is about God’s action in the world (not beyond the world). We thus must content ourselves with thinking of God’s agency in and behind the action of the world – the actions of living creatures and of human beings. Furthermore, if God’s agency really is at stake, we would have to show above all phenomena in the world that elude rivalry. These are phenomena (as one might tentatively describe them) that have to do with fulness, with giving, with the experience of being gifted, with love, with the ability to pro-exist. My hypothesis is therefore that all these phenomena can be interpreted as manifestations of the alternative action of God. It is action that can be characterized as an action that does act in the world but is unlike the world. His divine plenitude allows him to give himself to us in love in order to let us take part in his life. If seen from this perspective, God’s action both in and through nature and in, through and with human beings is interpreted as different consequences of the one and same agency of God that occurs in dialogue with the creation and on behalf of creation.¹¹ Already Thomas Aquinas assumed that God’s action does not compete with the world’s agency, but gives the world the power to act itself. How much of God’s action is realized depends on the capacity or receptivity of creation. Living creatures can be the medium or instrument of God.¹² God does not rule or control the world like a sovereign; God makes us participate in the controlling. In its essence, creation is already God’s self-sharing. God shares himself so that all can participate in life. This self-sharing action cannot be verified objectively because it is always acting in our actions and in our relationships.¹³ For this to become visible, one must realize, interpret and respond to it. Creation cannot achieve its end without adopting God’s self-sharing action as its own.

 Büchner 2010.  E.g. Thomas Aquinas, Sth I, 22, 3; I, 104, 2.  E.g. Thomas Aquinas, Sth I, 8, 1; 18, 1.

436

Christine Büchner

I refer to Thomas Aquinas to support this idea. We may ask, however, whether the model of God’s acting through living beings as instrumental causes is really appropriate for describing the relationship between the action of God and that of people.¹⁴ Although this model has often been used as a matter of course in the history of theology, I would like to take a look at another model, one that in my opinion could perhaps help us more. The medieval mystic Meister Eckhart thinks through to the end that we all live from God’s self-giving.¹⁵ We live insofar as God constantly passes his own life on to us. It is this process of giving from him to us – initiated by him and sustained by him in every moment – that enables creation to be and live within the structures of the self-assertion of the world. And it is precisely this asymmetrical motion towards the world that is both characteristic for God’s action and problematic for its cognition. According to Eckhart, while we are nothing without God, at the same time God gives us everything he has and is. Thus, it is the dynamics of God that is the origin of a new symmetry giving us the dignity to act ourselves und let ourselves get involved in the divine dynamics. We live from these dynamics, which while present, are not visible without our response. We do not realize them because God acts solely through love, never pushing himself to the fore as one force against another. Insofar as God gives, shares and opens himself unconditionally, his acts are radically different from all finite agents and causes. However, because God gives himself to the world in this way, he risks getting involved in the world’s logic of action. Otherwise God would be in the world in the same way we are and thus would also be someone who is always displacing others with his presence and actions. Or he would remain completely transcendent to the world and without any influence on it. But if God is really acting in the world in this way, then in order to help love prevail; he acts – often unnoticed – against our tendencies to exclude and displace each other. And if he is acting this way, then he surely does so at every dimension of our (conscious, social and bodily¹⁶) existence.  Cf. also the excellent studies by Martin Ganeri on Rāmānuja and Thomas Aquinas: Ganieri 2004; Ganieri 2010; Ganieri 2015.  For the following, cf. Büchner 2008.  For these three dimensions of worldly existence, cf. B. Nitsche’s contribution to this volume. In my studies on God’s action in the world, I have differentiated between the following three grades of action: (1) God acting on an all-encompassing cosmic or physical level through the given-ness of all; (2) God acting within our interpersonal giving, which is related to our free and personal interaction – something one might call a social level, a level that depends on the self-awareness of a free entity; and (3) God acting on the level of real self-giving, which happens in the world if a person offers itself for another. This is a level at which the subject, in its intentions towards the other, reveals itself as constituting itself from given-ness. With Nitsche we

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

437

This is, in short, how we might understand God’s action with the help of Meister Eckhart, who was not a mainstream theologian and thus, as with many mystics, was a bridge builder to other religions. So why not take a step at this point beyond the Christian horizon and consult an Indian theologian to see what he has to contribute to our issue? This should become a common procedure for theology in our century – theology that is sensitive to resonances.

In Dialogue with Rāmānuja’s View on the Relationship between God, Human Beings and the World Almost identical problems were discussed by Hindu philosophers during the 11th and 12th centuries. As mentioned above, amongst them, Rāmānuja is characterized by a certain hermeneutical openness that makes his approach extremely interesting for dialogue. He had a formative influence on Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, which also contains concepts that build bridges to monotheistic religions.¹⁷ Intuitively, it seems that Rāmānuja’s use of plural metaphors to describe the relationship between brahman (or Nārāyaṇa, or God) and the world will contribute to a deeper insight into the mode of relatedness of God’s action to the world’s

could also say: The first level applies to our bodily existence, the second, to our social interrelatedness (implying the dimension of subjectivity in its full ambivalence as finite). At the third level, the three dimensions become integrated and thus transparent to God. Interestingly we find such threefold differentiations at the core of both Christian and Hindu thinking (the Christian model of the trinity and the Hindu means of reaching towards the divine through karman, bhakti and jñana), as well as in Hindu-Christian approaches, most prominently in R. Panikkars ‘theanthropocosmic’ thought (Panikkar 1993; on Panikkar, cf. also Nitsche 2008). In this context, cf. also Hans Kessler’s thoughts on an interreligious approach to the trinity (Kessler 2005). Kessler identifies three modes of experiencing the divine in all religions: the experience of its immanence in the world, the experience of its transcendence beyond the world, and the experience of the divine as a personal vis-à-vis. These modes of experiencing the divine are also, in a certain way, analogous to the modes of experiencing ourselves, the world and others. Although these threefold structures are clearly not the same, but relate to different aspects of relationships, they all describe a complex interrelatedness of all with all, something that apparently cannot be described from only one perspective. Thus they force us once more not to lock up our own categories at a certain point, but to let them be complemented by other perspectives and ways of thinking.  This can be seen in a series of recent publications, in particular: Dunn 2016; Edattukaran 2010; Barua 2009; Tsoukalas 2006; also somewhat earlier: Overzee 1992.

438

Christine Büchner

action and thus, will help us see our Christian models of the God-world-man interrelation in an enriched way. Rāmānuja conceives this relationship as being between the body (śarīra) and the embodied self (śarīrin). Brahman, whose self is embodied in the world, is at the same time the creator of the world.¹⁸ This constitutes Brahman’s inseparable yet free interconnectedness with creation (through his deciding for creation). Nothing in the world is excluded from this connection. In contrast to Advaita Vedānta, the world with its conscious and non-conscious beings is not an illusion, but real because it is indwelled by the Supreme Self and thus, receives a specific dignity as its body.¹⁹ As such, it really participates in the process of life. It is the immanence and transcendence of brahman that characterizes the world as its body. This is why Rāmānuja does not conceive “body” as something necessarily corporeal or subtle, but as a special relationship with an embodied agent that is qualified by three mutually corrective models.²⁰ The first model is that of supported (ādheya) and supporter (ādhāra). This underlines that brahman is the transcendent and ultimate basis of the world. Without brahman’s fundamental support the world would be nothing. The second model is that of controlled (niyamya) and controller (niyantṛ), whereby brahman does not withdraw from the world he supports, but is immanent to his body as an “inner controller”(antaryāmin).²¹ The third model sees brahman as the principal or master (śeṣin) and the world as the accessory or servant (śeṣa). In this model the world is not only passive, it is also active, albeit in a subordinate, serving way. This not only implies the Supreme Self’s freedom, but also a sort of dependence on the world. And it implies a freedom of the world that is dependent on the free support of brahman. The freedom of the world becomes clearer if we consider, as Rāmānuja suggests, the special role of finite selves, who are themselves embodied and live in exactly the same threefold relationship to their bodies. Human beings are both the body of brahman (and as such, are supported,

 In order to emphasize that God creates the world in total freedom, Rāmānuja also speaks of līlā (sport) as the motive for creation (cf. ŚBh 2. 1. 33).  Lipner 1986: 121; Edattukaran 2010: 253.  Cf. Rāmānuja’s definition in ŚBh 2. 1. 9: “Any substance which a sentient soul is capable of completely controlling and supporting for its own purposes, and which stands to the soul in an entirely subordinate relation, is the body of that soul” (Thibaut 1904: 424). Cf. also his conclusion, ibid.: “In this sense, then, all sentient and non-sentient beings together constitute the body of the Supreme Person, for they are completely controlled and supported by him for his own ends, and are absolutely subordinate to him.” For the following models, cf. Lipner 2014: 348 – 355; and, in more detail, Lipner 1986: 124– 142.  For this term, cf. Lipner 2014: 352; regarding God’s action, Ganeri 2014: 237 f., 243 f.; from a Christian perspective, Smart 1996: 144– 154.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

439

controlled and accessories) and finite embodied selves (and as such, are the principal, controller and supporter). They are free and responsible agents in a serving relationship to the Supreme Self and in a master’s relationship to the non-self-aware world.²² Brahman is the free creator of the world who lets the created participate in the process of creation according to the described modus. This participation becomes manifest in the law of karman, which is generally also supported by brahman, but in its concrete effects is shaped by the actions of man. This is a paradoxical situation: The causality of karman is due to divine consensus with the freedom of human beings, who through their deeds influence the emerging and passing worlds.²³ But because all finite freedom is supported by brahman, who is absolute freedom, the more one serves brahman the freer one becomes. Total freedom for the finite self is actually liberation from its own freedom through surrender to the Lord, who supports this process (as a transcendent supporter) without being involved in it. Surrender to the Lord leads to freedom and transcends the causality of karman. Thus we have a complex interaction of brahman, karman, people and other material and efficient causes.²⁴ Because brahman, respectively God, fundamentally affirms human freedom, he does not act without being related to our freedom. However, God’s involvement with the world does not touch him, since God is touched only through his free decision to carry out this process, a process that is then determined by the karman of the finite selves. While God’s affirmation of human freedom does not mean that he relinquishes any influence on the world, his actions do not intervene or compete, they rather consent.²⁵ This is important, because it is the basis for liberation. As the inner controller, God acts by permitting the contingent act of the individual. This respect for the suchness of the individual has consequences for the cognoscibility of God (as we already saw in Thomas and Eckhart). Since God’s action is an inner action, it is only visible insofar as it is made visible by its body. It is otherwise hidden behind the world of karman – as the always open  In Rāmānuja we see again a certain parallel to the intuition of Nitsche and others that there is an analogy between the “basic dimensions of human existence” (here: the śarīra-śarīrin relationship) and “our interpretation of the ultimate horizon of existence.” More precisely: with the śarīra-śarīrin relationship, Rāmānuja is explaining how the structure of ourselves in the world could also characterize the structure of God, and vice versa.  Ganeri 2014: 237, 243 f. (referring to Rāmānuja, ŚBh II. 1. 34) (= Thibaut 1904: 478).  Ibid., 240 – 242.  Rāmānuja, ŚBh 2. 3. 41: “The inwardly ruling highest Self promotes action in so far as it regards in the case of any action the volitional effort made by the individual soul, and then aids that effort by granting its favour or permission (anumati); action is not possible without permission on the part of the highest Self.” (Thibaut 1904: 557); cf. also Ganeri 2014: 244.

440

Christine Büchner

door to liberation. In other words, if the finite self cannot see itself as part of a whole, but misconceives itself as the whole (as Rāmānuja’s describes this: misconceives itself exclusively as a principal or an end in itself and not also as an accessory or a servant to the Lord), then it chooses the law of karman, which is a law of reckoning, instead of the given possibility for loving and surrender. It dismisses the dignity it receives from its inner and essential relation to brahman, a dignity that allows one to express the Lord’s non-reckoning love, a love that overrules the opposition between divine and human action. This is, as I believe, what for Rāmānuja is the sense of māyā: not that the world and all finite entities are an illusion, but that the world and all finite entities (due to the love of God) have the power to hide God and make God, as the unconditional basis and inner controller, unrecognizable, although he is the supreme agent.²⁶ If we now look back at my Christian examination of divine action, we find some quite inspiring resonances. With his flexible thinking in polarities²⁷ Rāmānuja helps us see more clearly the purpose of opening up the processes of the world in the light of God, just as in both Thomas and Eckhart. Their approaches prove complementary. According to Thomas Aquinas, God gives the world being, virtue and activity on their own.²⁸ This resonates, in a certain way, with the idea that brahman approves of the becoming and passing away of worlds through the principle of karman, respectively, through the good and bad deeds of people. By doing this, he affirms that creation should be and act on its own, and this according to its own principles. The freedom of human beings is emphasized. But with Rāmānuja we can say more: Since the world is both the world of karman and God’s body, it is the instrument for God acting in dialogue with conscious and non-conscious creation and on behalf of creation. The individual jīva can become aware of itself in this double dimension: that it lives and acts on its own due to God’s free will and that it, thus, will find freedom and fulfillment not in its own deeds, but only in becoming transparent and receptive for God’s ac Hence, Ganeri is correct in writing that for Rāmānuja, the Supreme Self “is the immediate agent in every stage” (Ganeri 2014: 237). But we also must point out the fact (following Lipner 1986: 127) that on the one hand, the body indeed depends both ontologically and epistemologically on the supporting presence of God, but on the other hand, the supporting basis (God) is only present, recognized and effective in the world through that which he supports (namely, the body). Also Tsoukalas emphasizes – referring to Rāmānuja’s refutation of Śaṅkara’s view of māyā in ŚBh 2. 1. 15 (Thibaut 1904: 432– 35) – that “for Rāmānuja (māyā) is the power that causes the real manifestation of the jagat…” (Tsoukalas 2006: 105). Thus māyā is – as the result of God’s affirmation of the world – a positive creative power (causing both vidyā and avidyā).  Lipner speaks of a “polarity theology” in Rāmānuja (Lipner 2014: 350).  Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Sth I, 8,2: “dans eis esse et virtutem et operationem”.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

441

tion on behalf of creation. Consenting to its being an instrument, the individual jīva is freed from its own principles of acting – of competition and reckoning. This can be seen as the purpose of God’s action. This resonates with what we found in Meister Eckhart: Those who let go of their personal aims and do not act according to their own finite and conditional free will, which hides God’s action, receive unconditional freedom in God.²⁹ Both the Christian approaches and that of Rāmānuja, certainly seen through my Christian glasses, let us conceive God as immanent due to his transcendence and acting through pure love. At the same time, this establishes the difference from the beloved and anticipates overcoming it (so that living creatures can receive release in God as themselves). This requires getting away from the alternative of either a pantheistic monism or a theistic dualism, because both cannot contend with the complex interrelationship between God’s and the world’s agency as described by Christian and Indian thinkers. The dialogue points instead toward a panentheistic view, which can express that one is not without the other. Julius Lipner has stated that Rāmānuja’s works maintain a “dynamic equilibrium” between “various modes of apparently conflicting discourse.”³⁰ This is why they can function as a sounding board also for different and even conflicting religious systems. They are questioned and differentiated. They lose their isolation from one another and new references are created, as I would like to show in my last point.³¹

 I believe that Ganeri is thinking along similar lines when he writes: “Rāmānuja holds that the finite self should ascribe all its actions to divine agency in order to gain liberation (mokṣa) from karma and the cycle of rebirth (saṃsara)” (Ganeri 2014: 233).  Lipner 2014: 350.  It is interesting that Lipner, in his book The Face of Truth, describes how Rāmānuja, in order to conceive the God‒world relationship, develops different models that are neither simply synonymous nor strictly different, but that set up “resonances” between each other (Lipner 1986: 141). He concludes: “This idea of ‘resonance’ awaits further analysis.” (ibid.) Although Lipner is quite skeptical about the category of panentheism with regard to Rāmānuja, I think that there is a certain structural relation between the method of using plural models that resonate with each other and panentheistic thinking as developed in particular by modern process theology. While the theological method of using several models that complement and correct each other is, in its structure, particularly open for further development (and lets it be a sounding board also for other interpretations of the world), process theology assumes that reality can never be described once and for all, because there is constantly something new is happening. Indeed, Rāmānuja does not think this way and it is always problematic to apply modern notions to entirely different contexts of time and culture. But I think that the notion of panentheism could definitely help to recognize a similarity between those (often margi-

442

Christine Büchner

Expanding Resonances Sallie McFague’s Model of the World as God’s Body From a comparative perspective on Rāmānuja, we have seen that on the one hand, material and personal processes are subject to the cycle of karman and rebirth, but on the other hand, since this can be seen as God’s instrument for both controlling and letting be, these processes are open to the freedom of human beings. This allows one to refer to contemporary process theology, in this case to that of the Anglican theologian Sallie McFague, who conceives the world metaphorically as “the body of God.”³² As a body, McFague defines it as vulnerable – a notion of the body that we do not find in Rāmānuja’s definition of body, since with regard to the Supreme Self, for him vulnerability must be negated. If God’s body were vulnerable, God himself would be at risk of being vulnerable. Since, unlike Rāmānuja, this is exactly what McFague intends to show with the metaphor of the body, I am convinced that she can also help us rethink and deepen some of the resonances and consonances that have already been reached. For Rāmānuja, God chooses to respect the free agency of finite selves and their influence on themselves, others and the world (that is to say: on the whole of the divine body). But although he is above the cycle of birth and re-

nalized) Christian and Indian approaches who are more open for transformation. I will pursue this hint in the next section.  Cf. McFague 1993. As George A. Chalmers wrote in an article on Rāmānuja and the process philosopher Samuel Alexander (Chalmers 1985), this metaphor was already used by Alexander (1859 – 1938) in order to describe the relationship between God and the world. But Alexander (as have several other process thinkers) dismissed the concept of God as the creator of the world; instead he understood God or the deity as emergent from the processes of evolving life and, in this sense, spoke of the world as the physical aspect of God or God’s body. Arising from the time‒space continuum, God is inseparably bound to it, but by arising as a completely new quality, he also transcends it. McFague’s focus is quite another and closer to Rāmānuja, as we will see. She uses the model or analogy of body and self in order to express that God, insofar as he created the word from his own dynamics of life, made himself vulnerable because the world’s life is part of his life – his body! But nevertheless he is God and creator – and thus fulness of life – insofar as he is not only body. This thus includes the hope for the healing of all bodies as representatives of God. As McFague writes: “Within a Christic framework, the body of God encompasses all of creation in a particular salvific direction, toward the liberation, healing, and fulfillment of all bodies” (McFague 1993: 160).

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

443

birth, we might ask if he then does not also make himself open to the influence of the world and, therefore, find himself in a certain passive relationship to the given autonomy of living beings. Does his motivation on behalf of the body make sense? If human beings do not influence him, to what extent do they act according to their master’s purpose? I do not think these questions should be dismissed as too anthropomorphic, since Rāmānuja’s metaphors themselves seem to evoke anthropomorphic associations. We can ask further: Is not the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita particularly suitable for these types of thoughts?³³ Since it derives from Advaita, the philosophy of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta assumes on one hand that reality is basically one, but on the other, unlike Advaita Vedānta, it claims that the finite and contingent world, which experiences itself as distant from this oneness, is real as well. It is just this, in my opinion, that the description of the body-embodied relationship is able to express. For McFague the embodied self is Christ.³⁴ She understands herself as an eco-feminist theologian. As such she criticizes the Christian tradition’s dualistic tendency in its conception of God, but does not turn to a natural-romantic monism that simply identifies God and nature. She does this by making Christ a paradigm for understanding the God‒world relationship. He is, to use the words of Rāmānuja, the “inner controller” (antaryāmin) who gives shape to the body, the shape of love and freedom.³⁵ His body is wounded and through that wounding, it is deformed, as it also is through its marginalization and exploitation by living beings (including nature). Human beings who live at the expense of other parts of creation live against God; they make others needy and poor and, thus, diminish the richness of God’s body so that it can scarcely be recognized as his. If we exploit God’s body, God himself is exploited.³⁶ This dimension is hardly considered in Rāmānuja since his chief concern – as part of the controversies of his times – is escaping from the karmic cycle as a whole, a cycle in which some necessarily live at the expense of others. This escape is possible for the individual through bhakti – the bhakta refuses to live with a logic based on finite In this context, it might be helpful to refer to Lipner’s observation that there is a centripetal and a centrifugal tendency in Rāmānuja’s model of understanding the relationship between brahman and the world and that these correct one another. Cf. Lipner 1986: 135: The centripetal “tends to collapse the Brahman-pole and the world-pole into each other by its ‘kenotic’ emphasis; it empties out, in a manner of speaking, Brahman’s reality into the world (…). The centripetal mode of discourse emphasises Brahman’s identity with the world, the centrifugal way of speaking his difference from the world.”  McFague 1993: 159 – 195.  Ibid., 160: “… from the story of Jesus of Nazareth and his followers we can gain some sense of the forms or patterns with which Christians might understand divine immanence.”  Ibid., 166.

444

Christine Büchner

ness, a logic that says we must live competitively. This exit through bhakti thus questions the justice of karman. Perhaps in a comparative dialogue this could be considered more deeply with regard to its consequences for all of reality. Hence, for Rāmānuja (as for McFague), the human being, as both śeṣa and śeṣin, already has a key function for the whole. This is enough for illustrating some examples of resonance between Hindu and Christian theology. Here I would like to add a few remarks to illustrate resonances that expand from here to other religions – such as to Islam.

A Brief Look at Islamic Theology In Islamic theology we find the doctrine of God’s omnicausality. It is a doctrine that seems completely contradictory to the modern conception of a free relationship between God and man. But during my comparative reading on Rāmānuja’s thinking in polarities I realized that I have gained an insight into this question as well. On the one hand, brahman supports the freedom of human beings and thus his agency seems somehow bound to karman and the agency of the world (as I have tried to show). On the other hand, brahman is the immediate agent of the action of finite beings. Because he is nearest to the world as well as the ruler above it all, liberation from saṃsāra is possible. What binds these two poles together is the fact that in every moment God’s action is consenting. In the Qur’ān we find a quite similar polarity: on the one hand people are made responsible for their faith and deeds, on the other, God is the one who makes people believe or not believe. In Sūra 18,29 it is written: Say: ‘The truth is from your Lord: So believe if you like, or do not believe if you will’.

And in Sūra 14,4 we read: … God leads whosoever He wills astray, and shows whoever He wills the way (…).³⁷

Not only do Muslim theologians tend to “answer” this by considering that what we say about God is about a reality that transcends human reason and thus must necessarily be aporetic. If we accept this, we are not bound to either-or statements, but can try to find as-well-as solutions (as Rāmānuja does). One might say: If God is extremely close to human beings ‒ as it is said in the Qur’ān, nearer

 Translation here and below: Ahmed Ali.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

445

than anyone else ‒ then we must assume that he does not simply observe what we do, but is present with his whole being in every moment that we act. Thus one could even say that in fact, it is God who acts in us – although how he does this is beyond our understanding. Rāmānuja would say that God acts in us through his consent. Perhaps this can find some resonance in modern Islamic theology. There are several theologians who define Allah as compassion,³⁸ and perhaps this is an Islamic way for expressing that God generally respects the action of people, but hopes (as is repeated countless times in the Qur’ān) for their devotion, that is, for their consenting to him.³⁹ It is here that we face again the problem of God’s suffering – which is, I think, a question on the wider horizon of this volume, which is asking (amongst other things) whether categories are permeable.

Conclusion I do know that quite a lot of questions have been left unanswered here. But the purpose has been to illustrate how the study of Hinduist hermeneutics and various descriptions of the God‒man‒world interrelationship might become a catalyzer for a better understanding of world views, views that on first sight seem to contradict our own radically, and moreover, how they can become a catalyzer for refreshing our traditional theology. It seems to me very interesting that these processes, although taking place in an academic context and thus being reflected upon methodically, cannot really be anticipated, but arise during the study; typical for them is a moment of spontaneity. This is what we need in a situation in which for many people most of the traditional words of faith seem to have become empty, because they no longer resound in the complexity of our empirical reality. That is why I began this contribution with some reflections on resonance.

 Cf. in particular the school of Mouhanad Khorchide (Korchide 2012; Khorchide 2014) and Milad Karimi (Karimi 2015).  E.g. Sūra 16, 81: “He thus bestows His favours on you so that you may be grateful to Him” and Sūra 8, 26: “But then God sheltered and helped you to strength, and provided for you good things that you may perhaps be grateful.” These verses show a God who is constantly and patiently waiting for a grateful reponse to his gracious attention. Hence, the Islamic philosopher and theologian Milad Karimi stresses that devotion or surrender is the most adequate translation and, thus, the core of Islam (Karimi 2015).

446

Christine Büchner

Bibliography Primary/Secondary Literature Barua 2009. Ankur Barua, The Divine Body in History. A Comparative Study of the Symbolism of Time and Embodiment in St Augustine and Rāmānuja. [Religions and Discourse 45]. Bern: Peter Lang 2009. Büchner 2008. Christine Büchner, “Sein-Geben. Meister Eckharts Denken der Gott-Welt-Beziehung als Ansatzpunkt einer Ontologie des Gebens und Sich-Gebens”. In: Rolf Kühn, Sébastien Laoureux (Eds.), Meister Eckhart – Erkenntnis und Mystik des Lebens. [Seele, Existenz und Leben 6]. Freiburg i. Br.: Karl Alber 2008, 358 – 382. Büchner 2010. Id., Wie kann Gott in der Welt wirken? Überlegungen zu einer theologischen Hermeneutik des Sich-Gebens. Freiburg: Herder 2010. Chalmers 1985. George A. Chalmers, The Concept of the Universe as the Body of God. SJRS 6 (1985): 26 – 33. Dunn 2016. Brian Philip Dunn, A.J. Appasamy and His Reading of Rāmānuja. A Comparative Study in Divine Embodiment. [Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs]. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016. Edattukaran 2010. Wilson Edattukaran, Dialogue with the World. The Concept of Body According to Merleau-Ponty and Rāmānuja. New Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications 2010. Ganeri 2004. Martin Ganeri, The Vedāntic Cosmology of Rāmānuja and its Western Parallels. From Contrast to Complementarity. The Embodiment Cosmology of Rāmānuja and the Doctrine of Creation of Thomas Aquinas. PhD thesis, University of Oxford: 2004. Ganeri 2010. Id., “Two Pedagogies for Happiness. Healing Goals and Healing Methods in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas and the Śrī Bhāṣya of Rāmānuja”. In: Philosophy as Therapeia, Clare Carlisle, Jonardon Ganeri (Eds.). [Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 66]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, 51 – 65. Ganeri 2014. Id., “Free Will, Agency and Selfhood in Rāmānuja”. In: Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, Matthew R. Dasti (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, 232 – 253. Ganeri 2015. Id., Indian Thought and Western Theism. The Vedānta of Rāmānuja. [Routledge Hindu Studies Series]. London: Routledge 2015. Heise 2016. Katrin Heise, Entschleunigung ist auch keine Lösung. Hartmut Rosa im Gespräch mit Katrin Heise, Deutschlandfunk Kultur. http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/soziologe-rosa-ueber-sein-buch-resonanz-en tschleunigung-ist.1008.de.html?dram:article_id=347513 (accessed 31 Jan. 2018). Karimi 2015. Milad Karimi, Hingabe. Grundfragen der systematisch-islamischen Theologie. Freiburg: Rombach 2015. Kessler 2005. Hans Kessler, “Trinität in interreligiöser Perspektive. Zu möglichen Veränderungen einer christlichen Grundfigur”. In: Gottesdenken in interreligiöser Perspektive. Raimon Panikkars Trinitätstheologie in der Diskussion, Bernhard Nitsche (Ed.), Frankfurt/Paderborn: Lembeck 2005, 300 – 315. Khorchide 2012. Mouhanad Khorchide, Islam ist Barmherzigkeit. Grundzüge einer modernen Religion. Freiburg i. Br.: Herder 2012.

How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance?

447

Khorchide/Karimi/von Stosch 2014. Mouhanad Khorchide, Milad Karimi, Klaus von Stosch (Eds.), Theologie der Barmherzigkeit? Zeitgemäße Fragen und Antworten des Kalām. [Schriftenreihe Graduiertenkolleg Islamische Theologie 1] Münster: Waxmann 2014. Lipner 1986. Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth. A Study of Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja. Albany: State University of New York Press 1986. Lipner 2014. Id., “Rāmānuja”, In: Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar, Vasudha Narayanan (Eds.). Leiden: Brill, 2014, 344 – 357. McFague 1993. Sallie McFague, The Body of God. An Ecological Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993. Nitsche 2008. Bernhard Nitsche, Gott – Welt – Mensch. Raimon Panikkars Gottesdenken – Paradigma für eine Theologie in interreligiöser Perspektive?. [Beiträge zu einer Theologie der Religionen 6]. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich 2008. Overzee 1992. Ann Hunt Overzee, The Body Divine. The Symbol of the Body in the Works of Teilhard de Chardin and Rāmānuja. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992. Panikkar 1993. Raimón Panikkar, The Cosmotheandric Experience. Emerging Religious Consciousness. Maryknoll/New York: Orbis Books 1993. Rosa 2016. Hartmut Rosa, Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2016. Rosa 2019. Id., Resonance. A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World. Translated by James C. Wagner. Cambridge, UK/Medford, USA: Polity Press 2019. Schaeffler 1995. Richard Schaeffler, Erfahrung im Dialog mit der Wirklichkeit. Eine Untersuchung zur Logik der Erfahrung. Freiburg i. Br.: Karl Alber 1995. Smart 1996. Ninian Smart, “The Inner Controller. Learning from Rāmānuja”. In: Re-visioning India’s Religious Traditions. Essays in Honour of Eric Lott, David C. Scott, Israel Selvanayagam (Eds.). Bangalore: ISPCK 1996, 144 – 154. Thibaut 1904. George Thibaut, The Vedânta-Sûtras. With Commentary by Râmânuja. [Sacred Books of the East 48]. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1904. Thöne 2016. Eva Thöne, Langsamer machen reicht nicht. Ein Interview von Eva Thöne, Spiegel Online. http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/resonanz-statt-beschleunigung-hart mut-rosas-gegenentwurf-a-1082402.html (accessed 31 Jan. 2018). Tsoukalas 2006. Steven Tsoukalas, Kṛṣṇa and Christ. Body-Divine Relation in the Thought of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Classical Christian Orthodoxy. Eugene: Paternoster 2006.

Michelle Voss Roberts

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism As I was clearing out my attic recently, I came across a set of objects I had bought for my infant almost seven years ago. Among them was a little pair of slippers, striped black and white, with the stuffed face of a panda. I had learned that when babies are born, they can see only about eight to twelve inches – just enough to make a connection with the caregiver’s face. I also learned that visual stimulation develops the optic nerve and the corresponding part of the baby’s brain. At first, they can only see stark contrasts – black, white, and shades of gray – and so Dr. Sears, the expert in all things related to parenting, recommends, “The best way you as a parent can stimulate baby’s vision is using black and white stripes or light and dark contrasting colors.”¹ Wearing these slippers, my child could be visually stimulated all day long, so that eventually they would develop the ability to differentiate objects in the world. The blurry vision of an infants, in which they initially cannot distinguish themselves from her surroundings, is a helpful metaphor for aspects of the “transcendence” that non-dual Śaiva theologians describe. The eleventh-century commentator Yogarāja uses the perspective of the “new-born child” as metaphor to describe modes of consciousness in which “I” and “This” are not quite distinguished.² This particular state of perception occurs not only in infants, but also when emerging from deep sleep or meditation, in persons in a coma, and in persons with profound intellectual disabilities. As this paper explores, nondual Śaiva anthropology includes modifications of consciousness such as these within a scheme of thirty-six tattvas or categories, which I shall use to test Nitsche’s hypothesis regarding varieties of transcendence as cosmomorphic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic. A heuristic use of the cosmomorphic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic will reveal that all three are indeed present in non-dual Śaiva thought. If a scholar were to look only for these three dimensions of human experience and transcendence, however, one would miss important dimensions of the rich anthropology that comes to the fore with the blurry zones of consciousness. I will therefore propose to flesh out Nitsche’s notion of trans-immanence by mean of these blurry zones of perception.  See Sears (no date).  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 122. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-029

450

Michelle Voss Roberts

Some Terminology Before I survey the anthropology that supports the transformation of consciousness in the non-dual Śaiva traditions of Kashmir, I will first introduce the texts that are my main conversation partners and some terminology relevant to the heuristic task at hand. The non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir, which is sometimes called Kashmir Śaivism, falls within the tantric traditions of India.³ Most broadly, this means that rather than taking the Vedas as their point of departure, they have a different set of authoritative texts called Tantras. The non-dual Śaiva traditions include the Trika, Kaula, Pratyabhijñā, Krama, and other sub-schools. From within this broad sweep, this paper refers primarily to a single text of Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1025), and the eleventh-century commentary (vivṛti) of Yogarāja. This text, The Essence of Ultimate Reality (skt. Paramārthasāra), is Abhinavagupta’s revision of an earlier Tantra by that name. Although Abhinavagupta is a polymath conversant with all of the non-dual Śaiva texts and traditions of his day (and more), this text is generally located within the Trika school, while Yogarāja’s commentary supplements his exegesis with esoteric Krama themes.⁴ Insofar as the questions of this volume require a broader view, I also point briefly to the verses of the fourteenth-century poet-saint, Lalla (also known as Lal Ded or Lalleśvarī), whose vernacular approach offers another angle on transcendence in this tradition.⁵ Labels such as idealism, monism, non-dualism, pantheism, and panentheism have been used to describe these non-dual Śaiva traditions. These terms are inaccurate if interpreted to mean that the differences between beings, and between things and their ultimate origin, are unreal. The aim of non-dual Śaiva practice is to recognize all things, in their very particularity, as pervaded by consciousness. As Paul Muller-Ortega puts it, “Śaivites assert that this world is real precisely because and insofar as it is only Śiva – the absolute con-

 Because the tradition often called “Kashmir Śaivism” extends outside Kashmir to South India, and because Kashmir has also been home to the dualistic Śaiva Siddhānta group, in this essay I refer to Abhinavagupta’s tradition as “non-dual Śaivism.”  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 21. Relying on Bansat-Boudon and Tripathi’s translations of these texts, I refer to Abhinavagupta’s text as Essence with the numbers of the kārikā or verse (thus Essence, K1). I refer to Yogarāja’s text as Commentary and give the page numbers.  Personal dimensions of deities sometimes appear in Abhinavagupta’s work as objects of meditation, including many goddesses that symbolize various principles. These, however, are means to the Ultimate, not the end.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

451

sciousness.”⁶ “Non-dualism” is a good description for this point of view, however, insofar as it resists the reduction of reality either to “two” (dualism) or to “one” (absolute monism).⁷ Among the metaphors The Essence of Ultimate Reality employs to express the relation between the Ultimate (skt. anuttara) and the individual is the metaphor of a source and its reflection in a mirror (eg. K7, 10 – 13, 48). Abhinavagupta is “credited with making the metaphor of reflection into a favoured trope” of his branch of Śaivism.⁸ He teaches that divine consciousness is reflected twice: once in the cosmos and again in each individual center of consciousness. The light reflected in individual consciousness is the means of recognizing divine consciousness in everything. Each of the reflections, which contains the thirty-six parts (skt. tattvas) mentioned above, can also, therefore, be recognized as the body of consciousness (cf. K49, K74).⁹ The non-dualism between Śiva and the world goes hand-in-hand with a nondualism between Śiva and his Śakti, the divine power to manifest, create, and reveal, which is present in all things. This paper will therefore refer to the deity in this tradition as Śiva-Śakti, in recognition of their inseparability.

The Movement of Consciousness The link between divinity, the cosmos, and the human being lies in the movement of consciousness. In periods of creation, the world unfolds from ŚivaŚakti in thirty-six principles (tattvas). Initially quite subtle, these modifications of consciousness become progressively denser, ending in the gross elements. In periods of cosmic dissolution, the thirty-six dissipate, reversing their course. Consciousness thus moves from subject to object and back again. Abhinavagupta’s tradition refers to these categories in groups of five principles each. In The Essence of Ultimate Reality, he describes these principles as follows: 1. From the pure unity of consciousness (Śiva) comes the first glimmer of the intent to perceive or create (skt. Śakti), followed by the principles called sadāśiva, īśvara, and vidyā (or śuddha-vidyā), which gradually differentiate the divine subject (Essence, K14). With their unfolding, the possibility of an ob-

 Muller-Ortega 1996: 189.  In this respect, Śaiva non-dualism shares similarities with interpretations of Advaita Vedanta such as that of Anantanand Rambachan, for whom the translation of māyā as “illusion” is a grave misunderstanding of his tradition. See Rambachan 2006: chapter 5.  Lawrence 2005: 586.  See Flood 1993.

452

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Michelle Voss Roberts

ject for divine consciousness gradually emerges. The blurry vision of the infant, or of a person emerging from sleep or meditation, is an especially appropriate metaphor for the first group of principles. Without a veil upon the unity of reality, no actual subject-object relation can take place. In order to allow objects for consciousness to emerge, the second group consists of five limitations, known as the sheaths of māyā. (Māyā is a sixth category in this group.) The sheaths limit the subject in terms of “Time, Agency, Necessity, Passion and Ignorance,” so that it can relate to objects that are similarly limited (Essence, K16 – 17). The third group begins with the individual center of consciousness (puruṣa) and the principle of materiality (prakṛti). Students of Indian thought will recognize this pair as the first two principles in Sāṃkhya-Yoga thought. These are followed by the aggregate known as the “inner organ” (skt. antaḥkaraṇa), consisting of the intelligence or volition (skt. buddhi), ego-sense (skt. ahaṃkāra), and mind or heart (skt. manas) (Essence, K19). The fourth group contains the principles that govern the five organs of sensation, “ear, skin, eye, tongue and nose.” These “cognitive organs” both arise from the mind-heart (skt. manas) in the previous group and relay sense data to it (Essence, K20). The fifth group governs the five “organs of action”: “voice, hand, foot, anus and genitals” (Essence, K20). Together with the organs of sensation, these enable a person to engage with the rest of the world by speaking, touching, moving, excreting, and procreating. The sixth group consists of the five subtle elements: “sound, touch, [form as] light, savor and odor” (K21). The objects of the organs of sensation and action reside in these realms and in the next set of principles. The seventh group holds the five gross elements: “ether, air, fire, water and earth” (Essence, K22). The last of these, the earth principle, is the most dense or coagulated form of consciousness. It forms the world in which human beings and all sentient animals live.

Śiva-Śakti is both the origin and destination of everything in this cosmic sweep, from the most subtle to the most concrete principles (Essence, K45). The same emanation and return occurs on the human scale. Every instance of thought, emotion, and perception follows the same pattern of egress and return, so that a person can follow these movements of consciousness back to their source through meditation. The goal is to recognize this pattern as pervading all of reality at all times. This constant awareness is sometimes called the fourth state, because it is held steady in the other states of waking, dreaming, or in deep sleep (Essence, K34). Waking, objects seem clearly distinguished from the per-

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

453

ceiving subject. Dreaming, objects appear within the subject’s own thought and are thus not fully distinct from the dreamer. In deep sleep, all subject-object distinction disappear. In the fourth state, one maintains the awareness that each is a variation on the single divine consciousness. Abhinavagupta uses the analogy of the different forms of sugar to express how consciousness pervades each of these principles: “Just as juice, skimmed froth, granular sugar, brown sugar, candy, etc. are in essence nothing but sugar cane, so are all forms only different states of the supreme Self” (Essence, K26). Human vision of this reality is blurry because it is covered by the veils of māyā and by material reality (skt. prakṛti), which “envelops consciousness … as the husk envelops the rice-grain” (Essence, K23). The three impurities (mala) of individuality, māyā, and karman adhere to the embodied person, obscuring the mirror of consciousness (Essence, K24). Abhinavagupta refers to this condition with the term ajñānatimira that denotes both darkness and an “ocular disorder that causes double-vision.”¹⁰ Because of these smudges on the mirror of consciousness, experiences of evil in the world are related to limitation but not equivalent to it. Suffering results when individual centers of consciousness act out of veiled knowledge, when they desire from limited satisfaction that is dominated by the ego, and when they try to act limited ability. These experiences are real; yet they can be averted or reframed by clearing the mirror of consciousness. The blurry human condition creates two audiences for Abhinavagupta’s work: those who are confused, and those who have attained liberating perspective. This results in some tension between sections of The Essence of Ultimate Reality. After his explication of the tattvas, he addresses the principal error of people who are still confused, which is that they mistake non-ultimate things for the Ultimate. He writes that it is “darkness upon darkness … to think that the Self is located in the non-Self – the body, breath,” or in any particular concept of the Ultimate (Essence, K31). However, it becomes clear later in the text that liberated persons understand that the Self is located in all of the tattvas after all: they become “by the force of the realization of nonduality, a residue of pure Being” (Essence, K41). Such a person can truly say, It is in Me that the universe appears, as in a spotless mirror, jars and the like. From Me comes forth the All, as does the wonderful diversity of dreams from one asleep. It is I who have taken on the form of all things, thus resembling the body, whose nature it is to have hands, feet, and the like. It is I who appear in each and every thing, just as the nature of light appears in all existent things.

 Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 149, n. 638.

454

Michelle Voss Roberts

Though devoid of corporeal sense-organs, it is I who am the one who sees, the one who hears, the one who smells. (Essence, K48 – 50)

One might distinguish these perspectives in a manner similar to Christian theologians who distinguish pantheism from panentheism: the error is to reduce divinity to the all (pantheism); the correct view is that the all exists within the divine (panentheism).¹¹ Thus, Yogarāja comments, “None but the Great Lord himself there persists, contemplating within himself the marvel of the host of objects that [constantly] appear and disappear.”¹²

Transcendent Dimensions of Human Experience Professor Nitsche posits that three basic dimensions of human existence structure three basic ways of experiencing transcendence: the cosmomorphic or nature-mystical, the sociomorphic or personality-oriented, and the noomorphic or subjectivity-consciousness dimension. The array of faculties delineated in the non-dual Śaiva anthropology encompasses all three. The gross and subtle elements might refer to the cosmomorphic dimension. The organs of sense and action that engage others in the world could be correlated to the sociomorphic. The inner instrument (skt. antaḥkaraṇa) – the mind, ego-sense, and will that constitute individual subjectivity – evince a connection to the noomorphic. Not least, preceding all three, are the sheaths of māyā and the subtle degrees of subject-object distinction that create their conditions of possibility. Some of the parallels with the theory of a three-fold orientation weaken, however, when we consider the primacy of the last dimension, consciousness and its conditions. For example, the non-dual Śaiva tradition’s attention to the corporeal world is not nature mysticism but an extension of the dynamics of subjectivity. Objects in the natural world are not primarily a source of awe but objects for a subject to perceive. Insofar as the sociomorphic points to social roles and identity constructs as aspects of encounter with the divine, these dimensions of human experience feature least prominently in traditional non-dual Śaiva meditation practices. On the human side, roles matter little, for a subject is a subject. The structures of perception remain constant whether one is a priest, an artisan, or a street sweeper. On the divine side, roles such as savior, warrior, or father/mother are not as-

 See Nemec’s essay in this volume pp. 331– 344.  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 222.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

455

signed to Śiva-Śakti in the same way as in theistic or devotional traditions. As Abhinavagupta puts it, “There is nothing at all separate from the [knower of the Self] to be honored with an oblation or to be praised,” and so the practitioner “has no uses for homages or ritual formulae … [or] hymns of praise” (Essence, K73). Nevertheless, a personal mode of address does appear in vernacular or poetic genres in this tradition. If I may be allowed a small poetic detour from my theological investigation of The Essence of Ultimate Reality, we might for a moment listen to how Lalla addresses Śiva-Śakti in the mode of supplication as she describes her spiritual search: With a rope of untwisted yarn am I towing my boat on the ocean. Would that God heard my prayer and ferry me across safely. Like water in unbaked plates of clay my efforts are going to waste. How I wish I would reach home!¹³

Elsewhere, she takes up the erotic tone that would become prevalent in later Indian bhakti: Rising in the last watch of the moonlit night I made my wayward mind repeat His name. I bore the pangs of his love, woke my beloved saying, “Here is Lalla, Lalla, Lalla.” My body got purified when my mind attained oneness with Him.¹⁴

These verses demonstrate that the theistic (I-Thou) and non-dual modes are not mutually contradictory. The erotic mode is especially compatible with a view of transcendence as union-in-difference. Lalla calls upon the physical elements to make the same point, as in this verse about the three states of water: The cold transformed water into ice and snow, giving rise to the conception of the three. When the sun of consciousness shines bright all three become one, and the world of the living and the lifeless are seen as Śiva Himself.¹⁵

 Kotru 1989: 1.  Kotru 1989: 44.  Kotru 1989: 42.

456

Michelle Voss Roberts

Lalla describes the three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, and deep sleep) as ice, snow, and water. She refers to the fourth state, in which “all three become one … as Śiva himself,” which is the condition of the liberated person who maintains awareness of the unity of consciousness within the world of duality. This aim is met when “the sun of consciousness shines bright” and the mind attains oneness with the divine. Thus, although Lalla finds a place for personal address, even these occasions refer back to the primary approach of the non-dual Śaiva tradition, which we are calling the noomorphic relation of consciousness and the conditions of its possibility. The particular terms of non-dual Śaiva anthropology can help to develop the category of the noomorphic. In many Indian systems, the mind (manas) is not the only, or even the best, faculty to realize this reality. Manas is a kind of sense organ that is associated with both thought and emotion; and like all of the sense faculties, it reflects the movement of consciousness as thoughts and emotions rise and fall within it. However, the buddhi – intelligence, will, instinct, wisdom – is positioned as the clearest mirror for consciousness. It is “capable of receiving reflection from all sides so that it receives the reflection of the light of the self from within as well as that of the external objects from without.”¹⁶ This kind of distinction among the “mental” faculties – here, between manas and buddhi – is one way that Indian anthropologies can contribute to developing the hypothesis by specifying precisely which faculties are involved when a person experiences transcendence. If the noomorphic relationship were to center upon consciousness itself (cit, caitanya, saṃvid), this dimension of the hypothesis would describe non-dual Śaiva practices quite well. A brief comparison can clarify what this does and does not mean. The Christian theologian Augustine uses the structure of human consciousness as an analogy for how the Trinity can be both one and three.¹⁷ In this analogy, human experience helps one to understand a divine reality that is of a completely different order. This position stops short of what he hints, elsewhere, that the structure of human consciousness might actually reflect divine consciousness and offer a way to God. He counsels, “descend into yourself, enter your secret place, your mind, and there see what I want to say, if you can. For, if you are yourself far from yourself, how can you draw near to God?”¹⁸ Here, in the second case, Augustine comes closer to Abhinavagupta’s position, which is that only one power of consciousness exists, and all sentient

 Pandey 1963: 378.  Augustine, The Trinity XV.1. Trans. by Hill 1991: 398.  Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 11 – 27, 23.10. Trans. by Rettig 1988: 223.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

457

beings participate in it. In Abhinavagupta’s non-dual Śaivism, human consciousness is not only analogous to divine consciousness but actually reflects it.

The Apophatic and the Im/personal Nitsche’s approach relates transcendence to “a certain unconditionality, an unconditionality that is, however, inaccessible.”¹⁹ In gesturing toward a prior unconditioned reality, he subsumes both personal and non-personal conceptions of the Ultimate under the apophatic mode of theology: The apophatic hiddenness … describes a trans-categorical ‘beyond’ and a pre-categorical ‘before,’ which itself cannot be called personal or impersonal. In its strict beyondness, it is a complete emptiness of finite entities or concepts and a perfect and unfathomable completeness. … logically it precedes any definition.²⁰

To what extent can we find these presuppositions in the discussion of the tattvas in the Essence and Commentary? The defining characteristic of the first of the thirty-six tattvas is that it finally transcends all duality. Abhinavagupta and Yogarāja emphasize that there is nothing higher than (skt. anuttarā) pure consciousness. Yogarāja’s commentary on Kārikā 14 of Essence of Ultimate Reality alludes to a “form of Śiva” that “transcends the fourth state.”²¹ In Tantrāloka 11. 21– 23, Abhinavagupta describes this form as a thirty-seventh tattva called Paramaśiva. The point of such statements is to preserve for the Ultimate a dimension that is utterly unconditioned. They put the transcendent reality in a different class: the one “who pervades … cannot be located in the same series as those pervaded.”²² This expansion of the tattvas emphasizes the ultimacy of non-duality, that hard-to-attain state of consciousness that realizes that the Ultimate is no-thing at all, but transcends all categories. It cannot be enumerated or transcended. As Yogarāja puts it, “The word tattva, ‘principle,’ is employed [by us] only to the extent that a verbal exposition is

 Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 6 (printed in this volume pp. 5 – 8).  Nitsche, “Dimensions of Human Existence”, p. 8.  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 125.  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 125 n. 513. For Abhinavagupta’s own reference a thirty-seventh tattva and Siva as “higher than the thirty-seventh,” see Hannender 1998: 75, cf. 171. Bettina Bäumer also resorts to the notion of a thirty-seventh tattva on the basis of Abhinavagupta’s use of the word anuttara in Bäumer 2011: 12, 269.

458

Michelle Voss Roberts

required, for those who need instruction, but truly this word does not apply to [the Supreme Śiva].”²³ This schematic, then, could indeed be an example of one in which a “transcending dynamic” points to an ultimate “unconditionality” that is the source of all conditioned reality, per Nitsche. The Ultimate not only transcends the capability of mental capacities, but, further, cannot be contained within the scheme of the thirty-six tattvas at all. The unconditioned is not, for that reason, utterly “inaccessible.” The aim of The Essence of Ultimate Reality is to facilitate the achievement of liberation while living (skt. jīvanmukti; cf. Essence, K61). This is a condition in which one overcomes the apparent opposition between the divine subject and created objects by recognizing that all are permeated by divine consciousness. In this mode of consciousness, the fourth state, the liberated remain aware of non-duality at all times. The paradox lies in the attempt to express something of this experience while at the same time acknowledging how unlike ordinary consciousness it is. For this reason, The Essence of Ultimate Reality moves away from the preliminary distinctions between the self and the Self and pushes toward the realization of their identity. For some, this realization is a gradual transformation through practice, but for others it comes instantly, in an immediate descent of divine energy (śaktipāta) via the word of the guru: When [the yogin] accedes to this way of ultimate reality immediately, [upon instruction] from the mouth of the preceptor [himself], then he becomes Śiva without further obstacle, in virtue of a grace that is extremely forceful. Identification with Śiva is his [also] who accedes to the utterly transcendent state in graduated steps, finally gaining familiarity with the ultimate principle. (Essence, K96 – 97, emphasis added).

For the liberated, distinction is obliterated: “When he becomes the Great Lord at the very moment he realizes: ‘It is I [who am the Lord]’” (Essence, K59, emphasis added). This “becoming” is actually a realization of what has always been the case: “Neither has liberation any abode, nor does it involve a going elsewhere. Liberation is the manifestation of one’s own energies by cutting the knot of ignorance” (Essence, K60). Yogarāja comments, “Therefore, nothing at all novel is realized in liberation: there is displayed nothing but one’s own innate nature.”²⁴

 Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 106.  Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 230. Across the tantric systems, there is room for a variety of metaphysical interpretations on this account. Gavin Flood explores the extent to which the root

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

459

The particular use of the mirror metaphor further clarifies this point. Every metaphor has its limitations. Metaphors say something true about their referents, but there are also aspects of the metaphor that do not apply. On might read the mirror metaphor as pointing to an ultimate difference between self and the divine, insofar as the object and its reflection appear as two, or insofar as the reflection shows the image in reverse. However, the shortcoming of the metaphor is actually the degree to which it expresses difference when there is none. As Abhinavagupta puts it, As, in the orb of a mirror, objects such as cities or villages, themselves various though not different [from the mirror], appear both as different from each other and from the mirror itself, so appears this world [in the mirror of the Lord’s consciousness], differentiated both internally and vis-à-vis that consciousness, although it is not different from consciousness most pure, the supreme Bhairava. (Essence, K12– 13)

It is helpful to remember that, in this metaphor, Śiva not only appears in the mirror, but Śiva is the mirror itself. ²⁵ The only difference, Abhinavagupta says, is that although human beings are often deluded, Śiva is not (Essence, K38). Any statement about religious transcendence in this tradition, then, should not suggest that Śiva is ultimately “other” or ultimately inaccessible. Each dimension of the divine body is reflected in every human body. This means that the rational faculties are not the only part of the human person that can attempt to access that reality: all of the tattvas are at his disposal because “The divine abode for him is his own body – endowed with the thirty-six principles” (K74). The thirty-six tattvas are precisely where the all-pervasive deity dwells. Thus, although the error of the unenlightened is to mistake physical and mental reality for the ultimate reality, the enlightened realization is to discover exactly how these faculties do indeed reflect the Ultimate. For this reason, non-dual Śaiva

texts, the Tantras, prioritize the ritual action, in which “the tantric practitioner identifies his body with the cosmos and deity in daily ritual and yogic practice, identifying himself with something outside himself that he then becomes,” rather than philosophical speculation about the ontological duality and non-duality implied therein. Flood 2006: 5, cf. 70. For example, Sanderson contrasts Śaiva Siddhānta, in which a practitioner “did not become Śiva; he became a Śiva, omniscient and omnipotent but numerically distinct,” with the Trika, which “breaks through these exoteric barriers of pluralism, realism and reified impurity.” Sanderson 1988: 161.  Bäumer cites Abhinavagupta’s Tantrasāra III to the same effect: “Just as all this appears like a reflection, in the same way the universe appears in the light of the Supreme Lord. / (If you ask:) What is the (original) image (that is reflected here)? / (I answer:) It is nothing. … Ultimately it is the Lord who contains in Himself all the reflected reality and whose Self is the All, because the universe is of the nature of Consciousness, it is the locus of the revelation of Consciousness.” Bäumer 1997: 333.

460

Michelle Voss Roberts

practice cannot be reduced to attaining a transcendent unity of consciousness but must be extended to the realization that everything is related to everything else. Nitsche’s term, trans-immanence, describes this dynamic well.

Trans-Immanence In the prompt for the Twin Conference, Nitsche defined transcendence via Thomas Luckmann’s typology of “the great transcendences which confront us with the inaccessible and the immeasurable of life,” as in “a traumatic loss or an ecstatic experience.” Such experiences result in “transcending beyond the here and now” and “reaching beyond … its ultimate horizon and its innermost foundation” toward a reality that is “a mystery inaccessible to human knowledge.”²⁶ The non-dual Śaiva paradigm certainly makes room for these kinds of experiences, for grief and ecstasy are, like other emotions and perceptions, occasions to follow the modulations of consciousness. However, there is much more to non-dual thought and practice than these ecstatic moments. Although “sometimes the expression ‘transcendent’ is used in connection with anuttara,” Ernst Fürlinger explains, “‘transcendence’ in the true sense does not exist in a non-dualistic system. … Rather, Trika represents a complex ontology in which the opposition of transcendence and immanence is transcended.”²⁷ I suggest that for this reason, Nitsche’s term “trans-immanence” better describes the goal of non-dual Śaiva practice than “transcendence” alone. The system of the tattvas holds the key to explaining why this is so. Liberating realization is possible because the patterns that structure reality repeat themselves at different levels of existence. Recall that the first, large-scale level of homology occurs between the body of consciousness, the cosmic body, and the human body, each of which contains the thirty-six tattvas. Recognition of the pattern in one realm equips a person to recognize it in others, so that even the most material processes and mundane perceptions point to the ultimate horizon. The second level of homology occurs within the system of thirty-six, where each group contains five categories. Each of the pentads is related to all of the others. Unpacking this internal pattern can illuminate the dynamics of trans-immanence in this tradition.

 Cf. Nitsche, Prepatory Notes of the Conference; cf., also on Luckmann’s concept of transcendence, Nitsche’s contribution God or the Divine? pp. 11; 15; 17 (printed in this volume pp. 9 – 40).  Fürlinger 2009: 157.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

461

Ordinarily, when one falls asleep or awakens, one is unaware of the sequence between duality and non-duality that is taking place. Yogarāja’s Commentary on the first five tattvas refers to distinct states of experience that mark degrees along this path. He assigns a mantra to the tattva that each stage realizes. The Śiva-tattva is marked with the pure consciousness of the statement, “I am.” The Śiva-Śakti-tattva’s potential to create corresponds with the mantra, “I become all.” The first inkling of an object, which appears with the Sadāśiva-tattva, receives the mantra “I am this,” which Yogarāja explains as an experience within the self “without differentiating [one from the other].” Īśvaratattva corresponds with “I am this”, where the two “are held in perfect equilibrium.” The balance then slightly tips toward the object with the Śuddhavidyā-tattva, which has the mantra “‘I am I’ [and] ‘This is This.’”²⁸ Each of these subtle degrees of awareness marks a mode of identification with divine consciousness that is concomitant with divinity’s emerging awareness of the world. These mantras describe the stages of consciousness that are the very conditions for perception. As the first five principles of consciousness unfold, the subject can gradually perceive an object that is distinct from the self. When one moves in reverse, from awareness of duality back to the unity of consciousness, the ability to cognize or describe what is happening again dissolves. Carrying through each set of tattvas, this fivefold pattern facilitates recognition of the divine presence in every part of the universe and the self so that they do not need to be transcended.²⁹ If one simply follows the movement of thought and perception, in all levels of reality, one has experienced the nature of divine reality. This goal does not actually escape the here and now. As astonishing as this non-dual insight might be, no trauma or ecstasy is actually required. The transcendent reality is immanent to all experience.

A Role for Limitation within Transcendence Nitsche’s hypothesis calls attention to dimensions of human experience that the non-dual Śaiva anthropology positions as the body of consciousness – elements in nature, social dimensions of embodied engagement, mental participation in consciousness, and the ultimate possibility underlying all of three. I suggest expanding the threefold paradigm to make room for limitation – not as something

 Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 118 – 122.  Flood 2006: 55 – 66.

462

Michelle Voss Roberts

to be overcome through transcendence, but as a trans-immanent manifestation of divine power and a means of encountering it. Although the language of transcendence often implies the overcoming of limitations, limits in this system are not only something to be transcended. Without limitations in power, knowledge, satisfaction, place, and time, there would be no object for divine consciousness. There would be no world for Śiva-Śakti to perceive. There would be no individual centers of consciousness to recognize that their deepest nature is consciousness itself. Because the sheaths of māyā form the very possibility for the distinction between divinity, the world, and created beings, they are dimensions of Śiva-Śakti’s own powers. Each principle within the first pentad is a manifestation of one of the five energies (skt. śakti): consciousness, bliss, will, knowledge and action;³⁰ and māyā itself is a sixth divine energy. Each of the sheaths – time, agency, necessity, desire and ignorance – is a veil that covers one of these five energies (Essence, K16) so that the infinite and unconditioned divine powers appear in limited and conditioned form. For example, ignorance is introduced to pure divine knowledge so that individuals can know particular things. With practice, Abhinavagupta and his disciples learn to enjoy ultimate reality in and through its limited forms, by following the movement of consciousness in breath, thought, perception, and desire. The profound implications of this teaching for a cross-cultural, multi-religious project such as this should not be glossed over. Living liberation (skt. jīvanmukti) does not entail escaping the limited and conditioned realm. Rather, it attains a new appreciation for the immanent presence of the Ultimate within the body and its limits. Contemporary theologies of disability would encourage us to linger among these tattvas and flesh out their meaning even further. Could it be that the body’s desires, its limitation in time and space, and its limited perspective, knowledge, and ability are more than impediments to transcendence? How might attentiveness to limits help us to understand trans-immanence?

Expanding the Proposal Contemporary theologians of disability working within the Christian tradition take a critical view on the dominant religious preference for transcending limi-

 Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011: 118.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

463

tation, the body, and the material world.³¹ Their work swims against a tide of popular prejudice that treats people with disabilities as less than fully human and of a theological reasoning that has justified it by linking disability and sin. Such justifications have in extreme cases led to the involuntary sterilization or even euthanization of persons considered intellectually, genetically, or otherwise defective. In more mundane cases, even people who would abhor such measures send both subtle and overt messages that persons with disabilities are objects of pity and charity rather than contributing members of the community. The disability rights movement has coined the phrase “temporarily ablebodied” to shift away from able-bodied and able-minded norms. This term signifies that although a person might not currently experience more than a “typical” degree of limitation, this is only a temporary condition. Limits are normal. Everyone regularly experiences limitations of embodiment that require accommodation. For example, because human beings cannot fly, we need stairs or an elevator to reach floors above ground level. It is, therefore, not only the person in a wheelchair who needs accommodation. If the need for a ramp is considered exceptional, is only because bodies that can navigate stairs are considered the norm.³² In light of such insights, theologian Deborah Creamer proposes a “limits model” of being human that acknowledges limits and disability as ordinary parts of life.³³ Theologies of disability also call upon their theological traditions to bring experiences of limitation not only into their model of humanity but also into their view of the divine. For Christians, Christ’s incarnation means that God is with humanity, in the limits of time and space, individuality, and a particular body. The crucified and resurrected Christ bears disability in his wounded hands, feet, and side.³⁴ These central Christian teachings speak as well to a divine presence that is always present in every particular moment, place, and body in creation. Divinity is present within limits, and limits need not be spiritual obstacles. Thomas Reynolds, Amos Yong, Sarah Griffith Lund, Jean Vanier, John Swinton, and others explore the unique graces – we might say trans-immanences – that appear in lives affected by physical and mental disabilities.³⁵

 This proposal derives from a larger project on how disability theology can inform a comparative theological anthropology. See Voss Roberts 2017.  Kafer 2013: 137– 138.  Creamer 2009.  Cf. Eiesland 1994: 89.  Cf. Lund 2014; Reynolds 2008; Vanier/Swinton 2014; Yong 2007.

464

Michelle Voss Roberts

The present volume’s anthropological proposal stresses human freedom, self-understanding, and subjectivity. The primacy it gives to self-consciousness resembles the theological anthropologies of Gordon Kaufman and George Lindbeck, which center upon self-reflection, intentionality, and language use. Theologian and physical therapist Molly Haslam’s contends that these theologies exclude people with profound intellectual disabilities. In certain cases, people with profound intellectual disabilities might exhibit behavior that responds to stimuli, but the responses are not intentional. In fact, their relation to the world shows no evidence of understanding self as distinct from environment or from other people. Haslam observes of one client that he “does not possess the capacity to employ concepts of self and other required for intentional agency … [nor] an ability to express himself symbolically using public gestures, words, or actions with the intent to give meaning to experience.”³⁶ This experience of being human seems to lie outside the norm for this volume as well. Non-dual Śaiva anthropology suggests how the concept of trans-immanence might be widened to include bodily experiences of disability, including mental disabilities of the most profound sort. As we have seen, this anthropology posits that a person can experience religious transcendence, or trans-immanence, without becoming “conscious” of it – that is, without an explicit concept of “I,” “you,” or “it.” Referring to Martin Buber’s contrast between the “I-Thou” and the “I-It,” Haslam suggests that because people with profound intellectual disabilities do not erect obstacles to the I-Thou relation by making subject-object distinctions between themselves and others, the I-Thou is their ordinary mode of consciousness.³⁷ In non-dual Śaiva terminology, they more readily access the subtle degrees of consciousness that lie beyond the veil of māyā. This variation of consciousness supplements the varieties of transcendence in the paradigm we are discussing. An anthropology inspired by the thirty-six tattvas includes people with profound intellectual disabilities, as well as infants and others left out of theological anthropologies based on rationality, intention, or self-awareness.³⁸ It provides language for the kind of subject-object unity these persons experience, and it recognizes these states of consciousness as a relationship with the divine. In their very limitation, they experience something of divine consciousness. In other words, blurry vision, a condition that infants outgrow and adults view

 Haslam 2012: 53 – 54.  Haslam 2012: 78.  Rambachan’s constructive theological work on Advaita Vedānta Hindu views of the child moves in similar directions. See Rambachan 2015: chapter 8.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

465

as a disability to be corrected, is a site for experiencing the movement of divine consciousness. Acceptance of limits (in ability, knowledge, time, place, and satisfaction), does not thereby negate the quest to cure the diseases and impairments that cause suffering. The striving of science to overcome limits and find cures is itself a kind of search for transcendence. Much good has been achieved through vaccines, surgical innovations, pharmacology, prostheses, and therapeutic techniques. At the same time, the availability of interventions can reinforce norms of being human that do not honor embodied difference. Medical interventions are themselves limited, carrying with them side effects, expenses, and unwanted social consequences that may cause individuals to forgo treatment. This is not an either-or issue: it calls for a “nondualistic vocabulary of strength and weakness, of insight and deception – one that emphasizes accountability, not guilt.”³⁹ Or, as Creamer puts it, we must strive to avoid the two extremes of “apathy and omnipotent control.”⁴⁰ Even when a cure is elusive or undesired, the priority is healing, which involves including all people within relationships to communities and to the divine.⁴¹

Conclusion This investigation has proven that the non-dual Śaiva tradition, as articulated in The Essence of Ultimate Reality, is an obliging partner in this volume’s proposed theoretical scheme. We have tested the theory and considered distinctions within which one can readily locate cosmomorphic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic levels of encounter with the divine. As we have seen, such testing also reflects back upon the theory. Regardless of the great transcendences that can elevate human consciousness away from the ordinary aspects of being human, divine consciousness is already reflected in the ordinary: in our limited knowledge and ability, our dependence on others to survive and flourish, and the particular times and places in which we live, know, and act. The inclusion of limits within

 Welch 1999: 43. Welch here gestures toward the social model of disability, wherein social structures and the built environment are disabling because they do not accommodate the range of human bodily variation. Along the same lines, Kafer points out that “there is a difference between denying necessary health care, condoning dangerous working conditions, or ignoring public health concerns (thereby causing illness and impairment) and recognizing illness and disability as part of what makes us human.” Kafer 2013: 4.  Creamer 2009: 113.  Black 1996: 53.

466

Michelle Voss Roberts

the body of consciousness, as within the human body, thus encourages us to recognize additional dimensions of trans-immanence, which in turn might be tested across the spectrum of religious traditions treated in these volumes.

Bibliography Bansat-Boudon/Tripathi 2011. Lyne Bansat-Boudon, Kamaleshadatta Tripathi, An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramarthasara of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja. London and New York: Routledge 2011. Bäumer 2011. Bettina Bäumer, Abhinavagupta’s Hermeneutics of the Absolute. Anuttaraprakriya. An Interpretation of his Paratrisika Vivarana. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study 2011. Bäumer 1997. Id., “Aesthetics of Mysticism or Mysticism of Aesthetics? The Approach of Kashmir Saivism”. In: Mysticism in Shaivism and Christianity. Bettina Bäumer (Ed.). New Delhi: D. K. Printworld 1997, 329 – 349. Black 1996. Kathy Black, A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability. Nashville: Abingdon 1996. Creamer 2009. Deborah Beth Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009. Eiesland 1994. Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberation Theology of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon Press 1994. Flood 2006. Gavin Flood, The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion. London: I.B. Taurus 2006. Flood 1993. Id., Body and Consciousness in Kashmir Saivism. San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press 1993. Fürlinger 2009. Ernst Fürlinger, The Touch of Śakti: A Study in Non-dualistic Trika Śaivism of Kashmir. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld 2009. Hannender 1998. Jürgen Hannender, Abhinavagupta’s Philosophy of Revelation: An Edition and Annotated Translation of Malinislokavarttika I, 1 – 399. Groningen: Egbert Forsten 1998. Haslam 2012. Molly C. Haslam, A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability: Human Being as Mutuality and Response. New York: Fordham University Press 2012. Hill 1991. Edmund Hill, The Trinity (I/5) 2nd Edition. Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century. John E. Rotelle (Ed.). Brooklyn, N.Y.: New City 1991. Kafer 2013. Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2013. Kotru 1989. Nil Kanth Kotru, Lal Ded, Her Life and Sayings. Srinigar: Utpal Publications 1989. Lawrence 2005. David Peter Lawrence, Remarks on Abhinavagupta’s Use of the Analogy of Reflection. Journal of Indian Philosophy 33 (2005): 583 – 599. Lund 2014. Sarah Griffith Lund, Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family, and Church. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press 2014. Muller-Ortega 1996. Paul E. Muller-Ortega, “Aspects of Jīvanmukti in the Tantric Śaivism of Kashmir”. In: Living Liberation in Hindu Thought. Ed. Andrew O. Fort, Patricia Y. Mumme. Albany: State University of New York Press 1996.

Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism

467

Pandey 1963. Kanti Chandra Pandey, Abhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study. 2nd ed. Varanasi: Chowkhanda Sanskrit Series 1963. Rambachan 2015. Anantanand Rambachan, A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two is Not One. Albany: State University of New York Press 2015. Rambachan 2006. Id., The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity. Albany: State University of New York Press 2006. Rettig 1988. John W. Rettig, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 11 – 27. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press 1988. Reynolds 2008. Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality. Grand Rapids: Brazos 2008. Sanderson 1988. Alexis Sanderson, “Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions”. In: The World’s Religions. The Religions of Asia. Friedhelm Hardy (Ed.). London: Routledge 1988, 128 – 172. Sears (no date). William Sears, “Visual Stimulation for Newborns”. In: Ask Dr. Sears. The Trusted Resource for Parents. http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/parenting/child-rearingand-development/bright-starts-babys-development-through-interactive-play/playtime-ar ticles/visual-stimulation-newborns (01. 01. 2018). Vanier/Swington 2014. Jean Vanier and John Swinton, Mental Health: The Inclusive Church Resource. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd 2014. Voss Roberts 2017. Michelle Voss Roberts, Body Parts: A Theological Anthropology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2017. Voss Roberts 2010. Id., Dualities: A Theology of Difference. Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2010. Welch 1999. Sharon D. Welch, Sweet Dreams in America. Making Ethics and Spirituality Work. London, New York: Routledge 1999. Yong 2007. Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press 2.

Marcus Schmücker

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha Introductory Remarks A central point in Bernhard Nitsche’s essay in this volume, as well as in his philosophical approach altogether, is the idea of freedom. He sees freedom as indispensable for beings to be autonomous and responsible. He also sees freedom as transcending any restrictions, whether physical, biological, social or psychological. Nitsche’s view of freedom is relevant for the topic of the Divine. It is not possible to conceive of a divine being without the idea of freedom. Nitsche sees freedom as enabling one to “develop the idea of an unconditioned subjectivity.”¹ Further, the idea of freedom is not reduced to a single individual; it implies “unconditionedness and pure setting-free of the freedom of others.”² In the Indian theistic tradition of the Vedānta, freedom or independence is considered a gift that human beings receive from God. This is a central element, especially in the tradition of the Rāmānuja school that I will focus on here. The European discourse on the gift is broad and complex. The exchange of gifts has often been analyzed against the background of Marcel Mauss’s classic “Essay sur le don” (Paris 1950). His basic thesis is that gift giving takes place in a reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving. This idea has been developed further, especially in French phenomenology, to include not only asymmetrical giving, but also pure forms of gift giving. Within the reception of Marcel Mauss, both critical and positive, has been the work of the two thinkers Marcel Henaff and Paul Ricoeur. While they do not relinquish the relationship bond between giver and receiver, they develop it in new directions. Paul Ricoeur contrasts “reciprocity” (réciprocité) with “mutuality” (mutualité).³ His concept of “reciprocity” involves a circularity of exchange with no meeting between persons. In contrast, “mutuality” is exchange between persons who have a relationship with one another. “Mutuality” is therefore not about anonymous reciprocity; it is a relation-

 Nitsche, God or the Divine, in this volume, p. 16.  Ibid., p. 16.  Cf. Ricoeur 2004: 300; 301. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-030

470

Marcus Schmücker

ship that takes the connection between persons into account. It is the “between” of persons as opposed to the mere circulation of material goods. In Indian traditions, there are innumerable corresponding examples. When analyzing concepts of giving in Indian theology, Ricoeur’s distinction between reciprocity and mutuality can be used as a guide. It can be shown that the Indian traditions under consideration here have a personalized “mutuality” that can be defined as asymmetrical. Precisely unlike Mauss, he releases the gift from any obligation of return, but the fact that something is given to someone is not annulled.⁴ In this context, it is important to consider how to incorporate gift theory into a theological discourse. It may seem obvious that in a theological framework, gift-giving goes beyond Mauss’s model of reciprocity. The gift of a single God is a pure gift that has no corresponding counter-gift. As has been emphasized by many scholars of Christian theology, the gift is of fundamental importance regarding the relationship between God and the individual soul.⁵ This is also the case for the religious traditions of India. It has often been asserted that certain kinds of gifts do not require a counter-gift; there are pure gifts for which no corresponding reciprocal gift exists or is needed. It may be obvious that in monotheistic traditions, the gift of one God is an example of a gift with no corresponding counter-gift. We find this also in later Indian theological traditions. Indeed, in the theistic tradition of Vedānta, divine giving is an example of a gift, for which no corresponding gift exists. Without this gift, in the theological context of the relationship between God and the soul, the encounter between a divine transcendence and human beings would not be comprehensible. An example of such a divine giving can be found in the context of creation: in order to manifest the world anew, God is engaged with the adṛṣṭa – the repository of good and bad deeds of the souls in past aeons (kalpa). God is thus the

 It would otherwise be subject to the compulsion of reciprocity. It escapes this according to Ricoeur, who distinguishes his proposal from the obligation to give in return: cf. Ricoeur 2004: 373: “On a glosé sur l’obligation de rendre; mais on ne s’est pas suffisamment dans le don constitue le geste qui amorce le processus entier. La générosité du don suscite non pas une restitution, qui, au sens propre, annulerait le premier don, mais quelque chose comme la résponse à une offre. À la limite, il faute tenir le premier don pour le modèle du second don, et penser, si l’on peut dire, le second don comme une sort de second premier don.”  The reception in Christian theology of the theory of the gift is still young; it began only about twenty years ago. For an outline of the history of different concepts of giving and receiving in different disciplines, their relations and influence on theology cf. Hoffmann 2013: 1– 112. On the relevance of Mauss’s concept of the gift for theological questions, see also ibid., pp. 277 ff. Cf. also the contributions of theologians in Hoffmann 2009 for the deep influence of gift theory on theology. Insofar as one can speak of theology in the medieval traditions of India, discussions of a theory of the gift are rare.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

471

only ground for the soul to be liberated from karman. And this means that such a God is the only Being that can appropriately respond to the good and bad deeds of the soul. This gift is thus a matter of generosity that is received by the soul. But souls do not have to respond; they are not forced to give in return. As we shall see, this gift is dependent on human beings’ responsibility of acting in a way that leads God to bestow a result (phalapradāna). Nonetheless, while this divine action is important, it is also on the side of the soul important how God’s gift is received, that is, whether the soul is capable of accepting this gift. Before dealing with these matters, however, I will briefly outline the concept of reciprocity in contrast to mutuality, which I mentioned above, to clarify how, in the complex development of monotheism in India, the idea grew of a single God encountering a plurality of individual souls in a relationship of giving and receiving.

Reciprocity Traditions that can be defined as monotheistic did not develop in India until the second millennium CE. Nonetheless, rituals of gift exchange were already practiced in Vedic times, whereby a multitude of gods were in mutual exchange with human beings,⁶ with sacrificers giving offerings to the gods and expecting gifts in return. We can speak for example of a tripartite exchange between poet-priest, patron and the gods. Poems are offered to the gods by the poet, the gods give gifts to the patron and the patron gives gifts to the poet. The dependence in the exchange is clear: the gods need the poet-priest, who needs the patron who protects and pays him; the patron, on the other hand, needs both: the poet-priest for his relation to the gods and the gods to bestow gifts of wealth and prosperity on him. Exchange functions as long as these parties are mutually reliable partners. But this is not always the case. In the Vedic context, to ensure that an action fulfilled its purpose and produced the appropriate result (phala), direct offerings to the gods were replaced by rituals. A ritual action has fulfilled its purpose when the desired result is achieved. However, a ritual lacks clear reciprocity between humans and gods. There is no

 A recurring quotation that proves the reciprocal exchange between gods and humans in the literature of the Brāhmaṇas examines Wilden 2000: 133 – 177: “Because of what is given from here the gods live, because of what is given from there the humans live” (itaḥpradānād devā upajīvanti, amutaḥpradānān manuṣyā upajīvanti).

472

Marcus Schmücker

longer a direct recipient who can return what has been given. On one side, a person must perform a ritual alone. While the gods have not yet disappeared from the ritual, they now have a different status.⁷ Fulfilling a ritual act is no longer dependent on a reciprocal gift from another person or a god, but on performing the ritual correctly. Of course, no ritual act is meaningless or futile, because any ritual can be seen as having brought a result. Nevertheless, it is often unclear when the result has been realized.⁸ Or if this is indeed clear, it may still be unclear whether that result is eternal or not. Thus the ritual must be performed again (and again).⁹ One criterion for performing a ritual is the correctly understanding of the Veda, whose valid sentences, its ritual prescriptions, are eternally fixed in their meaning and can never be changed. The focus is now on the agent (kartṛ), the logical subject of every activity and the performer of the ritual. An important innovation in the Vedic context is the concept of “independence” (svātantrya),¹⁰ although this independence is still dependent on the correct performance of Vedic instructions. We will see how influential this concept is and how much it shapes the development of monotheism and a concept of divine transcendence. To summarize: In the development of the Indian traditions, a shift first took place from offerings being made to a multitude of gods to rituals being performed. This developed into the idea of the eternal Veda being an authority guaranteeing the result of all ritual acts. In the process of this development, not only was the ritual precisely analyzed, but also how performers of rituals were to understand the meaning of Vedic sentences.  Clooney 1997: 340 ff.; cf. also Bilimoria 1990: 481 ff.  Cf. Ollett (2013: 227), who summarizes: “In the case of the Veda, the results are those things for the sake of which one undertakes a sacrifice, and which are indicated in the Veda itself (heaven, sons, wealth, and so on). Or more precisely, the result is “the unprecedented” (apūrva), the invisible causal link between the performance of the sacrifice and the achievement of the desired end (heaven and so on).”  Cf. also Lipner’s (1986: 69) insightful description of the indiscernibility of the fruit (phala) of an action: “Now it is not open to human insight to discern the fruit (of the performance or nonperformance) of particular actions; no one can tell a priori or with certitude based on human intuition alone that the fruit of the agnihotra sacrifice is paradise, obtainable in a post-mortem existence. […] we must rely on scripture or scripture-derived authority for veridical information about the connection between an action and its fruit.”  Certainly, independence can also be understood as freedom. On the relationship between these two terms, cf. the comment by Dasti (2014: 3): “Having free will is often understood in terms of one’s being able to choose otherwise or in terms of a person being the proper source of her choice. The Sanskrit term that perhaps best approximates ‘free will’ is svātantrya, ‘independence,’ which suggests the capacity for self-determined action.” Cf. also Cardona 2014: 85 – 111.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

473

Giving and Receiving in a Monotheistic Tradition Alongside the Veda’s authority being established, a number of monotheistic traditions developed in India. A development of theism is already observable in Upaniṣads such as the Īśa, Kaṭha, Śvetāśvatara, Kena, Praśna, Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad.¹¹ An important tradition in this regard is the monotheistic Vedānta of Rāmānuja (1077– 1157 CE), which was shaped by a belief in the one Highest God ViṣṇuNārāyaṇa. In Rāmānuja’s Vedānta, this highest God is seen as the basis of all material entities (acit) and all individual sentient beings (cit), i. e. the souls. Important at the cyclical beginning of the re-manifestation of the world is the relationship between God and the soul. God enables the soul to act in a certain way, whereby the soul must accept what is given by God. Rāmānuja and his followers, including Varadaguru (fl. ca. 1200 CE), Sudarśanasūri (1200 – 1275) and Veṅkaṭanātha (1268 – 1369), describe the relation between God and the individual soul using terms related to giving, such as the bestowal of an action’s result (phalapradāna).¹² According to theistic Vedānta, the omnipresent rulership of one God is due to His being the material and instrumental cause of everything, both sentient, i. e. souls, and insentient, i. e. matter. This implies that the result of a ritual action performed by an autonomous agent, is not dependent on that agent alone, but also on God. It is not only one God, but God alone who bestows the result of an agent’s (kartṛ) activity. Against the background of God’s omnipresence, the question arises as to how much independence for the agent of a ritual act can be admitted. Due to the relationship between God and the agent, a further set of ideas developed. The result of ritual activity being given by a personal Highest Being is inconceivable unless it is given to someone, that is, to an individual. The anonymous agent is individualized: the agent is able to refer to him- or herself. This implies that the agent (kartṛ) has an individual self (ātman), which can be referred to using the personal pronoun “I.” Moreover, the mind and activities of the soul can be identified as one’s own thought and action. The performance of a sacrificial act is based on one’s own initiative and thus on one’s own intellect (svabuddhi), will (icchā) and effort (prayatna). This implies that the one God con-

 On the relation of the development of theism from (the middle) Upaniṣads cf. Killingley 2017: 161– 173.  There are many related expressions, such as anumatidāna-, phalapradāna-, sarvaphalapradatva-, kalyāṇabuddhiyogadāna-, prathamapravṛttiphaladāna- etc.

474

Marcus Schmücker

fronts an infinity of individual selves characterized by the ability to refer to themselves with the pronoun “I.” Therefore this self-referentiality leads to a problem: How can one God not only be the cause of the re-manifestation of worlds, but also of individual souls with their different results of good and bad deeds, i. e. their karman? The result of a ritual is seen by the ritualist as implying his or her independent agency. This must be taken into consideration when an individual agent considers God, who is the agent causing (kārayitṛ) all individual agents, i. e., the souls, to act – as Rāmānuja will define God. The theistic Vedāntic traditions examined this aspect in particular, especially as part of their attempts to establish the existence of a single God on the basis of the authority of Vedic sources. Basing God’s existence on the Veda is in itself a paradox, since it was the Vedic ritual that rendered relationships with multitudes of gods subsidiary. Another problem had to be solved: while the correct performance of a ritual is the precondition for obtaining the ritual’s result, in a monotheistic tradition, only a Supreme Being can bestow the result of a ritual act.¹³ In monotheistic Vedānta, Rāmānuja and his followers refer to gift-giving as a fundamental act of God that precedes every devotional act of the soul to Him. God bestows before the soul is able to give back. Human devotion to God presupposes His giving act, which enables the devotion of human beings. In a theological sense, the act of human devotion to God can also be interpreted as a (pure) gift.¹⁴ In the monotheistic Vedānta tradition, God’s gift is incomparable; it cannot be compensated by any counter-gift. Another question arises: Is the gift of God an obligation towards souls? Moreover, how can God give everything, i. e. re-manifest everything anew, without contradicting His omnipresent rulership or becoming limited for what He is the fundament for, i. e. sentient and insentient beings? It is clear that re‐manifesting the world is not a reciprocal act between God, the universe and the individual; it is not an act in which material goods are given or received. In fact, no reciprocity is required. But what kind of gift involves no exchange

 The difference between the various types of results is expressed by Rāmānuja in his Śrībhāṣya (I. 38) on Brahmasūtra 1. 1. 1 as follows: “The Upaniṣads passages show that the result of mere karman is transitory, but that the knowledge of brahman has permanent result.” (vedāntavākyāni kevalakarmaphalasya kṣayitvaṃ brahmajñānasya cākṣayaphalatvaṃ darśayanti.) Cf. also for the context of this quote Sawai 1993: 11– 29.  In this theological context, a pure gift is understood as a gift that cannot be outweighed by any equivalent gift. For example, God manifests the world, an act that no individual soul can undertake. This point is discussed in Veṅkaṭanātha’s Sarvārthasiddhi on Tattvamuktākalāpa 3.1 (cf. SAS pp. 333 – 334 on TMK 3. 1).

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

475

of material goods? If God’s gift is superior to everything else, then nothing can be given in return by an individual soul that could be equal to or exceed that gift. God does not need to give something that enriches Himself in His perfect nature. He does not need anything from the individual soul. And if God gives first, the soul can only receive. The soul remains passive, because it depends on what is given by God. One could ask why giving and receiving is necessary at all. This is why Rāmānuja and his followers developed the idea that independence (svātantrya) is not something innate in a soul, but is given by a higher, i. e. transcendent Being. In India, a tradition of the Divine developed an unconditioned subjectivity. This was not the same as a final release, but stood at the beginning of God’s creation as a gift, given by Him.

Rāmānuja: God’s Original Gift The following will examine the development of giving and receiving in the monotheistic Vedānta tradition of Rāmānuja, including God’s gift-giving and the conditions necessary for it. In the sense of the “mutuality” mentioned above, Rāmānuja sees God not only as enabling the soul to act independently, but as granting a result. There are two responses¹⁵ of the soul developed: either acting to influence a good result, or renouncing this result and returning what makes its action possible, its kartṛtva, i. e. “being an agent.”¹⁶ I will mainly follow here the first alternative. In three of Rāmānuja’s major works – chronologically, the Vedārthasaṃgraha, Śrībhāṣya and Gītābhāṣya – he discusses whether the soul, when following a prescription of the Veda, acts independently under the precondition of its own intellect (svabuddhyā), or acts exclusively in dependency on God. Although it seems that God’s omnipresence as the Inner Ruler (antaryāmin) is irreconcilable with the soul’s independence, in the Vedānta tradition it was agreed that independence is not an act of distancing oneself from God, but is

 I will not deal with these two responses in this essay, where I speak about the point, where the soul enters into the saṃsāra, not to leave it. For Rāmānuja’s position about the “renunciation” of agency cf. Ganieri 2014: 248 – 253.  For the obvious contradiction between presupposing an agent who expects a result of action, and the view that the agent should have no desire for results and finally gives up the agency itself, cf. Mumme’s remark (1985: 104): “From scripture he knows that the self is the agent and that bhaktiyoga is the upāya; yet he is asked to be without desire for the fruits, attributing all enjoyment to Īśvara, but the very purpose of this meditation is the attainment of the supreme fruit of mokṣa.”

476

Marcus Schmücker

possible only through God. Souls depend on God under a condition of “dependent independence.” Rāmānuja began this discussion in what was probably his earliest work, the Vedārthasaṃgraha (VAS).¹⁷ Here we do not yet find any references to God as the basis of everything. The passage in the Vedārthasaṃgraha that touches on this idea of “dependent independence” contains the following objection of an opponent: The Supreme Self is the Inner Ruler of every living being so that every [entity] is subject to His ruling.¹⁸

For the opponent, the soul is subject only to God and is directly dependent on Him. Since all actions are thus caused by God, then not only does He cause good deeds, but also bad ones. Quoting Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad 3. 8, the opponent refers to God’s efficacy in causing souls to perform both good and bad acts. It is thus possible that God is unjust. Would He really, as the quote suggests, also cause the soul to act (as kārayitṛ) in a bad way, if the soul’s disposition is bad? What is the point of accepting a God if He does not reliably make the soul act in good ways? The often discussed and quoted sentence of Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad 3. 8 runs: He incites him to righteous action whom He wishes to guide upward beyond the world, and He incites him to unrighteous action whom He wishes to bring down.¹⁹

As Rāmānuja presents this objection, is not such a God cruel (kruddha) if He does not guide a soul committing bad acts onto a good path? If a soul is burdened with bad karman, should it not be turned away from continuing to act badly? Responsibility for bad karman can only be borne by the soul that is committing bad acts. Bad acts cannot be God’s responsibility. The objection concludes with the following question: Now, would this not mean that there is mercilessness in God, because He incites to good and evil actions arbitrarily?²⁰

 For text and translation I refer throughout to van Buitenen’s edition and translation of Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṅgraha (cf. van Buitenen 1956).  VAS (§ 89, 125): nanu ca sarvasya jantoḥ paramātmāntaryāmī tanniyāmyaṃ ca sarvam evety uktam.  KauṣU 3.8: eṣa eva sādhu karma kārayati taṃ yamebhyo lokebhya unninīṣati | eṣa evāsādhu karma kārayati taṃ yam adho ninīṣatīti.  VAS (§ 89, 125): sādhvasādhukarmakārayitṛtvān nairghṛṇyaṃ ca.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

477

This image of God is not entirely agreeable to Rāmānuja, as is evident in his response. Although he does not give up the idea of a relationship between the soul and God, he states that the soul is active of its own accord, whether good or bad; the initiative of activity lies solely with the agent.²¹ With regard to God, this means that God does not direct bad actions. Rāmānuja explains: “A sentient being whose capacities are dependent on God performs certain acts of his own accord, or refrains from certain acts of his own accord” (āhitaśaktiḥ sanpravṛttinivṛttyādi svayam eva kurute). Thus, God does not influence the soul in its activities. Moreover, as Rāmānuja continues: The Lord, the Supreme Self, observing the soul in its activity, takes no sides [i. e., is indifferent/neutral] (evaṃ kurvāṇam īkṣamāṇaṃ paramātmodāsīna āste).²²

Only after He has taken into regard with indifference (udāsīna)²³ He gives the result of the soul’s activity: if someone acts badly, He gives a bad result; if someone acts well, He gives a good result. When someone, of his own accord, has been active in an extremely good act, then the Venerable Lord is pleased with him and by granting him a mental disposition for good acts helps him to be active in that way. When, however, someone has indulged in extremely inauspicious acts, then the Venerable Lord incites him to wicked activities by giving him a wicked disposition.²⁴

 Cf. also Lipner’s remark (1986: 71): “The agent is morally responsible for the deed, not the Lord.” See also Chemparathy 2003: 643 ff.  Cf. text and translation quoted according to van Buitenen 1956: 125; 247.  The concept of “indifference” (audāsīnya) is not only mentionend in vers 20 of Sāṅkhyakārikā (the past participle udāsīna is used), but also in the Bhagavadgītā. It can be assumed that the concept of a neutral God goes back to certain verses in the Bhagavadgītā (such as 9. 9). In this context, see the remarks of Malinar (2007: 149 – 150) concerning God’s neutral status, here in the similar context to that described by Rāmānuja: “… the BhG introduces a triadic structure by introducing a ‘third’, highest state. Kṛṣṇa is more than an unmanifest cause becoming active and manifest, since he is also ‘the self’ beyond it. This triadic structure is further explained in 9. 7– 10. Creation begins when, from aeon to aeon (kalpa), Kṛṣṇa takes control over prakṛti, […]. Yet he remains the ‘liberated sovereign’ because these acts do not cause any karmic bondage: ‘These activities do not bind me, Dhanaṃjaya. Like a non-involved party (udāsīnavad), I sit detached among these acts. Under my supervision (adhyakṣa), nature produces moving and unmoving (beings). This is why the world revolves’ (9. 9).”  VAS (§ 90, 125): yas tu pūrvaṃ svayam evātimātram ānukūlye pravṛttas taṃ prati prītaḥ svayam eva bhagavān kalyāṇabuddhiyogadānaṃ kurvan kalyāṇe pravartayati. yaḥ punar atimātraṃ prātikūlye pravṛttas tasya krūrāṃ buddhiṃ dadan svayam eva krūreṣv eva karmasu prerayati bhagavān.

478

Marcus Schmücker

God guides the soul and endows it with His gifts (which will be more precise in the following); nevertheless, this suggests a strong dependence of the soul on God. But for Rāmānuja, the soul’s autonomy remains intact. As he states, the soul acts through its own will, by itself, regardless of whether its actions are good or bad. God observes how the soul acts and takes a neutral position. However, while emphasizing God’s neutrality, Rāmānuja seems also to link the autonomy of the soul to God. God does not cause the soul to act badly when it is acting well, and He does not cause the soul to act well when it is acting badly. He endows a good disposition on those who, of their own accord, have previously acted well, and a bad disposition on those who have previously acted badly. Nonetheless, Rāmānuja also examines whether God might prevent a soul that is acting badly from improving itself a way that could bring salvation. Nevertheless an individual (independent) decision of the soul is in every case left open! Let us turn to Rāmānuja’s next work and see in which way he deals there with the topic.²⁵ In a discussion on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6, 40 – 41, Rāmānuja examines whether the individual soul disposes over its own independence, or whether this independence is given by God.²⁶ How much independence can be granted to the soul without God relativizing His own omnipresent rulership? Rāmānuja starts the discussion by introducing the view of an opponent, who sees action as being dependent only on Vedic regulations, not on God. Also in this context, the implication is that without a Vedic regulation, no conception of agency (kartṛ) is possible. Rāmānuja’s opponent thus votes for independence from God, since if the soul were dependent on a Supreme Being, the affirmations and negations of the Veda would be redundant.²⁷ To refute this objection, Rāmānuja supports the authority of the Veda as well as the absolute concept of one God. He explains that an individual soul can be dependent on God while at the same time act on its own initiative as the addressee of a Vedic prescription.

 The following account of Rāmānuja’s and Sudarśanasūri’s discussion of this topic follows partly Schmücker 2020, but is in this volume much more elaborated and provides more material, i. e. other sources.  Cf. Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6 sūtra 40, p. 375: idaṃ jīvasya kartṛtvam kiṃ svātantryeṇa? uta paramātmāyattam iti?  Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6 sūtra 40, p. 375: svātantryeṇeti. paramātmāyattattve hi vidhiniṣedhaśāstrānarthakyaṃ prasajyeta. Rāmānuja’s opponent continues: “For only he who, by virtue of his own intellect, is able to start or to stop an activity is the addressee of a regulation to be executed.” yo hi svabuddhyā pravṛttinivṛttyārambhaśaktaḥ, sa eva niyojyo bhavati.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

479

But how does the soul obtain the independence to act? Does it indeed act on its own initiative, or is the possibility of independent activity given to him? Is independence that is given not actually dependency? If souls are understood as having the autonomy to perform ritual acts and as being responsible for their own actions, why would monotheism develop at all? Indeed, the concept of God as the original Giver of any result would be meaningless if there is no addressee of His giving. Rāmānuja avoids the contradiction between God’s claimed transcendence and the soul’s independence. Nonetheless, the opponent sees his ideas regarding God’s autonomy as contradicting the authority of the Veda, upon which the soul’s independence relies. Can God’s autonomy be understood in a way that makes the soul’s independence (svātantrya) possible? Does this strengthen or weaken the independence of the soul? Rāmānuja responds specifically to these objections in his commentary on the two Brahmasūtras (2. 3. 6, 40 – 41): “But (tu) due to the Highest, because it is declared by authoritative tradition in such a way” (parāt tu tacchruteḥ), and “But with a view to the efforts made, (the Lord makes the soul act) on account of the (thus resulting) non-meaninglessness of injunctions and prohibitions and the rest” (kṛtaprayatnāpekṣas tu vihitapratiṣiddhāvaiyarthādibhyaḥ).²⁸ For Rāmānuja the Veda’s authority does not contradict divine reality, but confirms it. The existence of God is established through eternal Vedic sentences.²⁹ As mentioned above, the problem is how the soul can be independent in order to be the addressee of Vedic prescriptions while at the same time act in dependency on God. For this, Rāmānuja cites the “gift of consent” (anumatidāna) that God gives to the action of the soul. The Highest Self, the Inner Guide, induces by means of [His] gift of consent that a person, in all his/her actions, subjects himself/herself to effort. The meaning is: Without the consent of the Supreme Self, it is not possible for to be the agent of ones own action.³⁰

If the soul cannot act without God’s consent, why is independence (svātantrya) mentioned at all? The individual soul begins its action through its own will. And

 I follow Thibauts (1904: 557) translation of sūtra 41.  Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 40, p. 375: ataḥ svātantryeṇāsya kartṛtvam —iti prāpte ’bhidhīyate—parāt tu tacchruteḥ iti. … tat—kartṛtvam asya jīvasya parāt—paramātmana eva hetor bhavati.  Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: sarvāsu kriyāsu puruṣeṇa kṛtaṃ prayatnam —udyogam apekṣyāntaryāmī paramātmā tadanumatidānena pravartayati. paramātmānumatim antareṇāsya pravṛttir nopapadyate ity arthaḥ.

480

Marcus Schmücker

acting out of its own will presupposes independence, i. e. freedom to start activity on one’s own. But is independence of action possible if it is bound to the consent (anumati) of God, even if this consent is a gift (dāna)? For Rāmānuja this is the case. With the gift of consent (anumatidāna), God enables a living being to act independently and thus also to be the addressee of a Vedic command. With the following comparison, Rāmānuja illustrates that the soul receives the result of its action if God agrees to let this happen. As in the case of possessions shared by two persons, surrendering property [belonging to both persons] to someone else is not permitted without the consent of the other person, so the result of the action is exclusively for the person who has surrendered the property, after the consent of the other person has taken place exclusively through him- or herself.³¹

With this example, Rāmānuja illustrates the concepts of independence (svātantrya) and consent (anumati). These two persons can be equated with God and the soul. If the soul acts and achieves a result, it needed the consent (anumati) of God. Nonetheless, if God gives His consent (svenaiva), the soul still receives the result of its own action, not God’s.³² The comparison, however, does not completely solve the problem of the relationship between God’s consent (anumati) and the soul’s independence (svātantrya). What has God agreed to? God cannot agree to nothing, only to a result (phala) of an action. But this implies that an action is done independently by the soul and God’s consent comes afterwards. And yet, it is only God who makes independent action possible. He thus must somehow be present before the soul realizes its independence. But how can He be present without the result of the soul’s action being predetermined? This contradiction seems to have attracted a certain amount of attention. In later commentaries on Rāmānuja’s works, independence is seen as presupposed

 Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: yathā dvayoḥ sādhāraṇe dhane parasvatvāpādanam anyatarānumatim antareṇa nopapadyate, athāpītarānumatiḥ svenaiva kṛteti tatphalaṃ tasyaiva bhavati.  Cf. Lipner 1986: 71: “For is the agent’s ‘act of will’ in the first place dependent upon the consent of the Lord or not? If it is, how is the agent really free to initiate action? If it is not, the Lord is not a universal cause. There is the added problem of the Lord’s ‘consenting’ to bring an evil action of a finite agent into being: must he not be responsible for it in some way? Yet Rāmānuja has sought to do no more than provide an illuminating analogy (property by joint owners and the minimal consent required by one for the other to transfer it to the third party), by way of partial explanation, for the ‘cooperation’ between the Lord and the individual ātman in the performance of free action.”

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

481

by God’s consent. It is clearly affirmed that independence of the soul’s activity is not independent of God, but is given by Him. In his Śrībhāṣya, Rāmānuja holds the view that God acts only the way the soul acts. If the soul acts well, it is conforming to God. If the soul acts badly, God does not cause the soul to do “repentance” in return, but encourages/affirms it in its bad actions, insofar as He increases the desire for the soul to act against Him. This is also conversely the case: Whoever acts at the beginning of creation in His favor (anukūlye), to him/her He is merciful (anugṛhṇan) and creates a desire (ruciṃ janayati) for particularly good acts which are means to attain Him.³³

However, Rāmānuja does not really solve the relationship between a transcendent God and the soul carrying out both good and bad deeds. As omnipresent as God seems to be, He cannot do anything about a soul’s bad actions, since the ultimate responsibility for acting lies with each soul itself. According to Rāmānuja, God only reinforces the path the soul itself has taken. The contradiction between God’s omnipresent rulership and one’s self-responsibility for one’s own deeds is bridged by God’s bestowing the result of the soul’s actions. Does Rāmānuja presuppose that the individual soul decides for itself whether its acts will be good or bad?³⁴ In his Gītābhāṣya (ad Bhagavadgītā 18. 14– 15), where Rāmānuja again refers to the same discussion on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. 40 – 41,³⁵ he seems not to repeat the position he took in the Vedārthasaṃgraha and the Śrībhāṣya. Rather, God is declared as being the decisive basis for every action of the soul. The soul receives a body, senses, etc., given by God. It thus finds support and derives its power only from Him. Nevertheless, the autonomy of the soul is not diminished when Rāmānuja says (Gītābhāṣya ad Bhagavadgītā 18. 14– 15) that it by its own will for performing a ritual act, undertakes the effort, which appears in the seat [of the soul’s body, which is characterised by] sense faculties etc.³⁶

 Śrībhāṣya ad Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: yas tv atimātraparamapuruṣānukūlye vyavasitaḥ pravartate, tam anugṛhṇan bhagavān svayam eva svaprāptyupāyeṣv atikalyāṇeṣu karmasv eva ruciṃ janayati.  As we will see below, Sudarśanasūri – Rāmānuja’s next important commentator – attempts to preserve the soul’s independence.  Gītābhāṣya ad Bhagavadgītā 18. 14– 15 refers also to both sūtras: 2. 3. 6, sūtra 40 – 41 and his discussion thereon.  Gītābhāṣya ad Bhagavadgītā 18. 14– 15: karmaniṣpattaye svecchayā karaṇādyadhiṣṭhānākāraṃ prayatnaṃ cārabhate.

482

Marcus Schmücker

Everything other than the will of the soul is clearly traced back to God, who, it seems, is even the reason for the soul’s actions being performed of its own free will, insofar as God grants the soul the gift of His permission (anumati): But the soul is the cause for activity solely due to its own intellect, when the Supreme Self causes the soul (which has made an effort) to act by granting His permission.³⁷

As can be clearly understood from this passage, while God is seen as the reason for everything, He does not remove independence but rather enables it. To realize this independence, the soul needs its own intellect, which implies will and effort. For the authors following Rāmānuja, when explaining the independence of the soul, a special role is played by the neutrality or indifference (audāsīnya) of God. The soul can, or must, decide for itself how it acts, but this does not relativize God’s omnipresence in everything as Inner Ruler (antaryāmin). Before turning to Sudarśanasūri, I will briefly mention Vātsya Varadaguru, who was active around 1200 CE, thus after Rāmānuja but before Sudarśanasūri. In a passage in his Tattvasāra (TS), Varadaguru reflects on independence (svātantrya) and the sequence between God’s taking the activity of the soul into regard (upekṣya) and giving permission. In Varadaguru’s view, the soul acts in freedom due to an original gift of God, but bears its own responsibility for its action. In verse 46 of the Tattvasāra, Varadaguru mentions the very first action of the soul, which happens due to its capacity of independence (svātantryaśaktyā). But this independence of the soul is not something it innately possesses. For Varadaguru, it is given by God (īśvaradattayā): At the beginning [i. e. of creation] the soul is by itself through its capacity for independence, which was bestowed upon it exclusively by God (īśvaradattayaiva), whereby the soul produces its respective recognition directed towards something, the desire to act and effort. Hari, after having considered this, giving suppression or acceptance through [His] consent, bestows upon each soul the result of its karman.³⁸

 Gītābhāṣya ad Bhagavadgītā 18. 14– 15: paramātmā svānumatidānena taṃ pravartayatīti jīvasyāpi svabuddhyaiva pravṛttihetutvam asti.  Tattvasāra, verse 46: ādāv īśvaradattayaiva puruṣas svātantryaśaktyā svayam tattajjñānacikīrṣaṇaprayatanāny utpādayan vartate | tatropekṣya tato ’numatyā vidadhat tannigrahānugrahau tattatkarmaphalam prayacchati tataḥ sarvasya puṃso hariḥ ||.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

483

The soul does not have the liberty to avail itself of independence, but independence is given to it; only then and under those conditions does the action of the soul become manifest and can God reward or punish it.³⁹ The dependence relationship between the soul and an omnipresent God is thus constituted by giving. This is not a form of gift that causes the soul to be in debt, a debt from which it can be freed by giving in return. Rather, it is a gift that opens the possibility of acting well or badly, which in turn is rewarded or punished by God. Also the later authors Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha offer detailed discussions of this autonomy of the soul based on God’s gift. In different ways, they both try to establish an independence of the soul that is not actually independence at all, but based only on God.

Sudarśanasūri: Is the Soul Independent (svātantrya) while also Dependent (pāratantrya) on God? As shown, the concept of independence (svātantrya) being granted to the soul was a special step, because it had to harmonize with the omnipresent rulership of God. Sudarśanasūri discuses in his own commentary on Rāmānuja’s words the contradiction,⁴⁰ between God’s omnipresence, that is, His being the permanent cause of everything (sarvakāraṇa), in contrast of the independence (svātantrya) of the individual agent (kartṛ). His commentary on Rāmānuja’s remarks on these two sūtras is worth presenting in detail because, although remaining in commentary style, it appears to draw a wider spectrum and finally summarising once again in verses the discussion that he himself has unfolded. Such a summary in verses – if I have not overlooked any other passage – only occurs here in his Śrutaprakāśikā. Thus his sub-commentary reflects the advanced discussion on the topic dealt with by Rāmānuja and contributes further to the opposition between God’s omnipresence and independence of the soul by presenting different views of the relation between God and soul.⁴¹

 For an interesting reference to Varadaguru’s verse and its critique by Vyāsatīrtha, see Williams 2021: 215, especially fn. 42. For a discussion of this verse see also Mumme 2009 (1988): 47.  For a brief discussion of Sudarśanasūri’s commentary on the Śrībhāṣya, see also Mumme 2009 (1988): 38 – 42.  Referring to Rāmānuja, Mumme 1985: 104 says: “[…] the Lord himself gives that jīva a desire which is then a cause for further favourable or unfavourable action.” Referring to Sudarśanasūri,

484

Marcus Schmücker

Sudarśanasūri emphasizes that the soul is dependent on God in that it is God who enables the soul to perform an action, although this is based on a soul’s own initiative. Despite this dependence, the soul is still enabled to act freely according to its own will, even if God is the agent who causes souls to act (kārayitṛ). In this way the soul is not entirely independent.⁴² If God gives the soul mental capacity (cicchakti) and the capacity to become active (pravṛttiśakti), it is dependent. There is no other choice for the souls than to accept these gifts. But for Sudarśanasūri this does not imply complete dependency: While the soul has its own will to act and to strive for good results, these gifts imply that the soul’s independence is made possible only by God. The fact that [souls] are just agents of their action is based on the Highest Self, because in a general way, for every soul the mental capacity and the capacity to become active and to obtain supporting factors, which are the senses and the body, depend on the Highest Self.⁴³

The first action (prathamapravṛtti) of the soul is therefore given by God. It is carried out through God’s gift of independence (svātantrya). Then, in the course of a subsequent action of the soul, God bestows His permission (anumatidāna). The fact of being a particular agent is based on a Supreme, insofar as it depends on the Supreme’s permission.⁴⁴

Having received independence, the soul can decide whether or not it will act in accordance with Vedic regulations. Its own will (icchā) enables it to do this. Sudarśanasūri emphatically states that “independence [of the soul] is not to be warded off (anivārya), since [the soul] is able to act according to its own

Mumme says: “…[he] refers to neither the jīva’s prior action nor the Lord’s granting of a desire. He implies that in this special case dealing with salvation the jīva has a desire – a favourable or unfavourable attitude towards the Lord and then the Lord himself steps in with the action.”  Mumme (1985: 103) characterizes Sudarśana’s description of the soul and Lord, emphasizing the Lord’s character as giving a gift: “The jīva’s independence is a result of (1) the Lord’s gift of limbs and organs, and the power to employ them to act or refrain from action, and (2) his gift of the power to know, desire(or will) and make effort (jñānacikīrṣā-prayatnaśakti) and then (3) the Lord’s initial indifference (audāsīnya) in the particular knowledge, desire, and effort to which the jīva gives rise.”  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: sarvajīvānāṃ sāmānyena cicchaktipravṛttiśaktyoḥ karaṇakalebararūpaparikaralābhasya ca paramātmādhīnatvāt kartṛtvamātraṃ parāyattam.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: viśeṣakartṛtvaṃ ca parānumatisāpekṣatvāt parāyattam.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

485

will.”⁴⁵ The soul having its own will implies its independency (svātantrya).⁴⁶ But what is God’s relationship to this independence? Why is the first action of a soul relevant to God’s relationship with it? How can independence be considered enabled by God, if the soul already has its own will? If independence is dependent on something, isn’t this contradictory? Is it possible to say that independence is enabled by something else? These questions are quite incompatible with one another. On the one hand, God is the one actual cause of everything. On the other hand, however, He must be reconciled with the fact that the soul will begin to act independently. If the soul cannot begin to act, the Veda, which proclaims God as the Highest Being, becomes useless. An important section of Sudarśanasūri’s commentary contains objections of an opponent who more or less opposes the independence of the soul because he fears this would endanger God’s omnipresence. Otherwise He cannot be accepted as the cause of all (sarvakāraṇa), with “all” (sarva‐) referring to completeness. This concern of the opponent is significant, because it points to difficulties with regard to both the soul and to God that were not yet obvious in Rāmānuja’s statements. To focus first of all on Sudarśanasūri’s explanations: As the opponent argues, if God does not have sole dominion, and the soul does not depend entirely on the will of God, but retains independence, then it cannot be prevented from being completely dependent on its previous (prācīna) karman, i. e. good and bad deeds of a past aeon (kalpa). But if God is not the cause of everything (sarvakāraṇa), He is not the first cause for the desire and effort of the soul. Consequentially, God cannot grant the result of all of the soul’s actions, because there would be no cause for that either. And if this were the case, only previous actions would be the cause and determine the soul’s path. It therefore must be accepted that God is the cause, also in the case of a soul’s initial desire and its effort. Thus, it would follow, that only dependence on God would be possible. There is no independent agency of the soul with regard to its actions or its being an enjoyer of objects. [Opponent:] In the case of the cause of the first desire and the effort of a sentient being, [i. e. a soul], is the Highest Self the cause or not? If [He is] not [the cause], the undesirable consequence would arise that God as the cause of everything is rejected. Furthermore, [the ar-

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: svātantryaṃ svecchānuguṇapravṛttisāmarthye saty anivāryatvam.  Cf. also Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: icchāśaktimattve anivāryatvaṃ hi svātantryam.

486

Marcus Schmücker

gument] would be rejected that the Highest Self bestows the result of all activities [of the soul], because with regard to [its] will there is no longer a cause, inasmuch as its will, etc., which are according to good and bad, also have the form of the result of previous actions. Therefore, it must be accepted for God that He is the cause even in the case of the first wish and the first effort [of the soul]. Therefore, God might be the cause of these two by virtue of His own will, thinking: “Let the soul wish,” “let the soul strive.”⁴⁷

But if the soul is completely dependent on God’s will, and consequently no longer needs to be independent according to the view of this opponent, then being an agent or enjoying the result of the souls activities is no longer needed. If this were not the case, a change in God’s essential nature would take place, a change ultimately caused by the different ways of causing a soul to act. God’s behaviors toward the soul would not only alternate, they would contradict one another. On one hand, if the soul is completely independent, God’s behavior toward the soul would be that toward one that has already acted (pravṛttasya). Only afterwards can God bestow His gift of consent. On the other hand, if the soul has not yet acted (apravṛttasya), God must initially cause the soul to act. The objection goes on to state that agency (kartṛtva) and enjoyment (bhoktṛtva) of the soul are not to be assumed, inasmuch as the soul is now exclusively dependent on God’s will. [Opponent’s view continuing:] There is no agency with regard to acts or being an enjoyer depending on that (agency), because independence does not exist for the soul, insofar as it depends on the wish of the One who has unfailing desire. And a difference of states between indifference, giving permission, and instigating [the soul to action] would not exist for the Supreme Self. For being the Giver of permission is an agent for something that has become active, and being the instigator is an agent for something that has not yet become active. The instigation of the Supreme Self is not due to His [indifferent] directing as in the case of water [directed indifferently by] wind etc., but rather due to the causing of [His own individual] will […].⁴⁸

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: nanu cetanasya prāthamikecchāprayatnayor utpattau paramātmanaḥ kāraṇatvam asti vā? na vā? na cet—sarvakāraṇatvabhaṅgaprasaṅgaḥ, kiñ ca puṇyapāpapravṛttyanuguṇecchādīnām api pūrvakarmaphalarūpatvāt tadicchādiṣu kāraṇatvābhāve parasya sarvakarmaphalapradatvaṃ ca bhagnaṃ syāt. ataḥ prāthamikecchāprayatnayor api kāraṇatvam īśvarasyābhyupagantavyam. tataś ca tayor īśvaraḥ svasaṃkalpataḥ kāraṇaṃ syāt, ayam icchet, ayaṃ prayateteti.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: amoghasaṅkalpasya tasya saṅkalpaparatantratayā jīvasya svātantryābhāvāt karmasu kartṛtvam, tannibandhanaṃ bhoktṛtvaṃ ca na syāt. paramātmana audāsīnyānumantṛtvaprayojayitṛtvāvasthānāṃ vaiṣamyaṃ ca na syāt. pravṛttasya pravartako hy anumantā; apravṛttasya pravartakaś ca prayojayitā. paramātmanaḥ pravartakatvaṃ ca na vāyūdakādivat preraṇena, api tv icchājananadvāreṇa […].

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

487

The opponent’s argument demonstrates that he does not want to modify God’s absoluteness, as is evident in the last sentence, nor does he want to see God’s will endangered. Will is to be attributed exclusively to Him and not to the individual soul. If this were not the case, God could not be the final authority for bestowing any result (phalapradāna) of the soul’s activity. In order to maintain the thesis that God remains the cause of everything and thus also the Giver of all results, Sudarśanasūri responds by distinguishing between different kinds of actions directed toward the soul: first, there is a general (sādhāraṇa) action of God for all souls; then there is a particular action concerning only each individual soul. This also concerns the effects of the adṛṣṭa – the repository of good and bad deeds of souls in past aeons (kalpa). Nonetheless, against the view of his opponent, Sudarśanasūri continues to argue that the soul can act independently. God does not prevent the soul from acting independently. God bestows upon the soul independence and the ability to act. Although taking God in His function as ruler, instigator, etc., of everything implies the soul’s dependency on Him. This “dependent independence” seems not to be a contradiction. Our answer is: These faults do not occur, because all inapplicabilities have been refuted due to the distinction between a general and a special support [of the Lord]. Exclusively at the beginning [of the re-manifestation,] the support for sentient beings, in the form of the creation of the senses and a body and the bestowing of these, is common to all effects; but after that, there is support at all times in the form of the pervading senses and the body, their support, bringing about the capacity for them; for this reason one may not give up that the Highest Self is the cause of everything, inasmuch as it is also the cause of the first will, etc., [of the soul]. For this very reason there is no loss of God being the Giver of all results. By virtue of the adṛṣṭa, which has as its beginning a particular body, the particular form is realized by the arising and suppression of the three guṇas and the manifestation of the specific latent karmic impressions (vāsanā) exclusively at the time of birth; and the manifestation of a particular object is caused by the flow of the adṛṣṭa of worldly enjoyments, because the [soulʼs] experience of the result of karman depends on it.⁴⁹

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: ucyate – naite doṣāḥ prasajyeran – sādhāraṇopakāraviśeṣopakāravaiṣamyeṇa sarvāsām anupapattīnāṃ parihṛtatvāt. ādāv eva karaṇakalebarasargatatpradānarūpopakāraś cetanānāṃ sarvakāryasādhāraṇaḥ paścād api karaṇakalebaravyāptitaddhāraṇatatsāmarthyāpādanarūpa upakāraḥ sarvadā bhavatīti tanmukhena prāthamikecchādāv api kāraṇatvān na paramātmanaḥ sarvakāraṇatvahāniḥ. tata eva na sarvaphalapradatvahāniś ca. tattadehārambhakādṛṣṭavaśād eva guṇatrayodbhavābhibhavarūpaviśeṣo vāsanāviśeṣonmeṣaś ca janmakāla eva siddhau. viṣayaviśeṣasannidhiś ca bhogādṛṣṭapravāhakāritaḥ, karmaphalānubhavasya tatsāpekṣatvāt.

488

Marcus Schmücker

Thus, if God is the cause of everything, then He is the cause also for the first will of the soul. Let us look back at the discussion: If the opponent wanted to put forward the thesis that God can only maintain his omnipresent Supremacy if the soul is directly dependent on His will, for otherwise the soul would remain exposed to its karman, the soul, which is always a particular agent afflicted with its own respective karman, can no longer claim independence and has no longer a will of its own. But in contrast to this, Sudarśanasūri can unite God’s omnipresence and the particularity of the soul, without the individual will of the soul and the absolute all-effective will of God coming into conflict. He is arguing that God supports all souls in a general and in a particular way. The general support (sādharaṇopakāra) does not contradict God’s indifference (audāsīnya) and is described in contrast to the particular support (viśeṣopakāra) in the following words: In this manner the accomplishment of the first will [of the soul] is due to general causes which are accompanied of special causes such as the differencies between the three qualities (guṇa‐), the recollection of the specific latent karmic impressions and specific qualities of worldly objects; consequently there is an effort of the soul; thus God’s indifference is correct, because there is no particular support for these two [i. e. the soul’s will and effort].⁵⁰

How does Sudarśanasūri continue the discussion? In the next objection, the opponent draws attention to a contradiction regarding God’s indifference, but at the same time also indirectly regarding the soul’s autonomy (svātantrya). How can God behave neutrally towards the actions of the soul, if He himself creates objects of enjoyment for the soul? Is He not providing temptations for the soul? If so, He could refrain from doing this. Or is He giving the soul an opportunity to choose? In order to avoid a contradiction, Sudarśanasūri refers to the fact that God restrains himself from taking part in the first action of the soul.⁵¹ He uses the term audāsīnya, “indifference,” a term we found already choosen by Rāmānuja

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 378: evaṃ guṇatrayatāratamya-vāsanāviśeṣodbodha-vastusvabhāvaviśeṣarūpāsādharaṇakāraṇasacivaiḥ sādhāraṇakāraṇaiḥ prāthamikecchāniṣpattiḥ, tata eva prayatnaś ceti tayor viśeṣopakārābhāvād īśvarasyaudāsīnyaṃ yuktam.  Sudarśanasūri does not use the term sarvakartṛtva for the Lord or pāratantrya for the soul. This is pointed out by Mumme (1985: 105): “It is noteworthy that whereas he often refers to the Lord’s sarvakāraṇatva and the soul’s parādhīna in the course of this discussion, he never refers to the Lord’s sarvakartṛtva or the jīva’s pāratantrya.”

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

489

in his Vedārthasaṃgraha.⁵² As Sudarśanasūri elaborates, this is God’s distance to the first action (prathamapravṛtti) of a soul. It is only because God keeps Himself back that the soul can act freely.⁵³ But why does God have to be “indifferent”? Sudarśanasūri replies that God has no special intention with regard to the soul’s first activity (abhisandhiviśeṣābhāva), explaining the meaning of God’s “intention” (abhisandhi) in this “situation” as the soul deciding through its own will. [Opponent:] Exclusively God gives the result for the adṛṣṭa of the respective worldly enjoyment. How is indifference in this respect possible, since the manifestation, etc., of worldly objects is caused by God? [Our answer:] Because there is no special intention of God [when the soul is active for the first time]. God causes at first [things such as the] manifestation of worldly objects etc. through His will for bestowing happiness and suffering which results from previous adṛṣṭa [of the souls]; but through His will, He is not causing [the soul] to perform an act by [any] other means.⁵⁴

Sudarśanasūri then goes into more detail regarding God’s indifference (audāsīnya). This indifference does not imply God’s absence when the soul starts to act. Rather, God withdraws Himself in order to give the way free for the soul’s own decision to act well or badly. Even though God re-manifests the results of previous karman through His will, this does not imply that He predetermines what the soul wants to do. The soul still has the ability to act independently. Thus also the step into the next life is never predetermined by God. But isn’t the soul predetermined by  For a further explanation the meaning of audāsīnya in this context, cf. the remarks of Malinar 2007: 150 (relying on Emeneau 1968: 276). Pointing out different meanings of udāsīna Malinar (quoting Emeneau) refers to the meaning of udāsīna which is different from any involment and could help God Kṛṣṇa’s relationship to his creatures: “Emeneau (1968: 276, note 3) distinguishes the udāsīna king from the king who ‘stands in the middle’ (madhya-stha) as follows: ‘The madhyastha is another kind of neutral, who is sometimes said to hold sentiments that are equal towards both parties; he is involved, whereas the udāsīna is not involved but indifferent’.” Relating this kind of transcendence to Sudarśanasūri’s concept of God’s being indifferent, can also help to understand why later Veṅkaṭanātha characterises God by “impartiality” (sāmya) against the karman of the soul and as “witness” (sākṣin) of its activity.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6, sūtra 41, p. 378: prathamadaśāyāṃ parasyodāsīnatvaṃ darśitam.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: nanu tattadbhogādṛṣṭasyāpīśvara eva phalaprada iti viṣayasannidhānāder īśvarakāritatvāt kathaṃ tasya tatraudāsīnyam. abhisandhiviśeṣābhvād iti brūmaḥ. īśvaraḥ prācīnādṛṣṭaphalabhūtasukhadukhapradānecchayā viṣayasannidhānādikaṃ prathamam āpādayati, na tu sādhanāntarānuṣṭhāpanecchayā.

490

Marcus Schmücker

its own karman, which still exists from a previous (prācīna) world period (kalpa)? It must nevertheless be possible for the soul to decide whether or not it will be bound by adṛṣṭa, or to what extent. Thus, it is not only a granted independence by God, but also for the soul the possibility to distance itself from the objects of pleasure: […] For a man who lifts up a lamp to look for a pot is indifferent with respect to the action of a man who strives [, at the same time, to find] a piece of cloth, because there is no such thing as his action or inaction with respect to it [i. e., the cloth]. In the same way, God’s indifference is first possible. Even therefore also the soul’s independence is correct, for if the soul is characterized by the capacity of its own will, independence is not to be warded off.⁵⁵ For it is observed that a sentient being is able to repress its desire for an object, [such as] when, although it desires food, it realizes that it is mixed with poison. […] In the same way, for the soul, its being an agent is correct because of its independence due to the awareness of the capability to avoid another desire when it recognizes a sin or another result of particular importance.⁵⁶

The passage clarifies that it is ultimately the soul that decides for itself, since God has endowed it with everything but behaves neutrally. God restrains Himself precisely here, where man’s independence of decision is inescapable. The criterion of such freedom of decision, which includes the reflection of knowing what is good and what is bad, is, against the background that God leaves everything “open”, unique. Of course, everything must still be dependent on God. As in the last world period (kalpa), so now in the present period, He manifests what is to be enjoyed and desired by the soul. But the soul also has the ability to avoid these things and to commit an act bestowed by God. Sudarśanasūri continues to describe in detail the encounter between God and soul. It is undeniable that the soul has an independent will of its own. This independent will, however, only enables the soul to decide for itself how to act. However, the soul must be aware that the result of its action is conceived in such a way that God will ultimately reward or punish the result of that action.

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: […] ghaṭanirīkṣaṇāya pradīpam āropayan hi puruṣaḥ paṭārthipuruṣāntarapravṛttāv udāsīna eva – tatra tasya pravartakatvanivartakatvayor apy abhāvāt, evam īśvarasya prathamata audāsīnyam upapannam. ata eva jīvasya svātantryam api yuktam, icchāśaktimattve saty anivāryatvaṃ hi svātantryam.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 377: odanecchāyāṃ satyām api tasya viṣasaṃpṛktatvavijñāne sati tadviṣayecchānivāraṇasāmarthaṃ hi cetanasya dṛśyate. … evaṃ pratyavāyasya vātiśayaphalāntarasya vā jñāne satīcchāntaranivāraṇasāmarthyadarśanena puruṣasya svātantryopapatteḥ kartṛtvaṃ yujyate.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

491

Nevertheless, God’s indifference towards the soul changes with the soul’s following activity (uttara-, dvitīyapravṛtti). Insofar as God is directed at something in the second act, His recognition becomes an objective content. On the basis of this, He reflects the result of the soul’s first act. The first gift of independence to the soul is not taken away if God Himself receives the result of the soul’s action. This complex process between the soul’s independence and the first result of its action consented to by God is described by Sudarśanasūri as follows and clarifies what he means by the above mentioned “particular support” (viśeṣopakāra): With its first will and its first effort, a living being is also one whose independence is not to be warded off. And the Supreme Self holds itself back from the two [i. e., wish/will and effort], because in this connection it is without [a concrete] intention. In the second desire and its effort, the Supreme Self, characterized by a [concrete] intention, gathers in its cognition an objective content, even if it has not been produced by any other [i. e., preceding] cause. The appearance [of this objective content] is a special support. It therefore takes the form of a gift of the result for the first action [of the living being] (prathamapravṛttiphaladānarūpaḥ). Even at this time, for the individual living being, the Surpreme Self destroys nothing that could take away its own will, etc. Therefore, there is [still] independence [of the individual].⁵⁷

The uniqueness of God’s gift of independence lies in the fact that by being indifferent, God gives the soul the capacity to act independently. The fact that God withdraws Himself or, as the next passage refers to it, remains “silent” (tūṣṇībhāvaḥ) does not diminish the value of that independence, but rather confirms it. Sudarśanasūri continues: After [God] has given the intellectual capacity and the capacity to become active, and for the living being independence occurs, whose characteristic is that it cannot be taken away insofar as it is characterized by capacity [of the will], the silence of God during the first activity of the soul does not bring deficiency for its independence, but rather serves only for His excellence.⁵⁸

 Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 378: prathamecchāprayatnayor apy abhagnasvātantryo jīvaḥ. paramātmā ca tayor udāsīnaḥ, tatrābhisandhirahitvāt. dvitīyecchāprayatnādiṣu paramātmā abhisandhimān eva hetvāntarasaṃnidhāpitam api viṣayaṃ buddhau saṃnidhāpayati. tatsaṃnidhānam eva viśeṣopakāraḥ. sa ca prathamapravṛttiphaladānarūpaḥ. tadānīm api paro jīvasya svecchānivāraṇādisāmarthye na nāśayati. atas tasya svātantryam.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 379: kiñ ca cicchaktiṃ pravṛttiśaktiṃ ca dattvā śaktimattve sati anivāryatvalakṣaṇaṃ svātantryaṃ jīvasya āpādya prathamapravṛttau tūṣṇībhāvaḥ īśvarasya na svātantryavaikalyāvaha, kim tu tadatiśayāvaha eva.

492

Marcus Schmücker

It is noticeable that the sequence of the soul’s activities has to correspond to God’s actions. When He first regards the starting activities of the soul it is different from His subsequent permission to the result of the soul’s action. The opponent has pointed out that there must be no difference between the threefold states (avasthātraya) of God, which are God’s audāsīnya, anumantṛtva and prayojayitṛtva. In his response Sudarśanasūri only points to different śruti-passages which correspond to God’s different states. These different states do not touch God’s transcendent being (svarūpa), even though He is in contact with the souls. As it is clearly said later by Veṅkaṭanātha (cf. Adhikaraṇasarāvali verse 239), the relation to the souls only concern God’s characteristic nature (svabhāva). Rāmānuja, Varadaguru and Sudarśanasūri consider the fact that God’s gift of independency does not need to be accepted or can be misused by souls acting badly. Moreover, if God does not prevent bad actions, this does not mean that He lacks pity or is cruel. Only Rāmānuja admits that God would be able to hold humans back from performing bad deeds (pāpakarmasu). Varadaguru stresses that giving independence also includes the possibility to commit bad actions. He does not see this as a mistake, but as a quality of God due to the authoritative tradition.⁵⁹ For Sudarśanasūri, it is also not a mistake if God accepts bad deeds. Although He restrains Himself from influencing the first action, He nevertheless gives the result of that first action. But He does not punish bad acts. God can endure actions that abuse the independence He has given due to His compassion (dayā).⁶⁰ The relationship between God and the soul is elaborated in detail by Sudarśanasūri. Against the background of Rāmānuja’s position regarding the soul’s dependence on the will of God, Sudarśanasūri also argues that the soul remains independent because it alone can decide how to deal with the burden of previous karman from an earlier aeon (kalpa). The undeniable will of the soul, which is the reason for its independence, cannot be in strict opposition to God’s being the cause of everything (sarvakāraṇa). God’s task therefore remains to preserve and restore everything in order to connect the aeons to one another. In this,

 Cf. Tattvasāra verse 47; here it says in the second half verse: “Because of the authoritative tradition, it is a quality and not a mistake of Hari.” sa guṇaḥ śrutyā na doṣo hareḥ.  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: “That God agrees, even if He were able to prevent [the soul] from doing evil deeds, is not a mistake, because it [i. e. His agreement] has the form of giving the result of the soul’s first activity. Since He is able to endure with little conformity great injustice, His qualities starting with compassion etc. have an object.” nivartanakṣamasyāpy anumantṛtvaṃ na doṣaḥ; prathamapravṛttiphaladānarūpatvāt tasya. alpānukūlyena vipulāparādhasahatvāt dayādiguṇānāṃ saviṣayatvam iti.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

493

His gift is of central importance. Without receiving the gift of independence, the soul could not begin to act. Finally Sudarśanasūri has another example: The gift of independence does not contradict the soul’s dependence on God. God is compared to a king who bestows independence (svātantryadāyin) to his ministers and thus is not involved in all affairs of the state. But this however does not contradict his ministers’ dependence on him. If a minister is independent from the king, the king’s power is not lessened. In just the same way, it is also the case for the Highest Self, which grants independence of the soul. There would be no independence that is deprived of its essential nature, which depends on the Highest.⁶¹

So far we can say: Sudarśanasūri’s commentary represents a development of the discussion after Rāmānuja. The interesting idea is how he bridges the opposition between God’s omnipresence and omnipotence and the soul’s necessary autonomy, expressed in its independence. But like the king can bestow independence to his ministers without diminishing his power, in the same way God can bestow independence to the soul while keeping His transcendence.

Veṅkaṭanātha: The Lord’s Compassion (karuṇā) and Impartiality (sāmya) Despite these discussions, which have ultimately brought God and the soul into a field of tension, Veṅkaṭanātha does not criticize his predecessors, but expands on their arguments, either by summarizing them or by selecting certain aspects and elaborating on them.⁶² In several passages in his works, Veṅkaṭanātha refers to the two Brahmasūtras 2. 3. 6 (40 – 41) above discussed.⁶³  Śrutaprakāśikā ad Śrībhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 6. sūtra 41, p. 376: amātyasya svatantratve rājñas tan nāpahīyate | evam eva parasyāpi jīvasvātantryadāyinaḥ na svātantryaṃ parādhīnasvarūpāt pracyutaṃ bavet ||.  Mumme 1985: 106: “Vedānta Deśika is concerned to show that there is never any defect to the jīva’s kartṛtva by the Lord’s directorship (prerakatva) since the Lord does not instigate or cause action forcibly, but always through the guṇas, in accordance with the jīva’s past karma. Vedānta Deśika interprets this as the Lord’s sāmya or egalitarism, which delivers Him from the possibility of cruelty or partiality.”  It would be beyond the capacity of this essay to mention here every passage in which Veṅkaṭanātha comments on these sūtras. He develops his position on it in various works, including the Tatpāryacandrikā on Rāmānuja’s Gītābhāṣya (18. 14– 15), a section from the paratattvādhikā-

494

Marcus Schmücker

The Adhikaraṇasarāvali, a verse commentary on Rāmānuja’s Śrībhāṣya, and Veṅkaṭanātha’s work closest to him, illustrates that he was aware of the discussion between Sudarśanasūri and a proponent of a monotheism in which the soul is strictly dependent on the will of God. In the following I discuss verses which are dealing with Rāmānuja’s commentary on the above mentioned two sūtras. In his verses of the Adhikaraṇasarāvali (2. 3. 6, 243) he reflects on the tension between God’s omnipresence and the soul’s individuality and tries – like Sudarśanasūri – to create a synthesis between the various functions of God – His sovereignty and directorship, His being the instigator of action, His giving permission – and the inescapable individuality of the soul’s independent agency. In this sense, while Veṅkaṭanātha develops the basic thesis of his tradition that God, as the Inner Ruler, supports and directs all souls and the world, in no way does he diminish the independent status of the soul in its relation to God. For him, too, the soul is not only an independent agent, but also a being of irreducible consciousness that can act on its own and refer to its own self.⁶⁴ Veṅkaṭanātha describes the relationship between God and the soul as undeniably affirming the autonomy of the soul. Nonetheless, in his own verse commentary to the section of the Śrībhāṣya (2. 3. 6, 40 – 41, parāyattādhikaraṇa) we are dealing here, Veṅkaṭanātha does not refer to Rāmānuja’s thoughts at all, but presents his own spectrum of ideas and refers to the discussion of Rāmānuja, Varadaguru and Sudarśansūri. As Veṅkaṭanātha explains, that God clearly acts in the best interest of the soul and wants to prevent it from suffering. At the same time, the soul cannot be deprived of independency. The fact that God does not intervene, but observes the realization of the soul’s will is interpreted as being based on God’s own initiative. From this perspective, too, a soul’s action is said to be based only on God. Veṅkaṭanātha then takes up the question already raised by Rāmānuja concerning the soul’s dependence on God but being at the same time independent. How does he resolve the contradiction of there being two agents, one depending on the other? [Opponent:] The agent does not depend on anything else; for Pāṇini⁶⁵ remarks indeed on it in such a way; if it were otherwise, the Vedic commands “You are to do this”, “You are not

ra of his Paramatabhaṅga, sections in the 29th chapter of the Rahasyatrayasāra, as well as in the first verse of the Nāyakasara of his Tattvamuktākalāpa along with its auto-commentary, the Sarvārthasiddhi. All of these passages are discussed in Schmücker forthcoming.  Cf. Schmücker 2011: 309 – 340.  Cf. Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī 1. 4. 34: svatantraḥ kartā. “The agent is the one who is independent.”

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

495

to do that” would be like pointing out flowing [water] to someone who has [already] fallen in. [Our view:] It is not this way. Having accepted (the Supreme Being’s) agency for action, the senses, time, primordial matter and control, the hostility⁶⁶ has come to an end⁶⁷ in such a way when one exclusively acknowledges God as the Self of everything in the many quotations of the authoritative tradition.⁶⁸

In this verse, Veṅkaṭanātha is also addressing the former matter of the contradiction between dependence and independence. On one hand, souls are dependent on God, whose rulership over everything is unlimited; on the other hand, there is the Veda, with its prohibitions and affirmations. Without agency, these prohibitions and affirmations would be impossible to accomplish. And yet, if the soul acts independently and follows the Veda, then this is in contradiction to God’s omnipresent rulership. If the soul is primarily dependent on God, then the Veda becomes meaningless. While Veṅkaṭanātha enumerates the dependencies in his response, he does not allow them to contradict the soul’s being an agent (kartṛtva) and this implies independency. The Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi (ACM), Kumāravedānta’s commentary on the Adhikaraṇasarāvali, adds an important distinction that was implicitly by Ramanuja expressed earlier: God and the soul are both said to be an agent. The dependencies mentioned in the verse do not contradict the independence of the soul. This contradiction is resolved by the gift of God. Also for Veṅkaṭanātha, the soul receives the independence to act. Referring to the matter of the dependency of the soul on God, the commentator of this verse, in fact his own son, differencies the concept of agency explicitly and states:

 For what is meant by dveṣaḥ in the verse, see the explanation of Kumāravedānta’s commentary, the Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi (=ACM) 396, 2– 3: karmādīnāṃ sāmānyakāraṇatvam abhyupagamya tatparatantrajīve ’pi kartṛtvam abhyupagacchadbhir bhavadbhir īśvarapratikṣepaprayāsaḥ śrutiprāmāṇyapradveṣanibandhanaḥ. “The reason for the hostility against the validity of the authoritative tradition is the endevour to reject [the existence] of the Lord, while [at the same time] accepting agency even for the soul which depends on Him [i.e. the Lord].”  See the explanation of ACM 396, 3 – 4: śrutayo hi jīva īśvaraprerita eva cintitanimiṣitādikaṃ nikhilam api karma karotīti nirmatsaram eva pratipādayanti. “For, the authoritative traditions teach in good faith that the living being, as being exclusively impelled by God, fully accomplishes its karman that begins with [its] mental reflection, (eye‐)blinking, etc.”  kartā na hy anyatantraḥ smarati khalu tathā pāṇiniś cānyathā cet ājñā kuryān na kuryād iti tu nigalite dhāvanādeśavat syāt | maivam, karmākṣakālaprakṛtiparavaśe kartṛtāṃ tatphalañ ca svīkṛtyātmeśamātre śrutiśatavidite dveṣa itthaṃ durantaḥ ||236||.

496

Marcus Schmücker

Agency is twofold: Agency as instigator; agency as to be instigated. Although only the Lord is the instigator of everything, there is also agency to be instigated for the soul, to which God gives potency to act.⁶⁹

But can God still be the only cause for the multitudes of actions of every individual soul? In the next two verses, Veṅkaṭanātha refers to topics that Sudarśanasūri also dealt with, namely, the individuality of each soul’s karman. Souls act differently due to their different karman and this produces different results. God bestows these respective results of actions in accordance with past actions. But in bestowing them He remains impartial. How His impartiality (sāmya) is described? Just as water is the cause of the growth of seeds, which despite their diversity grow and depend on water individually and independently from each other, in the same way God is related equally to the different results of the multitudes of actions of the souls. Comparing His sāmya to water, needed for all sprouts, clarifies how the different results of the souls karman can depend on one God.⁷⁰ As mentioned above, Veṅkaṭanātha’s definition of God as sāmya takes up the decisive motif of God’s indifference (audāsīnya). This indifference, in which the soul can retain its independence, and which for Sudarśanasūri initially represented God’s general support (sādhāraṇopakāra) is now developed by the concept of impartiality (sāmya) and, as will become clear in the following, with the concept of the witness (sākṣin) of the activities of the soul. Although God’s impartiality (sāmya) is supplemented by compassion (karuṇā), the next verse again underlines God’s impartial behaviour. God does not intervene in the process of karmic retribution. Retribution consists in the fact that good actions result in good karman, and bad actions, in bad karman. Since God acts based on the good and bad actions of the souls, He does not change anything for the soul’s situation. The commentary explains that God causes good karman (sādhukarman) to be bestowed on those who have acted well, and bad karman (asādhukarman), on those who have acted badly. The former are elevat-

 Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi p. 395, 9 – 10: dvidhaṃ hi kartṛtvam – prayojakakartṛtvam, prayojyakartṛtvañ ceti. tatra … yady apīśvarasyaiva sarvaprayojakakartṛtvam, tathāpi tenaiveśvareṇa dattaśaktikasya jīvasya prayojyakartṛtvam asty eveti. For the idea of an agent that initiates action but is not itself initiated by another agent cf. Cardona 2014: 100 – 103; see especially ibid., p. 103 for his references to Vācaspati’s Tātparyaṭīkā on Uddyotakara’s Nyāyabhāṣyavārttika on Nyāyasūtra 1. 1. 1; 2. 1. 16.  Cf. also the commentary on the next verse, Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi ad Adhikaraṇasarāvali verse 239 (p. 399), which can explain God’s indifference: “He is indifferent, because He is the common cause for all effect like water is the common cause for sprouts.” aṅkurādiṣu salilavat sarveṣv api kāryeṣu sāmānyahetutvād udāsīnaḥ.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

497

ed, the latter degraded.⁷¹ Impartiality (sāmya) thus means that everything remains the same because there is no partiality (vaiṣamya) of God with regard to a previous state of the soul: good karman remains good karman; bad karman also remains as such. Impartiality, however, also implies that God remains in His essential nature without any change; He is one and the same cause vis-à-vis the different causes of good and bad karman committed by each individual soul. The omnipresent One [i. e., the Lord] is commonly the cause of the sprouting of every activity, like water [causes seeds to sprout]. [In the same way,] differences among souls [starting] from [the personal god] Brahman are due to the seeds of karman, whose results are settled. His impartiality (sāmya) was declared as His own song (svagītam).⁷² Therefore the distinction between His wish of repressing etc. [i. e. other forms of His behaviour to the soul like His wish to guide upwords beyond the world] are results according to such karman [of the individual souls]. Thus the flood (of karman) is beginningless [but] controlled [by God].⁷³

If God only bestows results according to the previous (prācīna) good or bad karman of living beings, then His function would only be to continue happiness or suffering. Inasmuch as God does not transform bad karman of a soul into good karman, but punishes angrily (kruddha) badly acting souls and represses them, this negative aspect must be discussed. The following verse 238 of the Adhikaraṇasarāvali deals with God’s compassion (karuṇā). God is the only one who can pacify the suffering (duḥkhopaśānti) of souls. He bestows the souls with a body. He is the one who proclaims the Veda to souls and promises them pleasure when they achieve their state of release and remain eternally in His presence.

 ACM 397, 1– 6: “He who, having been completely inclined to wickedness in earlier times, the Lord led downwards, does the Lord now impel to do bad works. He, on the other hand, who, having been inclined to virtue, the Lord led upwards, does the Lord now causes to perform good works. The meaning is: According their earlier deeds, does the Lord impel them to subsequent good or bad deeds. Due to mentioning the accordance with earlier karman the fault of partiality (vaiṣamyadoṣaḥ) is refuted.” yaṃ pūrvam evātyantapāpapravaṇaṃ bhagavān adhoninīṣati, tam idānīm asādhukarma kārayati. yaṃ punar atyantapuṇyapravaṇam unninīṣati, tam adhunā sādhukarma kārayatīti. ayam arthaḥ – pūrvakarmānurūpyeṇa uttareṣu puṇyeṣu pāpeṣu vā bhagavān eva pravartayatīti. pūrvakarmānurūpyavacanād vaiṣamyadoṣaḥ parihṛta eva.  The commentary for example refers to Bhagavadgītā 9. 29, which is important for the meaning of sāmya in the words of the first half verse: samo ’haṃ sarvabhūteṣu na me dveṣyo ’sti na.  sādhāraṇyena hetuḥ salilam iva vibhuḥ sarvakāryāṅkurāṇāṃ vaiṣamyaṃ tvāviriñcāt pratiniyataphalaiḥ prāṇināṃ karmabījaiḥ | sāmyaṃ svasya svagītam śrutam api. tad ihādhoninīṣādibhedaḥ tādṛkkarmānurūpaṃ phalam iti niyato ’nādir eṣa pravāhaḥ ||237||.

498

Marcus Schmücker

At the proper time, the Lord, relying merely on a pretext (vyāja), causes the cessation of suffering arising. His desire to take away misery is the mercy of the One who is ever mindful of the welfare of others. He bestows (datte) [for the soul] the connection to its body etc. He teaches the Veda and proclaims the essence of Vedānta. In the same way, He produces boundless pleasure for the souls in their limitless union [with Him].⁷⁴

Using the words of the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad 3. 8, which were already quoted in Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṃgraha, in his Śrībhāṣya, and in Sudarśanasūri’s Śrutaprakāśikā, the next verse again discusses the wish of God to restrain (adhoninīṣā). Although the commentary had explained adhoninīṣa as kruddha, as being angry, Veṅkaṭanātha denies that God punishes or is merciless. God’s compassion is mentioned, but also that He is a “witness” (sākṣin), that is, not only a witness of all good and bad deeds of the soul, but also as being the neutral observer of the souls activities. As witness God remains indifferent to the soul and awaits its action, which He approves by giving a result. In this, these actions of God only concern His characteristic nature (svabhāva), not His essential nature (svarūpa). When it is said that the aspect of the controller’s activity which consists in restraining [the activity of] the soul, would be a fault, we deny this, because such a repressing is not associated with cruelty (upamarda). For with God does never something undesirable for the soul. If this were so (prasajati), on the contrary, for Him there is nothing undesirable for another person.⁷⁵ It is said in another place [i. e., in the previous verse] that compassion⁷⁶

 kāle duḥkhopaśāntiṃ janayati bhagavān vyājamātrāvalambī yā duḥkhāpācikīrṣā parahitamanasaḥ saiva tasyānukampā | datte dehādiyogaṃ diśati ca nigamaṃ vakti vedāntasāraṃ nissīmānandayogaṃ, nirupadhisamaye sauti puṃsāṃ tathaiva ||238||. For further explanation on the concept of the term vyāja and (following Hopkins) my translation as “pretext” in this verse 238 of the Adhikaraṇasarāvali, cf. Hopkins 2002: 175 – 180, cf. his helpful understanding and explanations of this term ibid., 175: “For God to save his devotee there must be a pretext [i.e. vyāja M.S.] earned by lifetime of good karma, however small. Without such a pretext (which implies some kind of gesture or action from the devotee), however small (alpavyāja), says Deśika, there is no prasāda.”  Cf. ACM 399, 4: parāniṣṭakaraṇam īśvarasya tattatkarmānurūpam abhīṣṭatvād aniṣṭam eva na bhavatīty arthaḥ.  The ACM expands on this concept, defining compassion as eternal and non-eternal and as being with, and without a motive. Cf. the ACM for explanations of the twofold aspects of compassion as eternal (nitya) and non-eternal (anitya), and motiveless (nirhetuka) and as having a motive (sahetuka): “Compasssion is twofold: eternal and non-eternal. Eternal compassion is of protecting, such as of the existence of all selves. But non-eternal has the form of bestowing a special/particular result according to karman like this and that merit which is unknown [by the soul]… And the general compassion which refers to every self/soul and has the form of be-

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

499

finds its application. And His being a witness etc., is properly fitting. And this is with regard to His characteristic nature, which is observed. By the knowledge: “He is giving a result” (phalada), [the soul’s] activity is correct.⁷⁷

The next verse refers to the contrast already mentioned between the divine and the individual agent, i. e., the soul.⁷⁸ The soul has its own will just as God has. God’s will, however, is far more independent and thus the will of the soul still depends on divine will. Importantly, Veṅkaṭanātha carries forward the idea that there are two agents with different functions. Neither on the part of God, nor on the part of the soul does anything need to be given up. Finally, the verse also deals with how all the two realities (tattva) , i.e. soul and material (insentient) world, can be reconciled with their dependency on God, even though the soul and material substances are both different but dependent on Him. For those whose highest is true knowledge, the Inner Self is designated by the word “I,” and in relation to this self, there is also an agent, etc. Because the soul’s activity is caused by its own will, it is superior to the insentient being, [and due to this fact] at first similar to God[’s will]. God, however, controls exclusively through His own will; therefore everything that is different is dependent on Him. The activity of the three [i. e. insentient being, the soul and God] is the fixed course in the succession of charioteership, etc.⁷⁹

stowing every wish is eternal and motiveless; the compassion which has the form of a will bestowing a special fruit in this and that time is having a motive.” karuṇā hi dvividhāḥ nityā anityā ca. nityā punaḥ karuṇā sarvātmasattādisaṃrakṣaṇarūpiṇī. anityā punas tattadajñātasukṛtādikarmānurūpaviśeṣaphalapradānarūpā. … sarvātmaviṣayaṃ sakalaphalapradānasaṅkalparūpaṃ sāmānyakāruṇyaṃ nityam eva nirhetukañ ca, etat tattatkāle viśeṣaphalapradānasaṅkalparūpaṃ sahetukañ ceti vibhāgaḥ.  doṣas syān nigrahāṃśo yamayitur iti cen nōpamardāsahatvāt svāniṣṭaṃ neśvare hi prasajati na parāniṣṭam asya pratīpam | kāruṇyaṃ sāvakāśaṃ kvacid iti kathitaṃ sākṣitādyañ ca sustham dṛṣṭe caitat svabhāve, phalada iti dhiyā yujyate tatpravṛttiḥ ||239||.  Another example of this is found in Veṅkaṭanātha’s Nyāyasiddhāñjana. There, in a separate chapter on the soul, he also examines this matter with a reference to Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 33 and 2. 3. 40, after determining the soul’s knowledge as an inherent nature, with reference to Brahmasūtra 2. 3. 19: he explains: “That agency, which is the cause of being an enjoyer, belongs to the self, the enjoyer, and that agency is generally caused by the Supreme Person is explained in detail in the section [beginning with BS 2. 3. 33:] “[The self, being the enjoyer, is] the agent because scriptures have a purport [only in that case] and that [beginning with the sūtra]: “But [agency of the individual self] is from the Supreme [Self] because it is mentioned in the śruti.” bhoktṛtvahetubhūtaṃ kartṛtvaṃ bhoktur jīvasyaiva, tac ca sāmānyataḥ paramapuruṣahetukam iti, kartā śāstrārthavattvāt, parāt tu tacchruteḥ ity adhikaraṇe[ṇayoḥ?] prapañcitam.  pratyaṅṅ ātmā ’hamarthaḥ pramitiparavatāṃ kartṛtādiś ca tasmin svecchāpūrvapravṛtter ayam acidadhikas tāvad īśānatulyaḥ |

500

Marcus Schmücker

The next two verses refer to the conflict between God’s action and the soul’s independence. If the soul has acted badly and continues to act on its own, what is the point of speaking of God’s impartiality? Therefore the question: How it is possible for God to repress the soul, if the soul acts on its own? This specific question was also discussed by both Varadaguru and Sudarśanasūri; they also address the difficulty that the result of an action of God is always prior to the soul’s response, and thus the soul’s autonomy, its free decision whether to act well or badly, is exclusively subject to its own will. God, however omnipresent He is portrayed, cannot presume the result of a soul’s action, even though it is He who gives the soul the capacity to reflect and to become active. [Opponent:] If one were to take the view: “If the agency [of the soul] were not independent from the directorship of the Highest Being, when at some time it is characterized by the senses, whence its punishment etc.?” [Then we respond:] This is not the case, because there is impartiality referring to the thesis which is accepted by you. For, of themselves, those devoted to His compassion are not in turn induced to do something that is badly done. If it is so because of their own nature, is it not otherwise? The refutation of the learned is without result.⁸⁰

This verse also refers to God’s relationship to the karman of souls. God does not enter into a new relationship with the karman of every new creation; He is always connected with the karman of all souls. Nonetheless, Veṅkaṭanātha deals with opposition of God’s being a distant observer on one side, yet omnipresent through His rulership on the other. The different efforts of the equal souls are due to their different karman. But the adṛṣṭa is not accepted as different⁸¹ from the Instructor [i. e. the Lord] due to various restrictions.⁸²

īśas tu svecchayaiva prayatata iti nighnam anyat samastam sārathyādikrameṇa pratiniyatagatis syāt trayāṇāṃ pravṛttiḥ ||240||.  kartṛtvaṃ syāt kadācit karaṇavati parapreraṇānirvyapekṣaṃ no cet, tannigrahādyaṃ katham iti yadi, na, sveṣṭapakṣe ’pi sāmyāt | svenāpathyapravṛttaṃ na hi punar api tat kārayeyur dayārdrāḥ tac cet tasya svabhāvāt, itarad api na kiṃ? niṣphalo ’dhītabhaṅgaḥ ||241||.  AC 408, 12– 13: karma ca vedāntasiddhānte neśvarasaṃkalpād anyad iti karmanibandhanaṃ pravṛttivaiṣamyaṃ vadann īśvarādhīnatvam eva sthāpayatīty arthaḥ. “In the doctrinal system of Vedānta, the karman of the soul is not different from God’s will; therefore, he stablishes that the difference in the activities of souls caused by their respective karman depends exclusively on God.”  Cf. NSi 437, 1: evam adṛṣṭam apīśvaraprītikopātmakam eva. Cf. also NSi 438. 4– 439. 3: “In all cases, the adṛṣṭa consists of the enjoyment of God. And in the same manner He (i. e. God) [BhG 9. 24] Himself says: ‘For I am the enjoyer and the Lord of all sacrifices.’ And that the cognition of

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

501

The Lord’s witnessing, etc., does not obstruct/negate His directorship, which is equally authorized by scripture.⁸³ For those of collected mind, even (these) portions of the Śrībhāṣya, and other scriptures, are to be interpreted as having the same meaning.⁸⁴

After this last passage, perhaps an even clearer picture emerges of the detailed relationship between God and soul. This relationship is determined by a mutuality in which God and soul give and receive each other in different ways. So far, in Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha, the distinction repeatedly made can be described as God, in a general act that, like water, reaches every sprout completely indifferently and neutrally detached like a witness/observer, gives each soul as a general support (sādhāraṇopakāra) what it needs for its coming life in the saṃsāra. Subsequently, the soul can act of its own accord, in each case good or bad; but in its own will it is independent, and this independence is not taken away from it. The realization of the free will individualizes each soul into one, and God then gives the result for the action of each individual soul. The difference between the action for every soul in common and for the particular soul causes no contradiction for God’s eternal being, because it is only God’s changing states concerning His nature (svabhāva), not His eternal essence (svarūpa).

Summary The relationship between God and the soul as developed by Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha is based on three central ideas. These ideas are discussed regularly in their works and decisively mark the God-relationship as they present it. God, in addition to the many-sided karman [of individual souls], consists of anger, etc., is not a mistake, because [anger, etc.,] as their quality correspond to protection by His own command. Similarly, special caring, forgiving love, good-heartedness, etc., are also specific qualities of His cognition.” sarvatra sādhāraṇam īśvaraprītyātmakam adṛṣṭam. tathā ca svayam evāha – ahaṃ hi sarvayajñānāṃ bhoktā ca prabhur eva ceti. īśvarajñānasya kopādyātmakatvaṃ vividhakarmopādhikam. na caiṣa doṣaḥ, svājñāparipālanānurūpaguṇatvāt. evaṃ sauśīlyavātsalyasauhārdaprabhṛtayo’pibuddhiviśeṣāḥ. Cf. also SAS (251, 7– 8) ad TMK 2. 19: dharmādharmaśabdaḥ karmanimitteśvaraprītikoparūpadyotakaḥ.  Cf. ACM 409, 6 – 411, 1 for a reference (tatropekṣya tato ’numatya) on the sequence of God’s activities/states already mentioned before in Vātsya Varadagurus vers 46.  kṣetrajñānāṃ samānāṃ viṣamayatanatā tādṛśādṛṣṭabhedān nādṛṣṭaṃ tv anyad iṣṭaṃ niyamanabhidayā śāsitus tatra bhāvyam | sākṣitvādyañ ca netuḥ samanigamamitaṃ prerakatvaṃ na rundhe bhāṣyādigranthaleśo ’py avahitamanasām aidamarthyaṃ bhajeta ||242||.

502

Marcus Schmücker

At the forefront stands the agent (kartṛ), the acting subject, referred to in Indian theistic traditions as the soul. This agent developed out of the agent performing a ritual, whose existential validity is based on the Veda. Laden with previous karman (prācīnakarman), the soul seeks to free itself from saṃsāra. This is in contrast to the personal God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, who remains the agent causing the action of all individual agents. The relationship between God and soul is determined by the bestowing of a result, whose unsurpassable first Giver can only be God, since otherwise His omnipresent rulership would be impossible. This gift relationship contains a number of paradoxes that needed theological solutions. Although God is the first Giver and provides the soul the possibility to act better, not every soul acts well, or has acted well in the past. And we can add, even if God is the unsurpassable first Giver He already responds when He re-manifests the adṛṣṭa of the souls, which is also always and already there. As the second crucial idea, the emerging concept of God takes into account the paradox between the independence of the agent in the framework of the ritual and the concept that it is God who leads everything to what is good. Although it is God who bestows the result of an action, such a gift is preceded by an independent decision based on the will (icchā) of the soul. While only mentioned but not extensively discussed by Rāmānuja, the idea of God’s indifference (audāsīnya) is dealt with intensively by Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha. God’s indifference does not relativize His omnipresent rulership, which is defined by the concept of a causative agent (kārayitṛ). Moreover, the single God must respond to many actions of an infinite plurality of souls. This not only influences the concept of agency, but also the concept of the gift (dāna), including the counter-gift in response to a ritual action that requires a result (phala) as its outcome. For the third idea, we can refer back to Ricoeur’s concept of mutuality. If God acts freely, He must recognize the adṛṣṭa of souls, their repository of previous good and bad deeds; by doing this, however, He does not annul the actions of the soul, regardless of whether they are good or bad. He merely prepares the way for the soul to continue to act. The next step, however, is significant, since God expects the soul to make it clear that His act of re-manifestation has been acknowledged or recognized. By giving the soul the autonomy to act freely and expecting this to be done to please (anukūlya) the Lord, the will of the soul is undeniably accepted and not denied (anirvārya). Only so can God fulfil His promise of salvation. This mutuality also involves distance: God’s indifference (audāsīnya) implies His respect, but also His expectation that souls act correctly. However, God cannot influence any decision of the soul. Something similar is implied by the concept of “impartiality” (sāmya), in contrast to “partiality” (vaiṣamya). When God is accepted as the enabling cause for the soul to

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

503

become active, this does not mean that He takes the individuality of the soul away. As Veṅkaṭanātha demonstrates,⁸⁵ the soul’s individuality is based on God’s gift of independence.

Bibliography Primary literature Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi (= ACM), Kumāravedānta, see AS (Adhikaraṇasarāvali). Adhikaraṇasārāvaliḥ (=AS), Veṅkaṭanātha. Adhikaraṇasārāvaliḥ Kumāravedāntācāryānugṛhītena cintāmaṇinā … bhūmikā ca sametā. Kapeer Printing Works: Madras 1940. Gītābhāṣya, Rāmānuja, see TPC (Tatpāryacandrikā). Paramatabhaṅga (=PMBh), Veṅkaṭanātha. Paramatapaṅkam, Śrī parama pari Śrī raṅkarāmāṉuja mahātēcikaṉ tiruvaṭiyāṉa uttamūr tirumalai nallāṉ cakravartti apinavatēcika vīrarākavācaryaṉ iyaṟṟiya anapāya prapai eṉṉum uraiyuṭaṉ. Madras: T. Nagar: 1978. Nyāyasiddhāñjana (=NSi) Veṅkaṭanātha. Veṅkaṭanāthaviracitaṃ Nyāyasiddhāñjanam.Madras: Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā 1976. Rahasyatrayasāra (=RTS), Veṅkaṭanātha. Śrīmadrahasyatrayasāra. Ramadesikacaryar Swami (Ed.). Srirangam: Sri Marutthy Laser Printers 2000. Sarvārthasiddhi (=SAS), Veṅkaṭanātha, see TMK. Śrībhāṣya (=Śrībh), Rāmānuja. Śrībhāṣya of Rāmānuja with Sudarśanasuri’s Śrutaprakāśikā, ed. by U. T. Vīrarāghavācārya, Madras: Sri Visishtadvaita Pracharini Sabha 1989 (reprint; 1st ed.: 1967). Two volumes, each with separate pagination (I contains Śrībhāṣya 1.1 to 1.2; II contains 1.3 to 4.4). Tattvamuktākalāpa (=TMK), Veṅkaṭanātha. Śrīmadveṅkaṭanāthārya Vedāntadeśika viracitaṃ Tattvamuktākalāpaḥ. tadvyākhyā ca tadviracitā sarvārthasiddhir nāma vṛttiḥ. Madras: Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā 1973. Tatpāryacandrikā (=TPC), Veṅkaṭanātha. Bhagavadgīta with Rāmānuja’s Bhāṣya and Vedānta Deśika’s Tātparyacandrikā. Edited and published by U.T. Vīrarāghavāchārya. Madras 1972. Tattvasāra, Śrī Vātsya Varadaguru (=TS). The Tattvasāra of Śrī Vātsya Varadaguru, M.A. Venkatakrishnan, Ed. Madras: Geethacharyan Publications, 1995. Vedārthasaṃgraha (=VAS), cf. van Buitenen 1956.

 Cf. Schmücker forthcoming.

504

Marcus Schmücker

Secondary literature Bilimoria 1990. Puruṣottama Bilimoria, Hindu Doubts About God: Towards a Mīmāṃsā Deconstruction. International Philosophical Quarterly 30/4/120 (1990): 481 – 499. van Buitenen 1956. J.A.B. van Buitenen, Rāmānujas Vedārthasaṃgraha, Introduction, Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute 1956. Cardona 2014. George Cardona, “Pāṇinian Grammarians on Agency and Independence.” In: Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy Matthew R. Dasti, Edwin F. Bryant (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, 85 – 111. Chemparathy 2003. George Chemparathy, Is the Hindu Answer to the Problem of Suffering Satisfying from the Purely Rational Perspective? Studia Asiatica IV (2003)–V (2004), 643 – 660. Clooney 1997. Francis X. Clooney, What’s a god? The quest for the right understanding of devatā in Brāhmaṇical ritual theory (mīmāṃsā). International Journal of Hindu Studies 1,2 (1997): 337 – 385. Dasti 2014. Matthew R. Dasti, “Introduction”. In: Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy Matthew R. Dasti, Edwin F. Bryant (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, 1 – 15. Ganieri 2014. Martin Ganieri, Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Rāmānuja. In: Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy Matthew R. Dasti, Edwin F. Bryant (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, 232 – 254. Hoffmann 2009. Veronika Hoffmann (Ed.), Die Gabe. Ein “Urwort” der Theologie? Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Otto Lembeck 2009. Hoffmann 2013. Id., Skizzen zu einer Theologie der Gabe. Rechtfertigung-Opfer-Eucharistie-Gottes- und Nächstenliebe. Freiburg: Herder 2013. Hopkins 2002. Steven P. Hopkins, Singing the Body of God: The Hymns of Vedāntadeśika in their South Indian Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press 2002. Killingley 2017. Dermot Killingley, “The Upaniṣads and the emergence of Theism”. In: The Upaniṣads. A Complete Guide, Signe Cohen (Ed.). London: Routledge 2017, 161 – 173. Lipner 1986. Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth: A study in Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja. Albany: State University of New York Press 1986. Malinar 2007. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgītā. Doctrines and Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007. Mauss 1990. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. W.D. Halls (trans.), New York: Norton. Orig. pub. As Essai sur le Don (1925). Mumme 1985. Patricia Mumme, “Jīvakartṛtva in Viśiṣṭādvaita and the Dispute over Prapatti in Vedānta Deśika and the Teṅkalai Authors”. In: Professor Kuppuswami Sastri Birth-Centenary: Selected Research Papers Presented at the Birth Centenary Seminars, Kuppuswami Sastri and S.S. Janaki (Eds.). Chennai: Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute 1985, 99 – 118. Mumme 1988. Id., The Srī Vaiṣṇava Theological Dispute: Manavālamāmuni Vedānta Deśika. Madras: New Era Publication 1988. Ollett 2013. Andrew Ollett, What is Bhāvanā? Journal of Indian Philosophy 41 (2013): 221 – 262. Ricoeur 2004. Paul Ricoeur, Parcours de la reconnaissance. Trois études. Paris: Gallimard 2004.

The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha

505

Sawai 1993. Yoshitsugu Sawai, Rāmānuja’s Theory of Karman. Journal of Indian Philosophy 21 (1993): 11 – 29. Schmücker 2011. Marcus Schmücker, “Zur Bedeutung des Wortes ‘Ich’ (aham) bei Veṅkaṭanātha”. In: Die Relationalität des Subjektes im Kontext der Religionshermeneutik. Arbeitsdokumentation eines Symposiums. Gerhard Oberhammer, Marcus Schmücker (Eds.) [Veröffentlichungen zu den Sprachen und Kulturen Asiens 70]. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2011, 309 – 40. Schmücker 2019. Id., Gabe und Erlösung. Zum Primat der Gegebenheit im Kontext religiöser Traditionen. In: Der Primat der Gegebenheit. Zur Transformation der Phänomenologie nach Jean-Luc Marion, Michael Staudigl (Ed.). Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber 2019, 355 – 385. Schmücker 2020. Id., “Rāmānujas Theologie der Gabe.” In: Monotheismus. Interreligiöse Gespräche im Umfeld moderner Gottesfragen im Anschluss an Hermann Stieglecker, Petrus Bsteh, Brigitte Proksch, Rüdiger Lohlker (Eds.). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2020, 315 – 329. Schmücker forthcoming. Id., “Veṅkaṭanātha’s Non-Dual Theology and Ontology”. In: Bloomsburry Handbook of Non-Duality, Jonathan Duquette, London: Bloomsbury 2023/24. Thibeaut 1904. George Thibaut (trans.), The Vedānta-Sūtras with the Commentary by Rāmānuja. Sacred Books of the East Series, F. Max Müller (Ed.). Vol. 48, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wilden 2000. Eva Wilden, Der Kreislauf der Opfergaben. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner 2000. Williams 2021. Williams, Michael T., Theodicy in a Deterministic Universe: God and the Problem of Suffering in Vyāsatīrtha’s Tātparyacandrikā. International Journal of Hindu Studies 25 (2021): 199 – 228.

Contributors Florian Baab, Institute for Katholic Theology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Hamburg, Gorch-Fock-Wall 7, 20354 Hamburg, Germany. Brad Bannon, 247 Page Hill Rd., New Ipswich, NH 03071 USA. Christine Büchner, Institute for Systematic Theology, Faculty of Catholic Theology, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Bibrastraße 14, 97070 Würzburg, Germany. Timothy Cahill, Department of Religious Studies, Loyola University Orleans, 6363 St. Charles Ave, New Orleans LA 70118 – 6195 USA. Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Harvard Divinity School, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA. Gérard Colas, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre d’Étude de l’Inde et de L’Asie du Sud, Campus Condorcet, 2 Cours des Humanités, 93322 Aubervilliers cedex, France. James L. Fredericks, Department of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California 90045 – 2656 USA. Robert M. Gimello, Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame du Lac, 6140 Darby Court, South Bend, IN 46614 – 6385 USA. Dennis Hirota, Department of Shin Buddhist Studies, Ryukoku University, Kyoto 600, Japan. Steven P. Hopkins, Department of Religion, Pearson 211, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081 USA. Anne MacDonald, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstrasse 11 – 13, 1020 Vienna, Austria. Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2, Courtyard 2, 1090 Vienna, Austria. Godabarisha Misra, Nālandā University, Rajgir, Nalanda District, 803116 Bihar, India. John Nemec, Department of Religious Studies, Virginia Center for he Study of Religion, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 – 14126 USA. Bernhard Nitsche, Seminar of Fundamental Theology and Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Münster, Johannisstraße 8 – 10, 48143 Münster, Germany.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-031

508

Contributors

Joseph S. O’Leary, Department of English Literature, Sophia University, 7 – 1 Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102 – 8554 Japan. Jörg Plassen, Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien, Sektion Religionen Ostasiens, Universitätsstrasse 134, 44801 Bochum, Germany. Anantanand Rambachan, Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community, Buntrock Commons 146, 1520 St. Olaf Avenue, Northfield MN 55057 USA. Hermann-Josef Röllicke, Ekō-Haus der Japanischen Kultur e.V., Brüggener Weg 6, 40547 Düsseldorf, Germany. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Institute for Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, University of Münster, Universitätsstrasse 13 – 17, 48143 Münster, Germany. Marcus Schmücker, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstrasse 11 – 13, 1020 Vienna, Austria. Noel Sheth, S.J. (†), Jnana Deepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology, HW 36+6H7, Pune, Maharastra, India. Michael von Brück, Interfakultärer Studiengang Religionswissenschaft, Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München, Germany. Fabian Völker, Department of Intercultural Philosophy of Religion , Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Vienna, Schenkenstrasse 8 – 10, 1010 Vienna, Austria. Michelle Voss Roberts, Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, 75 Queen’s Park Crescent, Toronto, ON M5S 1K7, Canada. Robert Zydenbos, Institute for Indology and Tibetan Studies, University of Munich, Ludwigstraße 31, 80539 München, Germany.

Index Abe, Masao 22 Abhidhamma/Abhidharma 151, 168, 170 Abhinavabhāratī 415 Abhinavagupta 331, 411, 414, 450 f., 453, 455 – 457, 459, 462 absolute, the 8, 23, 28, 139 accessibility, kataphatic 7 achorístōs/inseparabiliter 37, 54 acosmism 27 adhibhūta ’pertaining to cosmic elements’ 283 f., 286 adhidaiva ’pertaining to the gods’ 283 f., 286 adhikaraṇa 288 Adhikaraṇacintāmaṇi 495 f. Adhikaraṇasarāvali 492, 494 – 497 adhiṣṭhāna 322 adhiyajña ’pertaining to the sacrifice’ 283 f., 286, 288 adhyātman ’pertaining to the [embodied] self’ 283 f., 286 adiairétōs/indivise 37, 54 adṛṣṭa 470, 487, 489 f., 500 Advaita/advaita 28, 319 āgama 354, 357 agency 53, 190, 196, 343, 411, 434 f., 441 f., 462, 464, 474, 478, 485, 494, 496, 499 agent, causative (kārayitṛ) 502 ahaṃkara 7, 260, 272, 274, 452 ajāti-vāda, theory of non-origination 269 ajñānatimira 453 ‘all-determining reality’ (Bultmann) 15 all-oneness, transnumerical 17 all-Unity 3, self-differentiating (Henrich) 21 f., 41 – 43, 133, 169, 175, 179, 377 – 379 alterity, of God 35 Amida Buddha 2, 57, 85, 185, 187 – 197, 199 f. Ānandavardhana 412, 414, 416 f., 419 – 421 anātman 205 – 207, 215, 222 anattā 25, 302 Anselm of Canterbury 17 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-032

anti-substantialism, of early Buddhism 120 anuyāya ‘agreement’ 354 anyāpoha 338 anyonyahetuka ‘interdependent causes and conditions’ 165 anyonyapratyaya ‘interdependent conditions’ 165 apóphasis 8, 28, 141, 60 n.9, 61, 66, 68, 139, 141, 205, 235, 380 Appayya Dīkṣita 388 apperception (saṃjñā) 119, 122 apūrva, ‘the unprecedented’ 252, 289 – 291 Aquinas, Thomas 86, 232, 324, 389 arcāvatāra 312 Aristotle 19, 60, 106, 227, 231 Arjuna 253 Asaṅga 206 Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtra 118, 124, 154 asygchútōs/inconfuse 37, 54 – 55 ātman 21, 163 f., 287 ātman/brahman 240 atréptōs/immutabiliter 37, 54 f. Augustine 105 f., 456 autonomy 235, 372, 443, 478 f., 481, 483, 488, 493 f., 500, 502 Avataṃsakasūtra 136, 154 Avatāra 303, n26 305, 307, 349, 354, 357 avidyā 153, 365 f., 368 – 370 avyākṛta, ‘undifferentiated’ (nāmarūpe) 247, 258 awareness, pure (Skt. puruṣa) 157 Bādarāyaṇa 288, 295 f., 319 “before”, pre-categorical 8 Being-time (uji, Jap. 有時) 156 Bergson, Henri 202 “beyond”, trans-categorical 8, 214, 256, 457 beyondness 8, 256, 457 Bhagavadgītā 20, 30, 286, 319, 324, 354, 358, 392, n23 477, 481

510

Index

Bhāgavatapurāṇa 354 bhakti ’devotion’ 348, 359, 416, 421 – 423, 426, 455 Bhāratītīrtha 288 Bhartṛhari 365 Bhāskara 347 f., n25 391 Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka 424 f. Bhavabhūti 365, n42 397 bhāvanā ’actualization’ 407, 411 f., 424 f. Bhāviveka 124 bheda ’difference’, ’distinction’ 35, 267, 325, 349, 352, 360, 365, 370, n25 391 bhūta 287 Bodhicāryāvatāra 84 bodhicitta 186 bodhisattva 74 f., 83, 118, 186 – 189, 232, 234 f. Boethius 233 Bohm, David 10 bonnō 煩悩 184 brahman 27, 259 f., 292, 319, 335, 345, 363, 416, 420, 424, 437 – 440, 444 – anantamātra 257 – nirguṇa 3, 22, 28, 32, 98, 149, 223, 232, 256, 264, 319 – 328, 348, 358, 363, 379 – saguṇa 28, 32 f., 149, 266, 306, 319 – 323, 325, 327 – 330, 348, 364 Brahmasūtra 32, 265, 319, 345, 365, 368, 479, 481, 493 Buber, Martin 19, 431 f., 464 Buddhaghosa 82, 88, 92 Buddhapā lita 226 buddha-field 84, 86, 185 – 188, 222 buddhahood 58, 63, 66 f., n18 68, n19 69, 71, 75, 77, 145, 175 – 177, n52 178, 179, 187 – 189, 220 buddha-nature 1, 14, 25 f., 62, 68, 71, 76, 93, 132, 134, 145, 156, 158 – 160, 176 f., 225 buddha qualities (buddhadharma) 175 – 177 Buddhism 53, 55, 59, 108, 202, 206 f., 210, 219, 334 – controversies 62 – crypto-Buddhist 356 – Epistemology 337 – Mahāyāna 188, 194

– Pure Land 57, 183 f., 199, 201, 203, 205, 207, 209 f., 214 – patriarchs 213 – “trinitarianism” 64 calming (upaśama) 129 camatkāra ’aesthetic rapture/delight’ 411 f., 415, 417, 424, 426 Candrakīrti 124, 153, 168 f., 172 – 175, n18 168 ‘capacity of the unconditioned’ (Kant) 15 caritas 206 Cārvāka 90 catuṣkoṭi 22 causality 157 cause 125 – God as cause of everything (sarvakāraṇa) 493 Chalcedon, Council of 54 Chán 禅 158 Chéngguān 澄觀 64 – 66 citta-vṛtti ‘state of mind’ 420 Clement 210 Compte, Auguste 202 Conze, Edward 201 chorismós 106 Christianity 41, 44, 52, 76, 231, 349, 463 Clayton, Philip 43 compassion (karuṇā) 66, 206, 397, 414, 493, 497 condition (pratyaya) 125, 127 consciousness 3 – dynamics of 150 – human 7, 9, 11 – “pure” 149 – the One (according to Zōngmì 宗密) 159 – prajñā 155 consequences, unwanted logical 118 continuity, of the world 157 Conze, Edward 23 co-origination, interdependent (pratītya-samutpāda) 25 cosmomorphic 449, 454, 465 creatio ex amore 36 creation 35 – 36, 41 – 46, 45, 51, 89, 250, 274, 277, 303, 308, 320 – 22, 326, 327 – 328, 349, 357, 358, 367, 435 – 436,

Index

438 – 441, 443, 451, 463, 470, 475, 481, 487, 500 Cusanus, Nicholas 7, 81, 140, 112, 113, 134, 139, 231, 240, 245, 257, 349 dag pa gzhan dbang 179 daiva 287 Daṃṣṭrāsena n39 174 Daniélou, Jean 200 Dante 390, 407 Davids, Rhys 201 de Chardin, Teilhard 199 deity, particular (devatā) 426 de Lubac, Henri 51, 52, 57, n10 61, n29 76, 199 – 202, 205 – 215 Demiéville, Paul 201 dependent co-production 81 dependent origination 87 Descartes, René 15, 44 Deussen, Paul 27, 32 Deus absconditus atquae presens 215 dharma 160, 163, 168, 170, 175, 177, 199, 209 f., 240, 250 – 254, 257 – 260, 289, 416, 421 dharmadhātu ‘domain or essence of truth/ dharma’ 71, 73, 133 f., 211 dharmakāya 73, 176, 203, 207, 213 f. Dharma King (dharmarāja) 211 Dharmakīrti 337, n25 341 dhātuvāda 139 dhvani ‘implicature’ 411 f., 414 – 417, 419 difference, soteriological between saṃsara and nirvāṇa 12, phenomenal 378 dimensions, of being human 331 divine 331, 336, 464 Docetism 214 Dōgen 道元 26, 156 Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan 178 dravyasat 169, 172 dualism, between the region of the divine and the world 43, 322, 352 duality 160 duḥkha ‘suffering’ 55, 153 dvaitavādapratiṣedha 28 Dworkin, Ronald 44 Dyczkowski, Mark 333 dynamic of transcending 6

511

ego 153 egocentricity 159 Einstein, Albert 9 f., 26, 44 Eliot, Charles 201 emotion 412 – 414, 416 f., 420, 426 emptiness, concept of (śūnyatā) 119, 125, 167 f. 170, of self-nature (svabhāvaśūnyatā) 62 “entangled” (zàichán 在纏) 69 epekeina tēs ousias/ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας 8, 17, 213, 256, 257 Eschenmayer, Carl August von 376 f., 379 “Es gibt” (Heidegger) 13 eternalism, cryptic 156 event (Ereignis) 12, 13 existence 12, phenomenal 90. experience 415, 420, transphenomenal 123 “extinguished” (nivṛta) 129 fabrications, magic (Skt. māyā) of a sorcerer 155 fǎjiè 法界 134, n2 135 – fǎjiè yuánqǐ 法界緣起 133 Fǎxiǎn 法顯 n54 178 Fǎzàng 法藏 137, n10 138, 139, 160 feeling (vedanā) 119 Feuerbach, Ludwig 221 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 364, 371, 377, 380 Foucault, Michel 20 Frauwallner, Erich 23 freedom 16, 331, 438, 439, 441, 443 – 444, 464, 469, n10 472 fukashigi 不可思議 188 Gauḍapāda 149, 265, 266, 269, 272, 274, 277, 319, 365 Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava 406 gift 12, reciprocal 472, pure, 475 f., gift of consent (anumatidāna) 479 Gītābhāṣya 481 f. givenness 12, 368 Glasenapp von, Helmut 23 God 41, 51, 239, 255, 331, 353, 357 – 359, 361, 421, 423 Golden Lion 160 ‘Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal 178

512

Index

Gnoli, Raniero 417, 424 f. grāhaka 174 grāhya 174 guṇa 357 guru 244, 246 gyō 行 192 Hacker, Paul 26, 28, 365 Hadewijch 210 Halfwassen, Jens 105 Hanumān 394, 418 Hastāmalaka 365 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 24, 364 Heidegger, Martin 6, 7, 12, 52, 57, 185, 219, 256 Henrich, Dieter 21 hiddenness, apophatic 7 Hinduism 26, 35, 98, 219 Hiriyanna, M. 265 f. Hirota, Dennis 25 Hitchens, Christopher 45 hōjin 報身 212 holomovement 157 Hölderlin, Friedrich 106 homo mundanus 18 Hōnen 法然 85, 189, 192 f., 207 horizon, of the unconditional 6 hōsshin 法身 213 Huáyán 華嚴 64, 73, 158, 160 Huìyuǎn 慧遠 85 Hóngzhōu school 159 Ibn al-‘Arabī 389 ichijitsu 一実 193 icon 303, 307, 309 – 314 iconography 65, 90, 311 ‘idea of the infinite’ (Cartesian) 15 ‘idea of the unconditioned’ 15 Idiota de sapientia 112 f. Idolatry 35 f. imago dei 206 f. immanence 7, 41, 43, 247, 258, 260 immutable 75, 271, 364, 379 impartiality (sāmya), God’s 493 f. impermanence 119 impersonality 411 impulses (saṃskāra) 119

inaccessible/inavailable (Unverfügbares) 7 f. inconceivable (numen) 19 independence (svātantrya), of the soul 469, 472 f., 475 f. Indra’s net 24, 139, 142 – 146 indifference, point of (Schelling) 374, 376, total 377, n81 380, of God (audāsīnya) 477, 482, 486, 488–491, 496, 502 inexpressible (Skt. anirvacanīya) 149 infinite, false (‘das Schlecht-Unendliche’) 15 Inner guide/ruler (antaryāmin) 33, 403, 438, 443, 475, 482 intention, God’s (abhisandhi) 489 interdependence, of all things 118 interpenetration, mutual of temporal moments 154 is-ness 108 Īśā Upaniṣad 37 Īśvara 240, 249, 252 – 257, 259 f., 322 itikartavyatā 251 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich 375, 380 Jaiminīyanyāyamālā 288 f., 294 f. Jaina 93 Jainism 353, 358 – 361 Jayatīrtha 361 Jesus Christ 204 f., 207, 209, 214 jinen 自然 183, 188 – 192, 204 jiriki 自力 1, 192 jīva ’living being’ 34, 249, 253, 264 f., 276, n1 352, 360 f., 368 f., 369, 385, 393 f., 398, 402 f., 406, 440, n41 483 jīvanmukti ‘liberation while living’ 458, 462 jīvātman ’individual self/living being’ 7, 32 f., 386 jñāna 74, 245, 251, 288, 296 Jo nang pa 178 f. Jōdoshinshū 浄土真宗 208 Kaccāyanagotta-sutta 113 kalpa (world period/aeon) Kampaṉ n40 396, n41 Kant, Immanuel 223

470 f. 397

Index

karman 86, 155, 163, 174, 253, 264, 288, 296, 302, 308, 336, 345 f., 359, 440 442, 444, 490, 493, 496 f., 500, 502 katáphasis 60 f., 66, 68, 139, 141, 146 kataphatic turn 141 Kātyāyanāvavāda 109 Kierkegaard, Søren 41 kleśa 128, 184, 209 knowledge, highest 114 Kṛṣṇa 286, 358, 392 Kṛṣṇāmr ̥tamahārṇava 359 kū 空 213 Kūkai 空海 146 kulāla, potter 248 Kumāravedānta 495 Kumārila n24/25 341 f. lakṣaṇa, ‘characteristic mark’ 169, 179 lakṣya, ‘characterized’ 169, 179 Lalla 450, 455 f. Lambert, Johann Heinrich 108 Lamotte, Étienne 201 La Valléy Poussin, Louis de 201 Levinas, Emmanuel 15 lǐ 理 67 limitation 461, 463 f. Liszt, Franz 107 “Lord of Being” (Schelling) 16 Luckmann, Thomas 11 f., 53, 460 luminosity 92, 94 MacDonald, Anne 22 Mādhavācārya/Madhva 288, 351 – 361 Madhusūdana Sarasvatī 266 Madhvavijaya 355 Madhyamaka 59, 104, 110, 139, 143, 165, 167, 170, 174, 179, 220 Madhyamakāvatāra 172 f. Mahābhārata 354 f., 361 Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya 354 mahāvākya – ayam ātmā brahma 258 – tat tvam asi 355 Mahāyāna 83, 97, 136, 150, 156, 175, 179, 184, 201, 212, 222, 225 Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa 177 Malkani, G.R. 271, 274

513

Maṇḍana Miśra 365, 368 Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 319 Māṇḍūkyakārikā n43 257, 265, n29 273, n41 277 Māṇḍūkyakārikābhāṣya n58 29, 266 manifoldness, objective and subjective (prapañca) 129 Maṇipravāḷa 384, 386, n30 392 Mañjuśrī (boddhisattva) 64 – 66, 68, 71, 76 matter, insentient (jaḍaprakṛti) 30 Mauss, Marcel 301, 469 f. māyā 30, 452 – 454, 462, 464 Māyāvādakhaṇḍana 353 McFague, Sally 442 f. Medium transcendences 11 Meister Eckhart 42, 64, 156, 224, 436 f., 439 – 441 memory 158 metaphor – infant 449, 452 – mirror 459 – reflection 451 Mīmāṃsā 250 f., 283, 332, 334, 337, 342 – Pūrvamīmāṃsā n30 250, 288 – Uttaramīmāṃsā n30 250, 288 mithyājñāna ’falso cognition’ 366, 369 mokṣa 228, 359, 369 moment 153 monism 43, 333, 336, 356, 358, 363, 411 Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 94, 109 f., 117, n11 155, 166, 168 f., 173, 179, 226, 228 Mūlarāmāyaṇa 355 multiplicity/pluriformity, of phenomena 159 Muryōyukyō 無量寿経 187 Mus, Paul 201 f. mutuality 469 f. Myōan Eisai 明菴栄西 109 Nāgārjuna 60, 94, 96, 109, 114, 117, 151, 153, 166 – 169, 172, 174, 178 f., 220 f., 227 f., 232 – 234, 226 nāmarūpe 29, 364, 366 f., 372, 379 Nammāḻvār n34 394 Nāṭyaśāstra 413, 422 nembutsu 念仏 84 f., 193 – 195, 197, 211 negation 98, 228, 232

514

Index

neyārtha 61 Nietzsche, Friedrich n10 386 Nimbārka 345 – 348 nirmāṇakāya 86, 212 f. nirodha 70 nirvāṇa 1 – 3, 7, 12, 22 f., 25, 56 f., 59 – 70, 88 – 99, 114, 118, 120 f., 128 – 131, 155, n29 171, n42 175, 184, 188 – 191, 194, 203, 221, 224 f., 227 – 229, 234 nītārtha 61 Nitsche, Bernhard n13 46, n15 47, 52 – 55, 63, 77, 97, 99, 133 – 135, 139, 183, 205, 214, n6 220, 222, n7 222, 224 f., 239 f., 244, 255 – 258, 281 – 283, 286 f., 296 – 299, 331 – 333, 343, 388, 392, n31 393, 398, 400, 411 f., 424, 434, n16 436, 449, 454, 457 f., 460 f., 469 non-being 114 non-dualism 28 (advaita), 246, 332, 451 non-duality 185 noomorphic 18, 449, 454, 456, 465 not-is-ness 108 “now” (just now, nikon 今) 156 Nyāya 353, 425 Nyāyasiddhāñjana n78 499 “onenesses” 154, absolute 159 Oneness-in-Difference 159 ontology 246, negative/affirmative ontology 114 Origen 210 Padmapāda 365 panentheism 43, 46, 454 Panikkar, Raimón n35 22, 36, 52, n31 393, 403, n52 404, n16 437 pànjiào 判教 62 Pannenberg, Wolfhard 18 pantheism 43 paramārtha-satya ‘ultimate truth’ 124, 149 Paramārthasāra (The Essence of Ultimate Reality) 450 f., 453, 457 f. paramātman 33 paramparā 244, 254 path 2, 10, 24, 61, 66, 68, 82 – 85, 89, 109, 167, 170 f., 175, 185, 188, 190 – 197, 200,

202, 215, 219, 226, n20 293, 390, 420, 476, 481, 485 partiality, God’s (vaiṣamya) 494, 497, 502 perception/cognition (vijñāna) 119, of time 154 perfect being 6 perfect freedom (Krings) 21 persona 207 f., 212 f., 215 personal creator (īśvara) 320 personalism 332, 343, 411 Personhood 7 personification 75 phala, fruit/fruition 66, 167, 171, 173, 228, 372, result 472, 480, 482, 487, 489, 497, 499, 502 phalapradāna ’bestowing/giving result/fruit’ 471, 473, 487, 491 f. Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta 122 ‘phral du 178 Piḷḷai Lokācārya 312 Plato 104, 106, 231, 239, 242, 254, 256 Platonists 213 pléroma 2 f. Plotinus 17, 219, 223, 230 pneumatology 35 prajñā 155 Prajñāpāramitā sūtra 118, 155, 170, 213 prajñapti 169 f., 172, 174 Prajñaptivādin, ‘the Nominalist’ 168 f. Prakāśānanda 369 prakṛti ‘original matter’ 165 pramāṇa ‘means of valid knowledge’ 252, 319, 352 f., 356 f., 360 prapañcātītam ‘transcending manifoldness’ 130 pratiṣedha ‘negation’ 59 pratītyasamutpāda ’dependent arising’ 24 f., 55, 72, 110, 126, 133 f., 151, 163 Pratyabhijñā 331 – 333, 343, 450 pravāha ‘flowing along’, 386, 388, 399, n73 497, citrapravāha ‘sparkling flow’ 387 pre-categorical “before” 8 present, temporal-transtemporal 154 principle, trans-personal 21 Proclus 60, 231 Proslogion 17 Pseudo-Dionysios Areopagita 105

Index

pudgalanairātmya 206 Purāṇa 354, 361 Pure Land/Heaven 12 Pūrṇasarasvatī 389 pūrvapakṣa 247 Qur’ān

42, 203, 444 f.

Rāghavānanda 389 Rahasyatrayasāram 384 f., 388 Rahner, Karl 13 ff., 46, 93, 205 Rāma 387, 393, 418 Ramānuja 307, 309, 345, 352, 361, 369, 385, 389, 391, 394, 399, 434, 437 – 445, 474 – 493 Rāmāyaṇa 354 f., 361 Rambachan, Anantanand 27, 34 rasa 411 – 417, 419 – 422, 425 f. Rasagaṅgādhara n15 418, n16,17 419, 425, n39 427 Ratnagotravibhāga n20 70, 71, 73 f., n30 92, 175 f., 179 Ratnākaraśānti 169 – 172, n25 170 reality, ultimate 5, one 157, as pure consciousness (Skt. ātman identical with cit) 157, pure observing (puruṣa) 157, trans-worldly 94, phenomenal 139, 356, 365 f., 367 f. reciprocity 192, 469, 470 – 742, 474 reference, social 19 release 7, 20 f., 56, 59, 70, 120, 441, 475, 498 relationality 19, 158 relative level (saṃvṛti) 155 religion 351, 415, 421 Rentsch, Thomas 15 Ṛgveda 355, 361 Ricoeur, Paul 469 – 470, 502 Rinaldo d’Aquino 389 Ṛksaṃhitā 303 Rosa, Hartmut 431 – 433 rūpa-skandha 151 Ruysbroeck, Jan van 210 Śabara 339 śabda 252 Sa bzang Mati paṇ chen

178

515

sādhāraṇīkaraṇa ’generalization’ 411, 420, 424 Śaivism, non-dual 331, 342, 449 f., 454, 456, 460 f., 464 f. Sajjana 177 sākṣin ‘witness’ 360, 361, n.52 489, 496, 498 Śālistambha sūtra 72 f., 164, 166, 168, 177, 179 salvation 20, n 38 23, 41 f., 46, 54, 83, 88 f., 346 – 348, 368, 415, 435, 478, 502 Samādhirājasūtra 177 Samantabhadra (bodhisattva) 64, 66 – 68, 71, 76 Sāmānya ’universal’ 339 saṃbhogakāya 86, 212 f., 214, 413 Sāṃkhya-Yoga 452 samjñā-skandha 152 saṃsāra 7, 14, 22, 129, 163, 176, 253, 420 Saṃyuttanikāya 122, 124 Sāṅkhya 30, n6 121, 156, 353, 357, 367, 434 San Juan de la Cruz 389 Śaṅkara 24, 26 – 28, 96, 227, 240, 244 – 249, 254, 256, 258, 319, 326, 345, 352 f., 355 f., 358, 361, 363 – 365, 379 Sansom, George 201 Śāntideva 206 Sartre, Jean-Paul 221 Sārvāstivāda school 108, 121 Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 283 f., 286 sat-cid-ānanda 27, 157, 232, 272, 275 satkāryavāda 248, 346, 368 satya 61, 75, 97 (paramārtha), saṃvṛti 61, 74, 97 satyadvaya ‘twofold truth’ 149 Sautrāntika 121 Sazaki Gesshō 佐々木月樵 201 Schelling, Karl Friedrich August 364, 372, 374, 379 Schopenhauer, Arthur 364 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 15 Schmithausen, Lambert 25, n6 121, n9 123, 124, n44 176, n47 177, n9 303 Self/soul (ātman, pudgala) 119, 120 self-acquaintance of the self 21

516

Index

self-presentation of JHWH 20 self-reference 20 self-reflexivity 150 Sēng Zhào 僧肇 143 Sextus Empiricus 231 Shàndǎo 善導 85 Shénhuì 神會 159 Sheth, Noel 35 shinjin 信心 14, 191, 196 f., 208, 215 shinnyo 真如 193, 204 Shinran 親鸞 85, 183 – 186, 188 – 196, 207 f., 212 f., 215 shìshì wú’ài事事無礙 137 Shulman, David 423 – 425 Siddhāntabindu 266 siddhānta 247 sign (nutum), of the inconceivable (numen) 19 silence 159 simultaneity, trans-temporal 156 sisṛukṣuṇā, ‘person who desires to create’ 249 śiṣya ‘disciple’ 244, 246 Sītā 387, 393, 418 Śivadṛṣṭi 332, 335, 339 skandha 122, 127, 150 f., 170 sociomorphic 18, 449, 454, 465 Socrates 239, 242, 245, 254 Somānanda 331 – 342 space 157 Spinoza , Baruch 9, 26, 44, n51 375 sport (līlā) 30, n18 438 Śrībhāṣya 434, n13 474, 475, 478 f., 481 f., 494, 498, 501 Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda sūtra 69 Śrutaprakāśikā 483 f. state, transphenomenal 124, conscious 150 “steps” (quantum leaps) 157 Stethatos, Nicetas 210 Sthiramati n29 171 subjectivization, modes of 20 substance, jettison 121 substantiality, immutable 56 suchnesses, not determined 154 Sudarśanasūri 483 f. “sudden”, the (dùnjiào) 160

sukhāvatī 209 śūnya 222 sūnyatā 22, 151, 158 – atyanta-śūnyatā 26 “śūnyataizing” of śūnyatā 156 super-fullness, ultra-transcendent 17 Sureśvara 365 Suzuki, D.T. 201 svarūpa ’very form/essential nature’ 312, n27 392, 403, 492, 498, 501 svabhāva ‘self-nature’ 66, ‘self-existence’ 67, ‘inherent self-nature’ 72, ‘substantial entity’ 95, ‘own being’ 118, 123, 125, ‘own nature’ 165, 167, ‘independent existence’ 167, ‘self-existence’ 228, ‘substantial existence’ 228, ‘inherent nature’ 260, ‘very nature’ 347, ‘characteristic nature’ 492 svarūpabheda 357 f., 360 Śvetaketu 246, 258 Swāmī Satchidānandendra Saraswatī 365 Śrīmālādevīsūtra 176 Tánluán 曇鸞 85, 184, 189, 213 Tantrāloka 457 tariki 他力 1, 81, 85, 192 tathāgatagarbha 66 f., n19 69 – 71 76, 92 f., 104, 177 Tathāgatagarbha, tradition 68 f., 117, scripture 72 Tathāgatagarbhasūtra 175, 179 tattva 96, 339, 353, 391, 449, 451, 453, 457 – 461, 464 Tattvasāra 489 Taylor, Charles 42 theism 411 theopantism 27 Theravāda 81 time (kāla) 157, 128 as expression of mutuality 153, false conception of time 154 Tiruppāṇāḻvār 386, n7 384 Toṭaka 365 τὸ ὄν 105 transcendence 6, 41, 43, 45, 52 f., 81, 90, 97, 103 – 107, 109, 114, 175, 183, 185 f.,

Index

205, 239 – 244, 246 f., 249, 251 f., 254, 258, 260, 281, 287, 342, 351, 354, 357, 411 f., 420 – 422, 427, 449, 454 f., 457, 459 f., 462, 464 f. transcendence, small 11 “transcending all manifoldness” 130 transimmanence 26, 35, 54 transimmanent 71, 76, 449, 460, 462 – 464, 466 trikāya 212, 413 trinity 413 truth, conventional (Skt. saṁvṛti-satya) 149 Tsuda Noritake 津田敬武 211 two truths 96 two ways, of looking at things (Skt. satyadvayavibhāga) 156 Uddālaka Āruṇi 246 f., 250, 258, 284 f., 323, 370 Utpaladeva 331, 333 unconditioned (asaṃskrita) 7 f., 15, 23, 52, 55 – 57, 63, 88, 94, 224, 411, 413, 421 unconditionedness 16 ‘unity’ 45, ekatva 149 unity, of reality (tattvasyaikyam), absence of 339 Upādhikhaṇḍana 353 Upaniṣad 93, 323, 326, 355 f., 364 – Bṛhadāraṇyaka 33, 250, 284, 293 – Chāndogya 30, 240, 246, 248, 258, 260, 323, 370 f. – Kauṣītaki 476, 498 – Taittirīya 250 – Śvetāśvatara 303, 306, 365, 473 upāsanā ‘worshipping meditation’ 319 upāya ‘skillful means’ 61, 137, 221 Vācaspati Miśra 365 Vairocana Buddha 64 – 66, 69, 71, 76, 142, 145 f., 220 Vaiśesika 136 Vaiṣṇava 351, 354, 416 Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā 288, 295 – 297 Valignano, Alessandro 133 f. Vallabha 348 Vālmīki 355

517

Varadaguru 473, 482 f., 492, 494, 500 Vasubandhu 172, n39 174 Veda 304, 307, 309, 351, 367, 385, 472, 474 f., 478 f., 485, 495, 497, 502 vedanā-skandha 152 Vedānta 157, 223, 240, 244, 252 f., 255, 260, 283, 286, 288, 292, 332, 335, 342, 351, 356 f. – Advaita 27 f., 30, 33 – 35, 98, 149, 157, 240, 244, 246, 252, 263, 267 – 278, 294, 320, 363 – 365, 373, 375, 433, 438, 443 – Dvaita 28, 98, 263, 351 – 353, 433 – Kevalādvaita 85 f., 348 – Viśiṣṭādvaita 28, 263 f., 267, 351, 388, 391 f., 397, 399, 403, 406, 437, 443 Vedāntapārijātasaurabha 345 Vedārthasaṃgraha 389, 476, 481, 489, 498 Vedavyāsa 357 Veṅkaṭanātha/Veṅkaṭeśa 383, 407, 473, 475, 483, 492 – 501 Vidyāraṇya 370 vijñāna 119, 245, 258 – 260 vijñānānubhāva 252 vijñāna-skandha 152 Vimalakīrti 232 viśeṣa 339 Viṣṇu 351, 353 f., 357 – 361, 394, 398 f., 419 Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya n5 354 f. Viśvanātha 424 viveka ’logical discernment’ 255 volition (Skt. cetanā) 152 vyākṛta ‘differentiated’ (nāmarūpe) 247, 258, 368 Vyāsatīrtha 352 vyakti 339 vyāvahārika 250 f. ways, two ways of looking at things (satyadvayavibhāga) 156 Wendel, Saskia 15 William, James 136 world, external (and internal) material (rūpa) 121 – illusory 351

518

Index

– changing world (Skt. prakṛti) 157 – phenomenal 28, 164, 320, 335, 351, 373 – real 351 world-reference 18 Xuèmài lùn 血脈論

yīnyuán shēng 因緣生 133 yīxīn/isshin 一心 134 Yogarāja 449 f., 454, 457 f., 461 Yogācāra 168 – 170, 172 – 174 Yogasūtra 420

134

yajña ’sacrifice’ 251, 287 Yājñavalkya 284 f. Yamabe Shūgaku 山邊習學 201 yathārthajñāna ‘knowledge that conforms truth’ 360

Zen 62, 84, 156, 158 f., 204 Zhìyǎn 智儼 137 Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 142 Zōngmì 宗密 , criticism of monism

159