(This is the last and final chapter of the book.--sd)
Jiva-Atoms: Subjectively, i.e. Jivas
pp.464-471
ALL the main facts or rather principles connected with jIvas-souls and atoms-bodies have, perhaps, been generally brought out and summed up now. One more point deserves some words: The distinction between Universal and Singular, and the Relation between them, mentioned before. This triplet belongs equally to jIvas and atoms; is, thus, part of the Summation of the World-Process; and could not well be discussed before some general notion had been gained of the distinction between 'the ideal world' and 'the real world'; the former of which is, as it were, a complete and standing picture or plan of the stream of successive events which make up the latter and so occupies, to this latter, the position of universal to singular.
Subjective-Objective Categories
The aphorisms of NyAya, as we now have them, classify and describe the constituents of samsAra in their subjective aspect, i.e., in terms of cognition, as the means of knowledge.
The aphorisms of Vaisheshika classify them as objects of knowledge, in their objective aspect, in terms of the cognised. Thus, KanAda, author of the Vaisheshika aphorisms, states that there are six primary padArthas 'meanings ot words', things, i.e., objects, viz., dravya, guna, karma, sAmAnya, visheSha, and samAvaya. The first three have been discussed before, (pp.284-312 supra). The next three mean, respectively, the 'universal or general,' the 'singular or special,' and the 'relation of inseparable co-inherence'.'nis-shreyasa, Summum Bonum, Highest Happiness, mokSha, can be achieved only by True Knowledge of the essential nature of
(1) the Means, tests, proofs, evidences, measures (i.e., measur-ers), ascertainers, of true knowledge;
(2) the Knowable, the to-be-known, to-be-ascertained;
(3) Doubt;
(4) Purpose or Motive (of enquiry or argument);
(5) Familiar Example;
(6) Established Tenet, accepted maxim or principle or fact;
(7) the Members of a Syllogism;
(8) Inference (especially of a refutative or repudiative or eliminative kind);
(9) Decided Conclusion;
{10, 11, 12) Three kinds of discussion (according to three kinds of purpose);
(13, 14, 15, 16) Four kinds of Fallacies.
It should be noted that mokSha is the principal aim, and that the nature of the Self is the first and foremost 'to-be-ascertained': NyAya-sUtra, the very first.
Category of 'Co-inherence'
As often indicated before, the One true Universal is PratyAag-AtmA; the Many, the manifold Singular, the Multitude of Singulars, is MUla-Prakrti; and the peculiar bond that exists between them is the real primal samavAya-sambandha, literally, the 'firm bond of going into, merging into, pervasion of, each other', 'co-inherence'.
Beside this One Universal l there is, strictly speaking, no other Universal, but only 'generals'. [sattA-sAmAnya, 'Universal Being', para- or antya-sAmAnya, 'final or ultimate universal' or parA-jAti, summum genus.]
So, beside the (apparently, comparatively) final (pseudo-ultimate infinitesimal) singulars of Etat-'This' [antya-visheSha, para-viSbsha, charama visheSha, 'final, or extreme or ultimate particularity'], there is no other real singular, but only species or 'specials' [par-Apara-jAti].
The characteristic of these 'generals' and 'specials' ot 'particulars' is that each one of them is general to lower specials, and at the same time special to a higher general. In other words, while Pratyag-AtmA is the principle of the Universal, and MUla-prakrti the principle of the singular, the jIva-atom is individual or particular, combining and reconciling in itself both universal and singular.
A One is also ManyExtremes meet. para-sAmAnya and para-visheSha are identical, as Infinite and Infinitesimal; Brahma and jIva. As said before, a final ultimate parama-anu as para-visSsha is a 'myth', an imaginary concept, a convention, devised for practical convenience.
With reference to samavAya, some observations of Max Muller are worth quoting. They are taken from his Six Systems of Indian Philosophy (collected works). pp.376-7, and 447; that book, so far as I am aware, continues to be the most clear, compact, concise, correct, and comprehensive work, on its subject.
"samavAya or intimate connection is a very useful name for a connection between things which cannot exist, one without the other, such as cause and effect, parts and whole, and the like. It comes very near to a-vinA-bhAva, i.e., the not-without being, and should be carefully distinguished from mere conjunction or succession"...
"(This) category ... is peculiar to Indian philosophy. It is translated inhesion or inseparability ... It is different from mere connection, as between horse and rider. ... There is samavAya between threads and eloth, (the ideas of) father and son, two halves and a whole, cause and effect, substance and qualities, thought and word, the two being inter-dependent and therefore inseparable. Though this relationship is known in non-Indian philosophies, it has not received a name of its own, though such a term might have proved very useful in several controversies";
as those, we may add, of nominalism, realism, conceptualism, etc. A-yuta-siddhi, of Yoga philosophy, seems to be much the same as samavAya or a-vinA-bhAva. Regarding the last, Max Muller's translation would perhaps be more intelligible if read as 'not-being-without', i.e., 'each being not able to exist without the other'.
Difficulty in the expression of this thought is occasioned by the fact that while the meaning of universal and general and special is comparatively fixed and free from ambiguity, such is not the case with the significations of singular and individual and particular, as the words are currently used.
[An instance of this may be seen in the divers arrangements made of the triplets of the categories of Kant; thus at p. 221 of Schwegler's History of Philosophy, the triplet of 'totality, plurality, and unity' is arranged in an order the reverse of that followed in the original of Kant.]
The underlying philosophical idea of their mutual relation being indeterminate, the expression is naturally doubtful also. And this very haziness of the idea is at the bottom of the long-lasting dispute between the doctrines of nominalism and realism and their various modifications.
As a fact, in the world around us, we actually find neither the true One, nor the true Many or Not-One, by itself. What we do 'find always, instead, is a one which is also a many at the same time.
[The pen with which, the table on which, the house in which, I am writing, each of these is a one; but is also composed of many, very many, parts.]
We distinguish between the two by emphasising within ourselves the jIva-aspect, i.e., the aspect of self-consciousness and Pratyag-AtmA, and, from the standpoint thereof, beholding the Not-Self in juxtaposition to and yet in separation from the Self.
Summum Genus, Minutum Individuum
The facts, so viewed, are clear. One and the many, abstract and concrete, general and special, universal and singular, are just as inseparable as back and front. They are inseparable in fact as well as in thought (which also is a fact, though manufactured in subtler material, as, on the other hand, every 'fact' is a 'thought' of 'consciousness', and existing by and in consciousness).
But the phraseology requires to be settled in accordance with this fact and thought. The settlement may perhaps be made thus: The word 'universal' should be confined to the true One, Pratyag-AtmA, and to the modifications and manifestations of its unity, viz., the laws of the 'pure' reason,
[The sattva-factor of Mahat-Buddhi, the cognitional element or aspect of the Cosmic Mind, Cosmic Intelligence. Cf. Dharma-megha, p.441 supra.]
the abstract laws and principles which underlie the details of the World-Process and are as it were the transformation of the Pratyag-AtmA itself in association with the diversity of MUla-prakrti.
The word 'singular' should similarly be confined to the pseudo-true Many, the pseudo-finally separate. As the universal is the One which includes and supports all, so the singular is the exactly opposite one that would exclude all else [[b]para-vishSha or antya-vishSha];
it indicates the pseudo-ultimate constituents of the many, which may well, for practical convenience, be technically called 'atom' 'anu' or 'param-Anu'.
For that which is between these two ones, a something which is a one and a many at the same time, a whole composed of parts, the word 'particular' seems appropriate. Such a 'particular' would be 'general' (an imitation of the universal) to those it includes and supports and holds together, and 'special' (an imitation of the singular) to that by which it itself is supported along with other co-particulars;
all so-called inanimate substances, all sheaths and bodies of the so-called animate, all objects of cognition or desire or action, all genera and species, types, sub-types and archetypes, would thus be 'particulars'.
The word 'individual' is peculiar; it would be useful if it were confined to the jIva-atom, which combines the true universal and the pseudo-true singular, rather than only generals and specials. It is not Pratyag-AtmA only, nor MUla-prakrti only, but both; and yet, because of the unfixable, in-de-finite, pseudo-infinite nature of the atom, the jIva-atom may be called a particular also.
Whenever and wherever we may take an actual individual jIva-atom, the atom-portion of it, its sheath, will be found to be a 'definite' that merges on both sides into the 'inde-finite'; it is an infinitesimal fraction, on the one hand, of a pseudo-infinite universe, and, on the other, it is a pseudo-infinite multiple of infinitesimal fractions. 'All things, all beings, all thoughts, feels, acts, begin and also end in the in-de-finite; they are de-finite only midway.'
avyaktAdIni bhUtAni, vyaktamadhyAni, bhArata! |
avyaktanidhanAnyeva; tatra kA paridevanA || --Gita 2.28
"Beings are unmanifest in the beginning, manifest in the intermediate stage, O BhArata, and unmanifest in the end. What grief is there in that?"
Tennyson's "Who knows! From the great deep to the great deep he goes," is an expression, in poetical and emotional form, of the same intellectual truth.
All the World-Process, the world-ex-istence, is a becoming; all life is a passing; every river is a flowing; every sensation is a feeling. Splendour is the coming in and at the same time the going out of wealth. Stoppage means sinking into pralaya. Too much care kills its object and prevents it from fulfilling its purpose and achieving its destiny. Beauty, too, is for due use, and use makes more beauty. Existence, manifestation, is in and by action. Every atom, and every psychosis, is a (dual) focussing, a vortex, in a continuum of 'ether', and of 'general sensation' or 'affective tone' or 'volitional tension'.
शेषः सद्-असतोर् मध्ये ’भवति’-अर्थात्मको भवेत् ।
sheShaH sad-asator madhye 'bhavati'-arthAtmako bhavet |
"That which comes between is and is not, existent and non-existent, is what is meant by the word bhavati, becomes; i.e., between Being and nothing is Becoming." --Yoga VAsishtha, 3.14.47
"The Anglican noble, in a well-known passage of Bede, compares the life of man to the flight of a bird which darts quickly through a lighted hall, out of darkness, and into darkness again"; Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 251. Many other poets and writers of note, of east and west have depicted the thought with various examples.
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