Chapter 1 - The Beginning of Metaphysics and Medicine

Pain in every form generally and in the form of disease and death particularly, has awakened the latent potencies in man for survival and growth and for conquest of evil. In that effort for survival he has had to dive deep into the depths of his physical and spiritual being in order to discover the laws that brought into being and that continued to govern his total make-up. He could not rest content until he knew the way into, the way through and the way out of life. It became a vital necessity to understand life and human life in particular.

In the pursuit of pure science and in astronomy the impulse may be one of heightened curiosity or wonder, but the sense of pain presented to man in the forms of diseases and death, brings him face to face with reality in a tremendously vital manner Faced with such an imperative call, the alternative to answering which was his annihilation, he gathered up all his strength, sincerity and determination, and worked out a realistic, practical and effective solution of the problem.

In a way, religion and philosophy are primarily therapeutic in their nature and origin. The first dose of medicine ever administered or taken by man must have been an incantation, divine invocation or the sacred remnant of food offered to superhuman powers. It is no wonder, therefore, if a highly evolved race like the Aryans of ancient India, started solving the problems of human existence under the threat of disease and premature death. Suffering wrings out an appeal for help from the human heart to the all powerful gods, and the answering hand, be it from a heaven above, or the heaven within the soul of man, unfolds the elaborate vision of thought before the earnest and hungering gaze. This is exactly how the visitation of disease upon people devoted to virtue and meditation set the ancient sages thinking about the way out of it until they saw with the eye of understanding their refuge in Indra, the king of the immortals. (Sūtra I, 17)

The Sources of Knowledge in Caraka—Aptopadesa

In the Caraka Samhita in common with the sciences and arts of ancient India revelation is given a great place among the sources of knowledge. They believed that when men with pure hearts and chaste minds engaged themselves in sincere and deep meditation, with a view to human welfare and without the slightest trace of selfish interest, truth reveals itself to them. That is to say that they believed in the ultimate revelatory nature of knowledge, of the super-sensual knowledge in particular.

In the Caraka Samhita (Sūtrasthāna 11.17) the sage Atreya, propounds four sources of knowledge viz.,

1. Direct perception,
2. Inference,
3. Revelation or testimony of good men, and
4. Common sense.

This last is peculiar to this treatise and is illustrated by examples which do not make it any different from inference. Revelation or reliable declaration called also authoritative teaching is given the first place in the order of stating the means of knowledge.

Describing the nature of the persons whose declarations are above suspicion the sage Atreya says:

[Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 11.18-19]

“Men who have freed themselves from passion and ignorance by means of spiritual endeavour and knowledge, whose understanding embracing the past present and future is pure and at all times unclouded—it is these that are the authoritative, the learned and the enlightened. Their word is unimpeachable and true. Why will such men, devoid as they are of passion and ignorance, give utterance to untruth”.

Such are the seers of the Vedic utterances which are above question, the sure guide to knowledge of the highest kind.

According to some schools of Hindu philosophy, the Veda is authority because it is eternal and does not owe its being to human authorship. But in Caraka, its validity rests on the trustworthy nature of the sages of whom it is the testimony.

Sage Atreya goes even further and says,

[Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 11.27]

“Trustworthy tradition of knowledge is Veda. But even other statements made by people who have conducted investigation in any field of knowdege which are not conflicting with the Veda and which are approved by good men and are conducive to human welfare should be considered authoritative”.

This is a healthy extension which bespeaks the catholicity and sweet reasonableness of the propounders of the science.

Pratyaksa (direct perception)

‘Pratyaksa’ i.e direct perception, is the next source of knowledge. The actual contact of the external senses of the man with the objects of the world is essential to it. But that is not enough, for, in the absence of the mind, simple contact of the sense-organ with an object has been found to produce no knowledge. This Pratyaksa brings inevitably in its wake the question of the subtler mechanism of the mind without whose contact no perception is possible. The recording agent of perception is the mind known as “sattva” in Caraka.

Atreya declares:

[Sūtrasthāna 8.4]

“The mind is higher than the senses and is known as ‘sattva’. Some call it ‘the conscious agent’ Its perceptions which are joy, grief etc., are the incentives to the functioning of the senses”

[Sūtrasthāna 8.7]

“The senses are able to preceive their objects only when they are led by the mind”

The way that the sense-organs come into contact, each with its particular proto-elemental sense-object such as the eye with visual object, the ear with sound etc., is explained on physiological basis. Though the five sense-organs, physiologically, are each of them the products of all the five natural proto-elements, ether, light etc., yet each sense organ has in its construction one proto-element in preponderance and it perceives that proto-elemental sense-object in the external world. Thus the eye which has a preponderance of light perceives the light outside in the form of color, shape etc. The ear which has the preponderance of the ether in its construction perceives sound in the outside world and so forth. The contact of the same proto-element in the sense organ with that in the world is a physical commingling. (Sūtra VIII 14). The mind acknowledges and receives the impression and passes it on to the intellect or the discriminatory faculty called the “Buddhi”. Then begins the interaction between the tetrad of the subtle group of inner mechanism of knowledge resulting in action. The tetrad consists of the mind, the mind-objects, the understanding and the spirit (Ātmā). This aggregate is the source of good or bad activity or for cessation of activity (Sūtra VIII.13).

[Sūtrasthāna 11.20]

“Perception, is defined as the cognition, definite and immediate, arising from the conjunction of the soul, the senses, the mind and the sense objects”

The sense organs are also liable to perceive, under abnormal conditions, wholly non-existent things which is called hallucination i.e. perceiving things not real, “atattvabhinivesha” (atattvābhiniveśa).

Anumana (inference)

Having thus declared that the knowledge that results from the chain of contact of the self, mind, senses and the sense-objects, is known as direct perception, Atreya goes on to define the next source inference or Anumana (anumāna).

Medicine is a science which propounds the laws that govern life and physical and chemical properties of drugs. Though its observations are basically direct, yet conclusions and generalisations regarding invisible and abstract data have to be made with the help of inferential methods. Thus the need to supplement sense observations by inference was inevitable.

The limited scope of knowledge drawn purely from observation is expressed by Atreya thus

[Sūtrasthāna 20.7-8]

“On this question the wise man should give up the negative attitude and even scepticism. Why? Because the visible is limited, while there exists a vast unlimited world which is invisible and of which we know by the evidence of scripture inference and reason. As a matter or fact even the very senses by whose agency direct observations are obtained are themselves outside the range of observation.

Further even a perceivable object escapes observation under the following conditions viz, when it is either too close or too remote from the observer, when it is obstructed by other objects, when there is some defect in the percieving sense-organ, when the observer’s attention is elsewhere, when the object is merged in the mass when it is overshadowed by something else, or lastly when it is microscopic

Hence it is an unfounded statement to make that only the visible exists and nothing else”.

The knowledge pertaining to the three parts of time i.e. the past, the present and the future can be inferred from the basis of a person’s direct knowledge of things Inference therefore is firstly based on direct perception.

The inferring of the unobserved from the observed is based on antecedent knowledge of their concomitance:

“The inferring of the existence of fire in a place by the perception of smoke is an inferential knowledge of an unobserved thing in the present time. Similarly there is the inference of the sexual act of a woman in the past by observing her present state of pregnancy. And thirdly, there is the inference of the prospect of a good crop in the future judging by the nature of the seed sown, based on past experience of their relationship. Inference here is seen understood and defined in its most rudimentary form based on the law of association. The same inference is illustrated again while elaborating the technical terms used in learned disputation between physicians as well as in clinical investigations where inference is said to be reasoning based on correlation of cause and effect. One should infer the condition of the gastric fire by the power of digestion, the conditions of the patients vitality or strength by his capacity for exercise and the condition of his sense-organs by his perceptions of sound etc.”

Yukti (correlation)

Lastly “Yukti” i.e., correlation of a set of causes or circumstances with an effect based on common-sense, is held to be another source of knowledge. This may also be called the law of probability for, as the example given shows, one can foresee an effect under a given set of circumstances, with a great degree of probability. By a combination of the factors of water, agricultural labour, seeds and the effects of season, there results the crop; or where there is a combination of the six elements constituting the living body, the embryo will take its rise. The combination of the lower and upper churning sticks and the act of churning brings out fire. ‘Yukti’ means a combination. So a combination or a set of circumstances or things being responsible for an effect is by itself a factor of knowledge, though the actual procedure of arriving at knowledge is by the same law of association that governs ‘inference’ One may call it a ‘compound inference’ as against the simple inference of a cause from an effect or vice versa From many and varied factors one result is inferred. Perhaps the application of this method was found particularly useful in therapeutic and pharmacological realms.

The master sums up the merit of yukti in the following verse:

[Sūtrasthāna 11.25]

“That is known as yukti which is a means of knowing the past, present and future, by which the mind perceives results brought about by many and various factors and by means of which all three objectives of life can be achieved. The four objectives are Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. The last objective is evidently not achieved by yukti”.

The Inner Instruments of Knowledge and the Nature of the Mind

Both for knowledge and action, the self requires the association of the instruments, viz., the mind, the intellect and the organs of perception and conation (Śārīra 1-56). The organs of perception and those of action are the external instruments in knowledge as well as in action. And the triad of internal organs of the Buddhi, Ahankara and the mind, both cognitive and co native, are the internal or inner instruments All the thirteen necessarily function in knowledge as well as in action - There are some who hold that the inner organs are only two, i.e. the Buddhi and mind, and that the ego or Ahankara has been not included.

But it is not right to hold so for, while describing the successive evolution of Buddhi etc, Atreya gays,

[Śārīrasthāna 1.66]

“The Buddhi is born of the Avyakta, the unmanifest, from Buddhi, the sense of ego is born”

This is in accordance with the Nyaya school of philosophy which holds that the self is not the factor of knowledge but the mind Nyaya Sutra 1-16:

[...]

But then it may be said that there need be no self beyond this combination of mind, intellect and senses.

“It is not so,” says Vatsyayana;

“It is indeed the knower that possesses the instruments of knowledge and gees with the eye, smells with the nose, touches with the organ of touch and recognises all these experiences with the mind and enables the knower to know these experiences. Hence is the mind called the factor of knowledge”.

Thus the mind is regarded as the inner organ of knowledge even as it is said in Brahma Sutra 2.3.40

[Śārīrasthāna 1.18-19]

“The mind is indicated by both the existence and the nonexistence of the condition of knowledge; when it is not in contact with the self, the senses and the sense-objects, there is no knowledge and when it is in contact there is knowledge One-ness or singleness and atomicity are the two qualities of the mind”

The Vaisheshika sutra speaks to the same effect. (V. Sūtra 3.2-9) and so too the Nyaya (Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.16)

The experiences of happiness, grief like and dislike etc, are directly perceived by the mind. If these are not perceived by the senses and only by the mind it should not be regarded as conflicting with the Vaisheshika sutra which says that happiness and grief are preceived by the contact of self, senses, mind and the sense-objects. For, the mind preceives them through the senses. The functions of the mind are thought, inquiry and determination.

These functions of the mind are descibed by Caraka thus:

[Śārīrasthāna 1.21]

“The functions of the mind are—direction of the senses, control of itself, reasoning and deliberation Beyond this is the field of the intellect”.

The Mind is regarded to be of three varieties Sattvic Rajasic and Tamasic (Sārīra IV-36). Arreya described mind as being of three kinds Shuddha or Sattvic Rajasic and Tamasic. The Shuddha type is known as faultless, being of the nature of goodness, the Rajasic type is beset with fault being of the nature of passion, and similarly the Tamasic type is faulty too, being of the nature of delusion, and there are innumerable degrees of each type. But it usually happens that a man’s nature is so diverse that at one moment his inclinations are good, at another passionate and at yet another ignorant and deluded Can it therefore be concluded that there are many minds functioning in a man?

Atreya answers in the negative and says,

[Sūtrasthāna 8.5]

“Owing to the admixture of all three qualities in each mind of Sattva Rajas and Tamas, the same mind behaves as if it were many, but it is only one. Mind, thus, being unitary, cannot work in various ways and through various senses at one and the same moment Hence one does not find the functioning of all the senses at one and the same moment”

But, generally speaking, the mind is classed as of one type or the other by the sages according to the preponderant quality of its tendencies. It is thus known by its predominant quality”.(Sūtra VIII-6)

It is interesting to note in this connection the various references to the existence and the nature of the mind in the complex apparatus of the inner mechanism of the individual. The Kathopanisad says, “The sense perceptions are higher than the sense organs, the mind is higher than the perceptions, the intellect higher even than the mind and the self is even higher than the intellect.”

The categories of the Sankhya school are built up on the same line with Mahat or Buddhi derived from original nature (Prakrti); the ego comes out of it and the mind from the ego. The yoga system takes it wholesale from the Sankhya. Thus there is no point of difference with regard to the subtle mechanism of knowledge in man and the various factors in their order or succession. It is only the Vedantins that are inclined to regard the subtle organs (antahkarana catustaya—antaḥkaraṇacatuṣṭaya) consist of the mind, intellect, ego and the Citta. But what is Citta but the mind itself? Hence the three only remain as the inner organs of knowledge.

These together with the sense-organs form the entire mechanism of knowledge in all four means namely Aptopadesha, Pratyaksa, Anumana and Yukti. These sense organs should be kept in their proper health and tone; to be able to yield valid knowledge and lead man to a good life. The way of maintaining them in proper condition is described in the chapter dealing with the discipline of the senses as declared by the great teacher Atreya in the Caraka Samhita.