Chapter 5d - Philosophical systems prevalent at the time of Sri Chaitanya

Enough has been said on atheistic speculations to prove that they have always exercised, and still continue to exercise, consciously or unconsciously to their victims, a most pernicious influence on the human mind and prevent it from giving even a hearing to the subject of the Absolute Truth. It was so in the Age of Sri Chaitanya Deva. The South of India was the official stronghold of all kinds of warring doctrines and it was the purpose of Sri Chaitanya in traveling through the South to meet and refute the fallacies of the atheistical scholars of the different schools and thereby destroy their sinister influence which prevented the general body-of the people from giving their unprejudiced attention to His teaching,

The reader will get some idea of the chaotic state of religious opinion in India at the time of Sri Chaitanya Deva from the following brief sketch of the principal schools of philosophy whose views were more or less current in that Age. The more important of these have been compiled by Madhvacharya, a follower of Sankara’s monism, who preceded Sri Chaitanya Deva by about two centuries, in his work the Sarba-Darsana Sangraha which has been translated into English by E. B. Cowell.

The systems mainly prevalent at the time of Sri Chaitanya

Deva may be arranged in the following order:—

(1) The system of Charvaka, opposed to the Vedas, hankering for things other than God,—a devoted admirer of worldly qualities,—atheistical.

(2) The system of the Buddhists who hold everything as transitory, worship worldly qualities, are atheistical, rely on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(3) The system of the Jaina arhats, indeterminists, worship worldly qualities, rely-on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(4) The system of Sankhya, godless, holds the soul as devoid of quality, relies on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(5) The system of Patanjala, acknowledges a god, holds the soul as devoid of quality, relies on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(6) The system of Sankara, averse to God, professing the aim of harmonizing conflicting opinions, pseudo-revelationist, pure monist, rationalistic.

(7) The system of the Baiakaranas, materialists, pseudo revelationists, worship god conceived as possessed of worldly qualities.

(8) The system of the Mimansakas, rely on the meaning of words, pseudorevelationists, worship god who is conceived as possessing worldly qualities.

(9) The system of the Naiyayikas, profess first beginning, process of effort and the unknown factor, recognize the authority and validity of evidence other than that of the Word of the Veda, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(10) The system of the Baisheshikas, profess first beginning, process of effort, the unknown factor, recognize no other authority than that of the Scriptures, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(11) The system of the tranquilized Saivas, profess worldly enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, emancipation while still living in this world, rationalistic, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities, believe in God.

(12) The system of the Pratyabhijnas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold emancipation on leaving the physical body, hold unity of the soul, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities. (13) The system of the Nakulish Pashupat Saivas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold souls to be separate, hold emancipation after leaving the body, believe in god as unrelated to fruitive work, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(14) The system of the Saivas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold emancipation as a bodiless state, hold souls as separate, believe in god as related to fruitive work, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

Charvaka.—

Charvaka holds the living body as identical with the soul and its satisfaction as the object of life. Direct perception is the only proof of reality. The highest good consists in the pleasures produced by enjoyment of women, eating of wholesome food and wearing the best apparel, etc. The pain that is incidental to these pleasures should be avoided as far as possible. But it would he foolish to forego the pleasure itself which is real for fear of the pain that may occasionally be associated with it. There is no after-life. Those eminently learned men who perform ceremonies enjoined by the Vedas at the cost of much wealth and physical discomfort are all deluded by the long-standing custom of obeying the Vedas, which were originally made by the hypocrite, the cunning knave and the cannibal taking counsel together. The Vedas are full of false, atrocious, immoral and ridiculous practices.

Buddhism.—

The Buddhists are divided into four schools, viz., the Madhyamikas, the Yogachariyas, the Sautranitikas and the Baibhasikas rendered by Cowell as Nihilists, Subjective Idealists, Representationists, and Presentationists, respectively. According to the first nothing exists except the void. In other words, nothing is really-true. If anything had been really true it would have been constantly perceivable in the waking state, in sleep and in dream. According to the second external objects are non-existent. The soul which is only momentary cognition, is alone true. The third school holds that external objects are true and realizable by inference. According to the Baibhasikas external objects are realizable by direct perception. According to all the schools the principal duty consists in worshipping this body by nourishing the twelve dimensions of which it is made, viz., the five active organs, the five perceptual organs and the two perceptuo-volitional organs of the mind and the faculty of discrimination. According to the Buddhists ‘Sugata’ is God, the world is momentarily perishable, direct perception and inference are the evidence; and misery, dimension, aggregate and the path are the four truths. The entity misery is constituted of its five limbs, viz., knowledge, pain, cognition, impression and colour. The twelve dimensions have already been mentioned. The attachments and repugnances that arise spontaneously in the hearts of men, are called the principle of aggregation. The fixed persuasion that all impressions are momentary, bears the name of the path. .Moksha or emancipation is identical with this last.

Jainism.—

The general term of the sect is arhat. The Jains are that sect of the arhats that follows the teachings of the Jina. The arhats refute the theory of momentariness of the Buddhists and admit the continuity and eternal existence of the soul. The body is the measure of the jiva. The Arhat is God. He is omniscient and free from attachment, repugnance, etc. The three jewels are right view, right knowledge, and right conduct. The right view consists of the right faith which is prevention of opposition or doubt regarding the truth declared by the Jina. The right knowledge consists of the knowledge of the truth declared by the Jina in a condensed or elaborate form. Right conduct consists in the abandonment of condemned activities. Right conduct is of five kinds, viz., not to kill any jiva whether it is locomotive or stationary, not to accept more than is given, not to steal, to speak words that are true, beneficial and also agreeable, to give up lust, anger, etc., and to avoid undue attachment for all things. These five constitute the great obligation. The highest state is attained by practicing these, They are ‘syad-vadins’ ie, believe in the doctrine of relativity, indefiniteness or indeterminateness, as opposed to the idea of the absolute.

Sankhya.—

The propounder of the Sankhya system of philosophy is Kapila. There are two Kapilas. Kapila, the son of Kardama and Devahuti, belongs to the Satya Yuga. He is the Kapila mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam. His view, which is also known as Sankhya, is recorded in the Bhagavatam.. It contains many statements that refer to the system of pure devotion. He must be carefully distinguished from Kapila, the propounder of the atheistical view of the current Sankhya philosophy which is our present subject. The atheist Kapila was born of the Agni-family in the Treta Yuga..

According to the Sankhya there are really two fundamental entities, viz., the pradhana or prakriti (i.e., the material principle) and the purusha (i.e., the soul). Prakriti undergoes transformation. The purusha is an essence unaffected. The twenty-five entities of the Sankhya, from the enumeration of which the system derives its name, consist of primordial matter (mula prakriti), mahat, mistaken egoism (ahamkara), the five subtle elements (panchatanmatrah), the five organs of sense, the five organs of action, the mind which is the organ of both sense and action, the five principles of gross matter and the soul (purusha). Of these the first is the pure essence of matter in the sense that it is not the effect of any other cause but is the cause of all the other material principles. The next groups in the series consisting of the seven categories from mahat to the five subtle elements, are related to one another as cause and effect each being the cause of the following entity. They are, therefore, both cause and effect. The five principles of gross matter are not the cause of any other entity. They are merely effect. Purusha or the soul is eternal and unchangeable. It is neither the cause nor the effect of anything.

Primordial matter (prakriti) is constituted of the three qualities, viz., sattva, rajas and tamas. The state of equilibrium of these three qualities is prakriti. The qualities (gunas) are material and transformable. The whole world is the transformation of the qualities. The sattva quality is happiness itself, it is light and illuminating. Its function is equable (santa). The rajas quality is made of misery and is active. Its function is terrible (ghora). The quality of tamas is stupefying, it is heavy and suppressive. Its function is irrational (murha). Although thus mutually, opposed they co-operate with one another and thus produce the world. The world is thus full of pleasure, pain and ignorance. Pleasure and pain are the qualities of the principle of discrimination (mahat or buddhi), i.e. of matter, and not of the soul. These qualities of the material intelligence are reflected in the soul. The soul is eternal, free from the material qualities, self-conscious, witness, active, different from matter and many-in number. The material (prakriti) is the inactive principle, which is itself unconscious, but moving by the proximity of the soul. The soul is liberated when this relationship with the material principle is recognised by him. Such recognition leads the soul to dissociate himself from prakriti. This is the summum bonum and is called mukti or liberation.

Yoga.—

This system was propounded by Patanjala Muni. It is also called theistic Sankhya. It recognizes in addition to the twenty-five entities of Sankhya mentioned above a twenty-sixth entity, viz., god. The summum bonum is called the non-alternative state (kaivalya) which is reached by the eight processes of yoga by which the activities of the mind are controlled and subdued. The worship of god helps the purification and tranquilization of the mind. The system is very similar to Sankhya, the chief differences being that it recognizes the attainment of emancipation as dependent on the grace of god and also lays stress on the eightfold yoga practices. On attainment of the state of freedom from any form of activity (asamprajnata samadhi or mukti) misery finally disappears. This is the goal. It will be noticed that although the existence of God is admitted in the pre-non-alternative stages, He is only a secondary entity, the primary-object being the attainment of a desirable state for oneself which does not appear to be in any way related to God after it is realised.

The system of Sankara.—

Sankara has tried to deduce the doctrine of pure monism from the Brahma sutra of Maharshi Veda-Vyasa. According to this system the Brahman alone is true, all else is untrue. The world perceived through the senses is an illusion like the mistaking of the rope for the snake. There is no difference between the individual soul and the highest Soul Who is the Brahman. It is similar to the Nihilistic school of Buddhism and has been considered to be a form of Buddhism under the garb of lip-loyalty to the Scriptures. Its Brahman is only a negation of the material world and has no definable nature of its own. The assertion that the nature of the Brahman is spiritual (chit) as distinct from unconscious matter (achit), differentiates it theoretically but not practically from the doctrine of ‘Void’ of the Buddhists. It commits material suicide in order to establish a spiritual void. It is an unnatural and forced interpretation of the philosophy of the Brahma sutra and has obtained wide currency in this country, being recognized by many foreign scholars as the representative philosophy of Hindu orthodoxy. It is less prevalent in the south than in the north of India. Pure monism which in its present form owes its origin to Sankara, has branched out into many slightly differing forms. It has already been referred to in another place and will be considered in its relation to the teaching of Sri Chaitanyadeva in its proper place.

The system of Baiakaranas [Vyakarana?].—

The Grammarian Panini is the propounder of the view that by the study of sound in the form of the letters of the alphabet and words formed of them the knowledge of the object to which they point is spontaneously realized as the result of such practice. Sound is of two kinds, eternal and transitory. The eternal sound is directly expressive of its object. The Grammarians recognize this directly expressive sound as the Brahman. They hold that by the study of the science of sound by the gradual subsidence of ignorance the state of emancipation is attained. It is considered as the easy, royal road among the ways that lead to emancipation (moksha).

The system of the Mimamsakas.—

This was made by Maharshi Jaimini. The Word of the Scripture made by God out of pity for the attainment of a desirable state for oneself which does not appear to be in any way related to God after it is realized the suffering of the jiva, is the only authority by following which the fruit in the form of happiness promised by it is attainable. This school undertakes to supply the true interpretation and to reconcile apparently conflicting statements of the Scriptures.

The system of the Naiyayikas.—

The view of Gautama, the promulgator of this system, may be thus put: there are sixteen categories consisting of processes by which the knowledge of the twelve entities can be obtained. By constant hearing, contemplation and revision of the knowledge thus gained the individual soul and the Over-soul become known. This leads to the disappearance of misery and with it of false knowledge and their resultant preferences, repugnances and stupefaction, etc. There is then left no inclination for virtuous or vicious acts. After this, on the termination of the sufferings by the system of bodies produced by the previously accumulated activities leading to rebirth, there is final cessation of the twenty-one kinds of misery due to the six sense organs the six objects of the senses, the six intellectual faculties and pleasure and pain. This is the attainment of happiness or mukti..

The system of the Vaisheshikas.—

This system owes its origin to Maharshi Kanad or Uluka. The summum bonum according to this system is the final cessation of misery (mukti). This is the result of true knowledge which is obtained by a critical and careful study of the Scriptures and their constant consideration and meditation. It is necessary, first of all, to differentiate the soul from the nonsoul or matter. This school holds that there is definite and eternal difference between the several permanent entities and also between the objects and their qualities, although the last two are eternally associated with each other. It is this peculiarity which gives its name to the system. The atom is the final limit of matter. The world, etc., made of material atoms, are eternal and any other worlds not so made are impermanent but eternal. The system closely resembles that of the Naiyayikas.

Saivas.—

According to this, Siva who is ever affectionate to His devotees is held to be god and the jivas are designated as animals (pashu). God awards the fruit of actions in accordance with the nature of such acts. All action is followed by its appropriate effect and is therefore, the cause of such effect. This does not affect the not affect the freedom of action of god as the supreme lord and master. God is formless. There are three entities, viz., the lord, the animal and the bond. Siva is the lord and those who have attained the state of Siva and the methods whereby this state is attained, e.g., initiation, etc., form the lordly category. The jiva-soul is the animal. This jiva-soul is different from the body, is eternal and is capable of taking the initiative. The jiva-soul freed by Siva from sin is elevated to his proper lordly position and merges with the divinity. The Pratyabhijnas.—According to this school the jiva-soul is the over-soul. This is established by the inference that a being who has knowledge and power of independent action is god; that which has not those powers is non-god, e.g., house, etc. The soul of jiva possesses the above powers and therefore it is god. This recognition of the identity of the jiva-soul with god is called Pratyabhijnas. The acquisition of this knowledge is alone necessary for the highest realization, viz., that Siva is the divinity.

Nakulish Pashupat Saivas.—

Siva is god. Being the ruler of jivas, Siva is also called Pashupati, jiva being named pashu (animal). God's will is the only cause of the world. The summum bonum (mukti) according to this view consists in the absolute cessation of all misery and the attaimment of the state of the divinity. Specific acts are prescribed as the method to be followed for obtaining emancipation. It considers service of god as tantamount to bondage.

Saivas (Rasesvara or Mercurial school).—

The summum bonum is the attainment of the state of the divinity. This is possible only through knowledge of god. But this knowledge is naturally and easily attainable in this material body if it is tranquilized by mercury. Siva is god. Mercury is Siva’s own self. The body is the friend of the soul and can be rendered spiritual and eternal in the above way. Mercury is called “parada” and “rasesvara” due to its qualities of enabling the jiva to get across the ocean of this world and being accordingly the supreme liquid.

All these and many other atheistical views have been prevalent in this country from most remote times. All these are empirical and try to work up to God, Who is necessarily conceived as some form of sublimated or discarded matter, by the powers of the human mind working on the data supplied by the senses. Even in those cases where there is profession of obedience to the authority of the revealed Scriptures such admission is merely verbal and the method adopted is in every instance purely empirical, although help of the Scriptures is frequently sought in support of special views reached by the empiric process. In spite of the lip-profession of theism such method has consciously or unconsciously led in every case to the formulation of materialistic, unspiritual and godless systems. This, however, did not pass unchallenged. Or, it would be truer to say, that these views were really propounded in opposition to the theistic school which embodies the natural religion of the jiva and which has existed both potentially and in an explicit form from eternity.

It is in fact futile to seek for the origin of the eternal religion in history limited by space and time. It has always existed. Its continued existence can also no doubt be established as far back as our limited vision extends. All the other systems have a historical origin. The theistic (Vaishnava) religion has no historical origin and no beginning. The other systems have attained temporary prominence on account of the vigour of their attack on theism (Vaishnavism). We shall return to this subject again. For the present it would be sufficient to point out that theism in its true sense, which is identical with Vaishnavism, possesses the most numerous body of expounders and they have always been engaged in refuting the fallacies of the empiric schools. In the Iron Age (Kali Yuga) the Vaishnava religion has had four principal teachers after whom the four divisions (sampradayas) of the community are named.

Those four founderAcharyas of the respective sampradayas in the chronological order of their appearance are,—

1. Srimad Adi Vishnuswami,
2. Srimad Nimbarka,
3. Srimad Ramanuja and
4. Srimad Madhva.

The Vaishnava Founder Acharyas are pure revelationists (srauta panthis) as opposed to the schools mentioned above who are empiricists. They hold devotion to Godhead Whose Nature is purely spiritual to be the summum bonum. This goal is reached by obeying the Scriptures by submitting to receive the Word of Godhead from sadhus who alone understand their true import. This submission must also be complete. But although the four Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas, who preceded Sri Chaitanyadeva, and their followers certainly prepared the ground for the general re-establishment of pure theism their efforts only led their opponents to endless shifting of position and restatement of their views and this was done with so much vigour and success that at the time of the advent of Sri Chaitanyadeva the country had passed almost completely into the hands of the atheists as will appear from the incomplete list of the principal atheistic schools that were flourishing in His time which has been put before the reader in the above brief account. Sri Chaitanyadeva was opposed by all of these and He had to meet their leaders in learned disputations. The school which was most hostile to Him was that of the .smartas who do not admit the transcendence of Vishnu and His devotees but hold Vishnu to be a god of equal status with the other gods and endowed with specific powers. The smartas are frankly polytheistic and follow fruitive activities for the reward of material happiness promised by the Scriptures for their performance. The purely spiritual religion preached by Sri Chaitanyadeva was, therefore, utterly incomprehensible and repugnant to the doctrines and practices of the smartas.

Sri Chaitanyadeva also had occasion to engage in controversy with Chand Kazi who believed in the doctrine of impersonal Godhead, and so thoroughly convinced him that it is not the teaching of the Koran that he turned out to be one of His staunchest supporters.

The followers of the Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas had also succumbed to the seduction of the other schools and Sri Chaitanyadeva had to meet in controversy the leaders of pseudo-Vaishnava f actions who were in revolt against the authority of their own Acharyas. He opposed the Ramananda sect who called themselves the followers of Ramanuja but favoured salvationism, and the tattvavadins, professing to belong to the Madhva school, for a similar reason. He did not esteem the views of Ballava Acharya who, professing to follow Vishnuswami, differed from Sridhar, the commentator of the Srimad Bhagavatam, also belonging to the same sampradaya. The sampradaya founded by Nimbarkacharya has so utterly neglected its original Acharya that his works and those of his proximate successors appear to be lost. Sri Chaitanyadeva rescued the teachings of the great Acharyas in the process of perfecting them and demonstrated the relation of harmony in which their systems stand to the full Truth. But before we finally plunge into the consideration of the religion taught and practiced by Sri Chaitanyadeva the issue will be simplified if we stop for a short time to take a passing glance at the views of the four great Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas who preceded Sri Chaitanya and kept the dim lamp of theistic scholarship burning which was to be merged in the Sunrise of Advent of the Supreme Lord Himself as Teacher of His Word.