Self (Puruṣa) [in Charaka philosophy]

It has been stated, “With out question, the best reason for studying biology is the admonition inscribed on the ancient temple of Apollo at Delphi: ‘Know thyself’. To know ourselves well, especially in the brilliant season of advance in the science of biology, we must examine all of life and life itself.”^[1] This assertion is true not only of the biological science but also of every branch of learning which aims at the well-being of man. But the query still remains as to whether the science of biology or any other sciences of Western origin, with their external methods of knowing, were able to discern the real nature of man.

The history of science shows that it has tried to identity man with his physical and physiological identity, rather ignoring his deeper and far reaching spiritual identity. Science hasn't yet succeeded in giving a “satisfactory if not true explanation”^[2] of human-being in his totality. That is, science has failed to give an explanation taking into account not only the immediate physical and physiological aspects, but also their dialectical interactions with reference to the spiritual entity underlying it. This is an error that the scientists have committed due to their adherence to an alien objective method.^[3] The normal method of Science is such that its dealings with the visible world and the process of life were not wholly adapted to the physical, the artistic, the spiritual and other elements of the invisible world. Life does not consist entirely of what we see and hear and feel. The visible world which is undergoing change in time and space is continually touching an invisible world, possibly more stable or equally changeable elements which can in no way be ignored.

The basic reason is that science does not undertake the study of the complete man. Another thing is that science itself is compartmentalized into separate disciplines, and hence all the aspects of enquiry do not come within the purview of a single faculty. On the contrary, they are treated as topics of specialized investigation of special sciences. However, the biologists, who are expected to give a comprehensive definition of the life principle or the spiritual entity that animates, eventually have tried to explain the life principle in terms of “mechanism”, “vitalism”, and “finalism”^[4] but ultimately have confessed that many a biological phenomenon is still without explanation.^[5]

This confession discloses the inadequacy of not only biology but also of all sciences. Sciences like physics and chemistry reduce man to physical and chemical constituents to a determinable pattern of materiality and explain the inner man in terms of physical and chemical laws. The assumption of even the behavioural scientists is that human beings are complexes of behavioral process, conglomeration of definite hereditary, and environmental factors and, therefore, fully accountable by means of science of behavior adopting the strategy of physics and biology.^[6] Like physics, biology, and chemistry, the social sciences promise to provide a complete model of man-as-a-machine, ignoring what we call the transcendental or spiritual at its core.^[7] They have also overlooked the êlan of man.

Natural sciences do not try to understand the human mechanism in terms of knowing and the laws of knowledge except by way of finding out physiological correlates. For them, to explain the “why” and “how” of knowledge is to determine the mechanics of the humane brain, which, according to them, is nothing more than a highly complex configuration of material constituents.^[8]

The basic shortcoming of science is that it is extrinsic and not intrinsic. With its empirical, analytical method, it is objective anchored. It hasn't yet strived to analyse and determine human events with reference to “subjectivity”,^[9] for the reality of man is deeply rooted in subjectivity. Science has also neglected the purpose and goal of life in their investigation. So the explanation of human being given by science, referring to the physical biological, and psychological phenomena, confining to the material causes would be incomplete unless and until the dialectical interaction of these phenomena and the spiritual entity underlying it are introspected with out isolating anyone of them. But it is not possible in science, because the nonmaterial aspects of thinking, reasoning and the like are not testable experimentally.^[10]

Another important problem is that science explains man alienating him from nature with out exploring the inter relationship of man and nature. D.P. Chattopadhyaya has rightly remarked that, “Man's situation in the world is such that the scientists cannot grasp the former's true identity, ignoring his place in the world. Nor can the scientist adequately understand the world leaving man totally out of the picture”.^[11] Thus, it implies that the external institutional methods of western sciences are insufficient and distortive and substantively frustrative of human projects that aim at our well being. Hence it is inevitable to know the real relationship between man and nature. Beyond physical, biological and psychological interpretation, an interpretation in relation to epistemology is indispensable to know the reality of man. It necessitates a philosophical consciousness. In fact, it is a philosophical enterprise. The uniqueness of the explication of the “Self”^[12] in Carakasaṃhitā lies here, for it has a philosophical genealogy. On epistemological basis, Caraka uncovers the reality of man; discusses the physical, biological, and psychological aspects and their dialectical interactions; goes beyond the limits of empirical content. He analyses the rapport between man and the world beyond his nerve endings and finally describes the foundational being of "everything'. The whole thing is unveiled in the context of the explication of the “Self” (puruṣa).

The entity that transforms matter into life has been many things for many people. In the west, it was called psyche, life principle, the soul, anima, Elan vital, entelechy, or mystery of life.^[13] In India, the Sanskrit terms Brahman, ātmā, and puruṣa dominate the whole philosophical development from the Ṛgveda to the classical systems of philosophy. The word Brahman which occurs more than two hundred times in the Ṛg Veda in the sense of prayer,^[14] in course of time, has become the most usual name to denote the creative principle of the world and beings. Brahman^[15] has become the ultimate reality from which all worlds proceed, in which all worlds subsist, and into which they finally return. The term ātmā has also become the most regularly used name in the Upaniṣads to designate the creative principle and is often identified with Brahman.^[16] Similarly the term puruṣa,^[17] which normally means mortal man or male, is an ancient one, going back to the Ṛg Veda and the Atharva Veda. In the Ṛg Veda, the word is used as a term for mortal man as well as the cosmic man.^[18]

“In the Upaniṣads the term puruṣa is often used synonymously with Brahman or ātmā”.^[19] The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says that there was only the ātmā in the form of puruṣa in the beginning.^[20] In the Mahābhārata the word puruṣa is used in the sense of self along with other terms like ātmā, puruṣa, bhūtātmā, aja, akṣara, avyaya and kṣetrajna,^[21] while in classical Sāṃkhya it became the chief designator of the individual self.

According to Caraka's cosmology, the universe is a living organism animated through out by life- monad, and this life-monad contained within and constituting the universe, is imperishable. It is something unusual that almost all significant epithets for the “Self”^[22] in pre-classical and classical philosophical systems are seen to be collected in Carakasaṃhitā.^[23] Perhaps this may lead to the assumption that his concept of Self is only a fabrication on the concepts of diverce philosophical systems. The idea as such is camouflaged, for these designators have specific signification in each philosophical system.

But the fact is not so. Caraka has got his own vision of the “Self”. He chooses his own way of presentation of the vision in order to satisfy his pragmatic purpose. All the terms actually and essentially unveil the various dimensions at which the “Self” is conceived with out contradiction. At the same time, puruṣa is the most perfect and perhaps the best name that Caraka has found in the language to designate the life principle or the creative principle. The term gives him enough flexibility to construe "being' and “beings”.^[24] Ultimately, for him, puruṣa means that which remains if we take away from our physical existence all that comes and passes away., On the one hand, it means the eternal essence of man, but on the other it signifies the “Self” of the whole world that is, the Ur-ground. So, it vindicates that he has been circumspect of the fact that every attempt to explain man and the universe must proceed from the word puruṣa. He has found a more clear cut expression for “Self” in the word puruṣa.

Caraka’’s philosophy distinguishes three entities:

1. the foundational being,
2. the empirical world,
3. the empirical subject.

Comprehending all these three factors, he gives a three- fold division of “Self”, namely

1. cetanādhātupuruṣa,
2. caturviṃśatikapuruṣa,
3. ṣaḍdhātujapuruṣa.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

BLS, p. 3.

[2]:

Truth and satisfaction are not interchangeable notions. “A view or theory of the world may be satisfactory with out being true. Or it may be true with out being satisfactory”. KFL, p. 2.

[3]:

See Ibid., p. 163.

[4]:

According to mechanism, life is explained in terms of physical and chemical laws. According to vitalism, living substance differ fundamentally from non-living substance. Its processes are not reducible to the mere interactions of material components as the advocates of mechanism claimed. Life is something beyond the reach of science. Finalism holds that life has a preordained pattern that was purposefully directed towards a future goal. Although vitalism and finalism differ, they both hold the view that life is intrinsically beyond explanation. See BLS, p. 26.

[5]:

Ibid., p. 27.

[6]:

Ramakant Sinari, “The World as the Ontological Project of Man”, PIP, p. 203; see also BFD, pp. 180-81.

[7]:

Ibid., p. 203.

[8]:

Ibid., p. 201-02.

[9]:

Subjectivity refers to the core of human existence or the inner self which is responsible for thoughts, happiness, pain, desire, and aversion.

[10]:

“A scientific explanation must be testable experimentally, but êlan vital is unobservable”. BLS, p. 26.

[11]:

KFL, p. 14.

[12]:

Loc. cit., F. Note. 23, p. 187.

[13]:

BLS, p. 26.

[14]:

PD, p. 19.

[15]:

“The root bṛḥ (bṛḥ vṛddhau) means growth, and the suffix man, added to it, signifies an absence of limitation (in expanse). So Brahman derivatively means that which is absolutely the greatest”. BraḥmaSūtra-Bhāṣya of Śri Śaṅkara, English Trns. by Swami Gaṃbhirananda, Advaita Ashrama, Culcutta, Fifth Impression, 1993, F. Notes, p.12; See also Amarakośa., Vol. II, Vivṛti on III. iii. 114.

[16]:

PD, p. 20

[17]:

Etymologically puruṣa means the one who dwells in the body: “purī dehe śedati tiṣṭati iti puruṣaḥ”, See ibid, Vivṛti on Amarakośa., Vol. I, I. iv, 29.

[18]:

Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā, 10.97, 4-5; 10.90.

[19]:

15. The word ātmā is derived from the root “ad bhakṣaṇe” and it means that one who one who enjoys the auspicious and inauspicious. Another derivation is from the root “ata sātatyagamane” which means one who dwells in bodies: “atati śarīreṣu saṃvasatīti va”. See Amarakośa., Vol. I, I. iv. 29. Yāska has used it in the sense of limitless expanse: “ātmā atatervyāptervāpi vāpta iva syādyāvad vyāptibhūta iti”. Nirukta, III. iii, p. 28.

[20]:

“ātmā eva idaṃ agre āsīt”, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad.., I. iv. 1; See also Ch. U., VIII, vii. 4.

[21]:

Mahābhārata., Mokṣa, 199. 27; 178.4; 175. 11.

[22]:

The term “Self” with the capitalized “S” refers to the foundational self and with small “s” refers to the empirical self, because the word puruṣa is used by Caraka stands for both the foundational Self, and the empirically bound self.

[23]:

tatra pūrvaṃ cetanādhātuḥ sattvakaraṇo guṇagrahaṇāyā pravartate; sa hi hetuḥ kāraṇaṃ nimittamakṣaraṃ kartā mantā veditā boddhā draṣṭā dhātā brahmā viśvakarmā viśvarūpaḥ purṣaḥ prabhavo avyayo nityo guṇī grahaṇaṃ pradhānamavyaktaṃ jīvo jñaḥ pudgalaścetanāvān vibhurbhūtātmā cāntarātmā ceti. CS, Śārīra-sthāna, IV. 8. It is recognized as the sixth substance and there it is called ātmā, CS, Su, I. 48.

[24]:

In CS the word puruṣa is used in the sense of human being, male, inner self and the foundational “Self” or ultimate reality (Brahman).