The basic symbol of power of the sacrifice led to the search for new symbols and identities. The expansion of the search led to inclusion of all the elements of the sacrificial performance.
The Vedic verses of statements of praise, containing identities, were now considered formulations of the identities in sound as ritual formulae called ‘mantras’, i.e. formulations in sound, which express the power of the sacrifice. Many facets of the power were established by these formulas, the ritualist was compelled to choose mantras that suited particular ritual needs.
The tendency to unify the powers of the many devas resulted in the unification of devas and all things in the sacrifice. The ritual actions and the offerings of the sacrifice, dependent on the mantras, established identities and correspondences. The sound of the language of verses of the mantras occupied a central place in the sacrifice and integrated the sacrifice. The sound form of objects, actions and attributes related to corresponding reality. The reproduction in sound develops the structure of reality. The examination of the sounds in sacrificial ritual leads to the revelation of the underlying structure of reality. The sounds of the sacrifice hide the reality. The sacrifice is the source of knowledge of the principal manifestation of reality; the One expressed in name and sound. The unity is closely related to the power captured in the sound of the mantras (the ritual sounds) Brahman.
The phenomena of nature are understood in the knowledge of the sacrifice.
Creation and Sacrifice.
The sound as manifested, in the power of speech, creates the existence of names. The manifestation of the One in physical universe is an empirical fact; the reason for the existence of the universe is partly explained by the underlying reality of speech. Speech illuminates the variety of phenomena in the manifest names of things and hidden speech provides the ground on which the multiplicity of things depends.
The fundamental agency in creation is to be found in the sacrifice, or is the sacrifice itself.
The primary act of creation is the creation of the sacrifice; that being created all else is created.
Rg Veda: Purusa Sukta
1. is an effort to state the relation between the sacrifice and the universe. The Purusa is the universe, this all, past, present and future, one quarter is manifested as all beings animate and inanimate; the other three quarters are the world of the immortal and the upper regions.
2. is a systematic relation of various features of the universe.
The consequence is the belief that knowledge of one order of reality provides knowledge of others, since they are linked by systematic identities. The sacrifice controls them all; to know the sacrifice is therefore to know and control the universe.
At the end of production of the Vedas, there was a search for the invisible and intangible reality, behind the phenomena of the world.
There must be something ultimate, a self-existent reality in which all that is finite and conditioned, all our faculties and all visible and tangible entities rest; an eternal reality or being.
The essence of things remains, as far its nature is concerned, eternally unknown.
It is said that ‘this universe was nonexistent in the beginning’, and the RV. 10. 129, states that first of all there was no existent (being) or non-existent (non-being); at that time, that one breathed breathless. ‘The unborn, the one, the eternal breaks forth into Brahma with matter, darkness, non-being, zero chaos opposed to it’
‘na tatra cakùur gacchati na vàg gacchati no manah’
‘there the eye goes not, speech goes not nor the mind’
‘Brahman’ is that which both speech and mind turn back, unable to comprehend its fullness. Absolute Reality is not an object of thought or the result of production. Absolute Reality is not an existing quality to be found in things. Since Brahman is the source (pradhàna) of all characteristics. Every attempt to make it an object of knowledge compels us to impose on it definitions, which are borrowed from the sphere of knowledge that alone is accessible to our intelligence, and these do not penetrate to the essential reality of things.. Any attempt to understand Brahman in terms of our worldly based experiences will be wholly inadequate.
The term ‘Brahman’ comes to signify that which stands behind as the ground and source.
The overwhelming trend in the Upanisads suggests that Brahman is essentially beyond description.
The final result of the Upanishad teaching is that Brahman is essentially unknowable.
The supreme source of creation and the essence of reality can never be completely defined or comprehended by the human mind.
Yajnavalkhya as expresses the Impossibility of knowing Brahman
‘Brahman is not so, not so (neti, neti, na iti, na iti)’
Na hi etasmad ----iti neti--- anyat param asti / "for there is no other beyond this: that it is not so".
‘There is no other or better description [of Brahman] than this: it is not this, this’.
The Brahman is always empirically unmanifest (avyakta). Ultimately it is that which cannot be perceived.
Brahman: As non-being.
‘Creation from a non-being (asat), however, is put forward as a possibility. This is not necessarily a creatio ex nihilo, but in all likelihood denotes an emergence of being from the pregnant and undifferentiated chaos known as non-being (asat)’.
asad evadam agra asit
In the beginning this (world) was non-existent
‘asat non-existent, it does not mean absolute non-being. It is a state in which name and form were not manifested. avyakrta-nama-rupam, and
Asad va idam agra asit
Non-existent was this in the beginning,
The manifested universe is called sat and its un-manifested condition is called asat.
tadd haika ahuh, asad evedam agra
Some people say, in the beginning this was non-being alone,
Brahman does not have being as other things have being.
The nature of Being, which Brahman is, is not to be experienced as such as is being as is known to us in experience, but is in an empirical sense a not-being.
Brahman is beyond or surpasses the empirical experience i.e.transcendental.
Brahman is the infinite supreme reality (paramartha), free of all specification. Brahman in
transcendental experience defies all description.
‘ The primeval conditions of things, the primeval substance, therefore of Brahman in the later sense…. is defined [understood] as the (non-empirical) being.’ by which statement is meant that Brahman is in experience not being. (Deussen. P. The Philosophy of the Upanisads )
Brahman is experienced as a pure unqualified being. Brahman is the negation of all empirical being.
Brahman is that dynamic principle which is when all subject/ object distinctions are obliterated.
The reality can only be grasped or perceived through negation. Brahman can only be described negatively
Brahman can never be an object of knowledge. In fact Brahman alone truly "is" in the sense being that it cannot be compared to anything else.
The Brahman is always empirically unmanifest (avyakta). The undetermined and unthinkable nature of the Brahman is a consequence of the absolute’s eternal and immutable nature. The authenticity is changelessness. Ultimately it is that which cannot be grasped or perceived. The real, in essence, is unrelated to the content of any other form of experience.
It is experienced as pure unqualified being. It alone "exists’ in the sense of being which is
not comparable to the supposed existence of anything else.
Brahman is considered as self-existent as uncreated, without a preceding asat.
Purusa Sukta
‘Purusa who is this all, that has been and that will be, the lord of immortality, and more than that; a fourth is all beings, three-fourths of him are what is immortal in heaven’.
There is much (three-fourths) of reality which is not within the sphere of the senses is also expressed
The Puruùa Såkta states in concrete form the ideal of a primeval being existing before any determinate existence and evolving himself in the empirical universe. The universe is constituted by a fourth of his nature. The world form is not a complete expression or manifestation of the reality. It is only a fragment that is manifested in the cosmic process.
The nature of ultimate reality.
The equating of non-being with nothingness is criticized
katham asatah saj jayeteti. How could Being be produced from non-being
Samkara’s conception of the real (sat) is that of eternal being and Brahman is the sole reality of that type Absolute is the infinite supreme reality (paramartha).
The world as an emanation, of an original principle called Brahman, or pervaded by the ultimate principle as by something not itself
Brahman is regarded as the potency or principle from which all things are derived as the ultimate basis of the world. Brahman is equated with Being (sat). The creation is described as an emanation from or transformation of Being ("sat"). Our waking experiences correspond to a real external world brought into existence through the real transformation of Brahman. Brahman is basically the source of everything. Brahman is the mysterious support of every thing. There is a basic underlying principle, which supported the entire universe; i.e. Brahman is the totality of existence, Pure Being itself. Brahman as the essence is the ground and support of the entire universe. The universe is created, supported, controlled and thoroughly pervaded by Brahman, the mysterious source of everything.
It is the conscious and intelligent principle, which created the universe.
"Truly in the beginning this universe was Brahman, one alone by itself".
Brahman is described as "parah", "the supreme one".
Brahman is defined as "that from which the origin, subsistence and dissolution of this universe occurs.
The creative act has no actual purpose but is merely an overflowing of Brahman’s essential fullness (bhuman). Brahman is ultimately a name for the experience of the timeless plenitude of being.
Brahman is the universal substratum for all things. All things are dependent (adhina) upon Brahman for their existence. Nothing is distinct (avyatireka) from Brahman since Brahman is the substrate and support of all things.
"What is that exists both before the creation and after the dissolution of the universe?"
‘Then there was neither the non-existent nor the existent; there was neither the atmosphere nor the firmament which is beyond. What did cover? Where? In whose protection? There breathed, windless, by its own power, that One. Other than that there was not anything beyond’
The Vedanta teachers speak of symbols (pratikani) in attempting to define the indefinable. By the word ‘symbol’ is understood the visible sign of an invisible object or circumstance. pratikam (image, object) denotes originally (from pratianc) the side "turned towards" us, and therefore visible, of an object other respects invisible.
Summary.
Brahma Sutra describes Brahman as:
unbound (ayama), omnipresent (sarvagata), endless (ananta), the plenitude (bhuman), partless
(niravayana), and without form (niravayava), and without form (arupavad)
As the eternal and undifferentiated principle of existence Brahman is imperishable (aksara).
Brahman, which is deep and impenetrable like the big ocean, which neither has beginning nor end, which is imperishable and perishable, which, though it is by nature without characteristics, enters all objects and as such is invested with characteristics, which is eternal.
The Brahman is the absolute free of all specification. Brahman, as being given in surpassing (transcendental) experience, defies all description and characterization. Brahman is experienced as a pure unqualified being. Non-duality is understood as the surpassing (transcendental) experience of the absolute.
The reality can only be grasped or perceived through negation. This safeguards Brahman from prediction. It can never be an object of knowledge. In fact it alone truly "exists" which is to say that its manner of being is not comparable to the supposed of anything else. Brahman is ultimately a name for the experience of the timeless plenitude of beings. The Brahman is always empirically unmanifest (avyakta). The undetermined and unthinkable nature of the Brahman is a consequence of the absolute’s eternal and immutable nature. The criterion of authenticity is immutability.
Classical Samkhya.
The term ‘Samkhya’ means
"relating to number, enumeration or calculation.
As an adjective refers to
any enumerated set or grouping; used in any inquiry in which enumeration or calculation is a prominent feature.
As Masculine noun refers to
someone who enumerates, calculates or discriminates properly or correctly
As neuter noun refers to
A specific system of dualistic philosophy that proceeds by enumerating the contents of experience
and the world for the purpose of attaining radical liberation (moksa, kaivalya).
Samkhya is realistic.
Samkhya philosophy is essentially intellectual; ultimate liberation being attained by means of knowledge of reality. Samkhya exalts life of action.
Classical Samkhya postulates two realities, both eternal but of contrary nature.
The first is Purusa, ‘the Person’,
Samkhya describes:
a) a pure self (purusa) independent of mind and b) a matter and a mind-body system.
Purusa is the notion of an immaterial principle(s) animating the human body and Purusa expresses the notion of man’s "transcendental identity" or "trans-intelligible subject" as distinct from the world ground (Prakrti)
Etymology of Purusa.
Satapatha Brahmana "This city (pur) is these worlds, the person (purusa) is the spirit ( yo’yam pavate, vayu), who because he inhabits (sete) this city is called the person (puru sa).
Purusa (masculine case also pur; probably from pri and connected with puru a man, male, human being; a person,
In Samkhya, the Purusa is the spirit and spectator of the Prakrti, the creative force. Purusa is conscious but unable directly to apprehend the objects of the world. Purusa apprehends through the medium of mind, which is material and unconscious. Knowledge is the result of the mind-body system "effecting" or mirroring for the purusa various external subjects. This is an apt simile for a situation where there can be no connection between the purusa and the mind-body system.. The Purusa is said to be static, "knowing neither change of place or change of form. The Person is the Self who, as pure sentient Consciousness, is the witness of the activity of all that lies in the sphere of objectivity.
Prakrti or ‘Nature’.
Matter from the ‘scientific’ point of view.
The ancient doctrine of a single primordial substance (materia prima), to which each of which the various forms of matter could be reduced; each being is but one of the many plural manifestations of the same underlying reality. Scientific matter is now found to be only a relatively stable form of cosmic energy. All matter dissociates.
Matter is in a state of spontaneous and perpetual motion. The phenomenon of the universe is vibration, to which the human body is subject. Matter and the atoms, which it is composed have their organizations, as have the human beings are vibrating with unending Energy (Tejas). The notion that ultimate realities are the supposed atoms of matter, to the properties and combinations of which the complex universe is due, is not true. Matter has been dematerialized and with it the molecules and the entire universe. "Matter" disappears, and we and all that surround us, are physically mere disturbed regions of the ether determined by moving electric charges. Matter is a relatively stable form of energy into which, on disturbance of its equilibrium matter disappears; for all forms of matter disassociate. The ultimate basis of that energy is called Prakriti, Maya or Sakti.
Prakrti is formless, limitless, undifferentiated, indestructible, ungrounded, uncontrolled and eternal matter.
The latter includes not only the outer physical world but also the body and mind the Person inhabits, vitalizing and illuminating it with his conscious presence. Although varied and constantly changing, all that lies in the sphere of objectivity shares a common nature. All thoughts, perceptions or physical phenomena are equally a part of the play of Nature ---Prakrti---, which manifests in a way to fulfill the needs of the Person for phenomenal experience. One can reason from the exhibition of design in the work of Prakrti to some principle, which directs the design.
In this experience the Person represents the principle of sentience, (supplying the element of awareness to the physical world of (Prakrti) and Nature that of change and activity.
The universe, whether physical pr psychical, whether within us or without us is play of force, which, in the case of matter, we experience as object. Mind, life and matter are each varying aspects of the one cosmic process of the first cause. Mind and matter derive from the Primal energy (Adya Sakti). Matter is infinitely tenuous formless energy, which materializes into relatively stable, yet essentially transitory forms. The process by which the subtle becomes gradually more and more gross "crust" of solid matter (Parthiva bhuta). This is tangible but it will not last forever. The one Primal Energy which transforms itself into that relatively stable state which is perceived by the senses as gross "matter".
In Samkhya, the duality of the object and the subject, which perceives is unresolved. Classical Samkhya is a dualistic system.
If Prakrti and Purusa make up the two independent realities of this universe, it would seem that they would be incapable of interaction. Interaction does occur and Purusa is the medium for consciousness to manifest in matter. The purusa is witness, solitary, bystander, spectator, and passive. cannot view itself. Just as insentient Nature is blind, Therefore by reason of union, as that of the halt and the blind, which makes experience possible. The content of this experience is real but unsatisfactory.
The Person is bound by Nature; i.e. the purusa experiences the changes in Nature as if they were its own and so suffers their painful consequences. The Person is freed when he discriminates between himself and Nature. The latter then retires into its original unmanifest state severing its association with the person. In this way the person achieves a state of transcendental detachment (kaivalya).
But because the Person is an independent reality, already separate from Nature, he can neither be bound nor released. Ultimately, bondage is unreal and no relationship is possible between an eternal subject and an equally eternal object.
Prakrti principle is un-perceivable except through its effects, that is the world, which is real.
Advaita Vedanta of Samkara.
Ve·dan·ta
n. Hinduism.
The system of philosophy that further develops the implications in the Upanishads that all reality is a single principle, Brahman, and teaches that the goal is to transcend the limitations of self-identity and realize one's unity with Brahman.
Ve·dan'tic adj.
Ve·dan'tism n.
Ve·dan'tist n.
In the Upanishads, Vedanta means ‘the final portions of the Vedas" but it has since come to mean the settled conclusions of the Vedas taken as a whole. In later forms, Vedanta stands for the teaching not merely of the Upanishads, together with the earlier portions of the Veda, but also of the other parts of the literature e.g. the Bhagavadgita and the Visnu Purana.
The two categories of Samkhya, Prakrti and Purusa are reduced to Brahman, the ultimate reality as an impersonal principle.
Brahman. Etymology. Mw 737 (3).
N (lit.‘growth’. ‘expansion’. ‘evolution’, ‘development’, ‘swelling of the spirit or soul’. From 2.brih ). The one existent personal spirit. The one divine essence. The Absolute, The Eternal (not generally an object of worship, but rather of meditation and knowledge).
Samkara’s understanding of the real (sat) is that of eternal being and Brahman as the non-dual reality is of that type’. Brahman is the one being: the primeval conditions of things, the primeval substance, therefore Brahman in the later sense is understood as the non-empirical being, by which statement is meant that Brahman is in experience not being.
[em·pir·i·cal
adj.
Guided by practical experience and not theory, especially in medicine.
em·pir'i·cal·ly adv].
Non existent was this in the beginning or
Not-being was this in the beginning. [Asad va idam agra asit] Taittriya Up. 2.7
Non existent, verily does one become, if he knows Brahman as nonexistent or
He is not, as it were not-being, who knows Brahman as not-being.
[asann eva sa bhavati, asad brahmeti veda cet, asti brahmeti ced veda, santam tato viduh]
Brahman is transcendental, i.e. beyond or surpasses the empirical experience.
Brahman is the infinite supreme reality (paramartha), free of all specification. Brahman, the being given in
transcendental experience, defies all description.
[tran·scen·den·tal
adj.
tran'scen·den'tal·ly adv].
Brahman is experienced as a pure unqualified being. Brahman is the negation of all empirical being.
The transcendental experience of Brahman is described as "non-dual" (Advaita)
Brahman is that ‘state’ which is when all subject/ object distinctions are obliterated. It is known in indeterminate experience (nirvikalpa samadhi).
[nirvikalpa (Mw 542 i mfn) not admitting an alternative, free from change or differences; nirvikalpaka mfn n knowledge not depending upon or derived from the senses. Samadhi (Mw 1159 iii intense application or fixing the mind on, intentness, attention) as knowledge not derived from the senses].
The reality can only be grasped or perceived through negation. Brhadaranayaka Up 2.3.6. Brahman can never be an object of knowledge. In fact Brahman alone truly "exists" in the sense being that it cannot be compared to anything else. Brahman is ultimately a name for the experience of the timeless plenitude of being. The Brahman is always empirically unmanifest (avyakta). The undetermined and unthinkable nature of the Brahman is a consequence of the absolute’s eternal and immutable nature. The authenticity is changelessness.
In addition to Brahman, there is the finite universe. The Brahman is the ground of its apparent existence. The finite, although not totally unreal, is the lesser reality of undefinable status (anirvacaniya) much as an illusion exists in relation to its real ground.
Samkara limits Reality to the illumining (Prakasa) aspect alone. For Samkara, Brahman as surpassing experience, i.e the transcendent does not produce anything. The notion that it does so is Maya. The Maya of Samkara is a mysterious Sakti, by which becoming (Vivartta) is explained. Maya is not an independent principle. Maya is an unthinkable, alogical and unexplainable (anirvacaniya) principle of unconsciousness which is not real, not unreal, which is an eternal falsity (mithyabhuta sanatani) owing what false appearance of reality it possesses to Brahman with which it is associated. Maya though is not Brahman, is inseparably associated with it in its aspect as Isvara. Maya though not forming part of Brahman, is not therefore, a second reality. Notwithstanding that Maya is a falsity, it is not, according to Samkara, a mere negation or want of something (abhava) but a positive entity (bhavarupam ajnanam), in the nature of a power that veils. Isvara has Brahman as its support (mayabrahmasrita) from which support Isvara draws appearance of a separate reality it does not possess.
Brahman is the infinite, formless consciousness and Maya the formative particularizing principle, which makes forms. By description they are opposed. Maya is regarded as a veiling or limiting principle (the one which " measures out"), that is one which veils Consciousness; and is eternal, all-pervading.
The Parabrahman is not associated with Maya.
Maya has two aspects, veiling (avarana) and the moving, changing and projecting power (viksepa). The association of Maya with Consciousness has a two-fold result obscuring i.e. as long it acts, it prevents the realization of pure Consciousness. Maya reveals i.e manifests the world, which does not exist except through the instrumentality of Maya which the world is. Isvara is Brahman reflected in Maya, (a mystery) which is separate and yet not separate from Brahman in its Isvara aspect. Maya is not real for there is only one real. It cannot be unreal for it is the cause and is the empirical experience.
From the Advaita point of view, manifestation is an appearing to be (abhasa) in the place of actual existence. The unity of being appears to be a multiplicity in the sense of its seeming to appear as such. Those ignorant of the underlying unity behind this apparent reality assume that the latter is all that exists whereas it has no real existence. In order to preserve the transcendental integrity of the Person, in Advaita the reality of Nature is denied. This safeguards Brahman from prediction. The empirical (vyavahara) is itself a negation of the absolute. The Brahman is what the world is not. The world is less than real. The Brahman is empirically unmanifest (avyakta) Br.Su. 3/2/23. It is beyond the reach of the senses but, like the Person, is the witness (saksin) of all things. It can never be an object of knowledge for ‘who can know the knower". Ultimately it is that which cannot be grasped or perceived. The world that is ‘grasped’ and ‘perceived’ cannot be the Brahman and is consequently less than real.
Absolute Being is not an existing quality to be found in things: it is not an object of thought or the result of production. Is that which both speech and mind turn back, unable to comprehend its fullness Kena Up.1/3. The undetermined and unthinkable character of Brahman is a consequence of the absolute’s eternal and immutable nature. To concede the existence of a real universe is, from the Vedantin’s point of view to posit the existence of a reality apart from Brahman. Nor can we simply identify a real universe with the absolute unless we are prepared its unchanging, absolute status. The criterion of authenticity is immutability. Reality never changes; only that which is less than real can appear to do so. Reality is constant in the midst of change. What this means essentially is that there is change although nothing changes. This impossible situation is reflected in the ultimate impossibility of change itself. That, which does not exist prior to its changing and at the end, after it has changed, must be equally non-existent between these moments. Although the world of change appears to be real, it cannot be so. Change, according to the Vedantin, presupposes a loss of identity. Reality cannot suffer transformation; if it were to do so, it would something else and the real world would be deprived of its reality. The immortal can never become mortal, and mortal become immortal. The ultimate of anything cannot change. Change of any sort is merely apparent (vivarta); the world of change and becoming is a false superimposition (adhyaropa, adhyasa) on the absolute.
In cosmic terms, the mistake (bhranti) consists of the supposition that the real Brahman is the unreal universe and the unreal universe is the real Brahman. In the same way as the image of a snake is falsely superimposed on a rope, similarly the universe is falsely projected onto the real substratum, the Brahman. Ignorance is not merely a personal lack of Knowledge, but a cosmic principle. As it is called "Maya" the undefinable factor (anirvacaniya) that brings this mistake in identity about. The reality of this cosmic illusion is also undefinable; on one hand it is not Brahman, the sole reality; on the other it is not absolutely non-existent like a hare’s horn or the son of a barren woman.
Brahman is the source of world appearance only in the sense of being their un-conditioned ground or essential nature. The universe is false not because it has no nature of its own but because it does have one. Just as the illusion of a snake disappears when one sees that it is nothing but a rope, cancellation (badha) of the empirically real occurs when the absolute reality of the Brahman is realized. Thus according to Vedanta, appearance implies the real, while the real need not imply appearance. To appear is essentially to appear in place of the real, but to be real is not necessarily to appear. All things exist because the absolute exists. It is their Being. Thus the very existence of Phenomena implies their non-existence as independent realities. When they are known to be as they are, in the fullest sense of their existence, their phenomenal nature disappears leaving the ground of Being naked and accessible. This approach was validated by a critique of experience. The Vedanta established that space, time and other primary categories of our daily experience could have no absolute existence. It was therefore necessary to make a distinction between a relative truth----that accepted by the precritical common man ---- and an absolute truth discovered at a higher level of consciousness.
