Brahman or the Supreme Reality

Vedanta philosophy is primarily for the knowledge of Brahman. Brahman is the ultimate truth, which occurs the nature of existence, consciousness and bliss^[1]. It is ommiscient, ommipotent, all pervasive. The material world is a manifestation of Brahman. This highest primordial consciousness which ever exists is the subtlest of all things and multiple things had emanated from it by a process of involution.

According to Śaṅkara Brahman is the only reality. All other things have only relative existence. They emerge from and dissolve in to it. The ultimate divine consciousness is referred as ‘Nirguna Brahman’^[2] which is in association with ‘māya’ manifest itself in form with a name and is then referred to as ‘Saguna Brahman’. At this stage it is known as ‘God’ or ‘Īśvara’^[3]. This mysterious māya is really a creation of Brahman itself. Then in association with that māya which is also known as ‘Pṛakṛti’ the different levels of consciousness come to in existence, finally giving rise to the material world as the solar systems, planets, the earth, moon and comets. Every being and everything are the combination of Brahman and the māya. Even animals and humans are a combination of Brahman and māya. While everything else changes, Brahman never does. It alone is imperishable. It is infinite. It has to be one and one only Ācārya Śaṅkara calls everything that is perishable and changing as untrue and since Brahman alone is imperishable and changeless, he calls it is the only truth.

The Taitiriya Upaniṣad says “Satyam jñān ānantam Brahmam” (Truth knowledge and infinity are of Brahmam)^[4]

tattvamasyādivākyāni kartrādistāvakānyataḥ |
āvaśyakaṃ hi gārhasthyamṛṇātritayaśāyanāt || 46 ||
yāvajjīvaśrutibalānnavyutthānaṃ tato bhavet |
anyathā vīrahatyadi bahudoṣaprasaṅgataḥ || 47 ||
paṅgvandhabadhirādyā ye karmasvanādhikāriṇaḥ |
te'dhikriyantāṃ saṃnyāse na samarthā iti sthitam || 48 ||^[5]

It was the debate between Pūrvamīmāṃsakas and Advaitins. Former represent Maṇḍana and latter represent Śaṅkara. Maṇḍana says that the meaning of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ cannot be a declaration of unity of Brahman and Ātman, even though it may apparently looks so. All Vedic sentences are injunctions of prompting man to actions. They are not so apparently are separate to actions and have to be interpreted that way. For, there is no Vedic sentences purely descriptive of an already existant entity like Brahman having no connection with action. He added that wherever they are found to occur, they have to be interpreted in the light of the principles stated. ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ and such other Vedic passages are Vidhi śeṣās. They occur after the portions containing injunctions to actions like Yāgas and Yajñās. Therefore not injuctions in themself but only allied to them in a subsequent sense. But in the case of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ it is only a praise of the performer of a Vedic sacrificial ritual for his highly meritorious actions calling him Īśvara Himself. Hearing this words Śaṅkara says that this interpretation is fanciful. They are called Vidhiśeṣās if they occur only in the earlier part that is the Karmakānda portions of the Veda. They are closely connected with Karmas. They are meant to eulogise the various entities forming parts of the ritual. Then Śaṅkara added an example, that is ‘Aditya is Yūpa’ or ‘sacrificial post’. ‘The sacrifice is Prastāra’ etc. Here ‘Yūpa’, ‘sacrificer’ etc. He says that who form vital parts of a sacrifice, are eulogised through identification, and these passages are occur in proximity with the injunctions regarding sacrifice. Śaṅkara added that how can ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ and such passages coming outside the Karmakāṇḍa and having nothing to do with rituals, became vidhiseṣa, or appendages to Vidhi or injunction? Look at such Upaniṣads of a similar nature.’The Real alone existed in the beginning’, ‘Ātman alone existed at first’, ‘Brahman is immutable’. How can any person say that they are all meant for praising the virtues of a sacrificer?

Hearing the words of Śaṅkara, Maṇḍana answered that, such sentences as ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ are not meant for praise. They are meant for meditation. That would enhance the efficiency of a ritual. When a sacrificer meditates, ‘I am That’ and super imposes Īśvarahood on himself, his power is thereby enhanced, and through that, the fruitfulness too of the ritual he performs. According to the Veda, ‘whatever is done with understanding, faith and determination, their potency is enhanced’. In this manner the saying ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ is parallel to such as, ‘Meditate on Āditya as Brahman’, ‘Meditate on mind as Brahman’ etc. When Brahman is super imposed on Āditya, mind, etc through meditation. In ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ Īśvarahood is superimposed on the Jīva and thereby the power of the Jīva performing sacrifice is enhanced. Upaniṣads interpreted in this way, they can be brought within the scheme of Vedic injunction and thus made meaningful as revelation. Maṇḍana stressly says that Vedic passages are connected with action, and no passage unconnected with action or rituals can have a place in it. But Śaṅkara answered, the passages like ‘Meditate on mind as Brahman’, the verb is in the imperative and that sentence is a commandment, an inducement to action. But ‘Tat tvam asi’ is a mere statement, the verb is in the simple indicative mood. In this condition, how can you assert that it is an inducement to action? Maṇḍana answered that, if they are mere descriptions and not inducements to actions the Vedic sentences will become a mere jumble of purposeless words in place of being the Śāstra or Veda. Śāstra must induce a man to act for something desirable, or to desist from something undesirable. Now the Vedantic passages can given the force of a Sastra only if they are interpreted as commandments urging man to attain to the fruit of Mokṣa or Jñānavidhi. That is not taking them as mere descriptions of a state that helps to human purpose. This is what is done with Vedic passages of a descriptive nature like ‘Those who perform Ratriśāstra are established in the state of greatness’. That is in effect, is only a commandment. The meaning of this is ‘if you want to attain the state of greatness, you perform Atirātra’. Just like that, ‘That Thou art’ means, ‘if you want the fruit of Mukti, become Brahman through meditation concerning Brahman and Ātman’. In this manner many Vedanta passages are couched exactly in this form as commandments. This is clear from an example ‘this Ātman should be seen, heard thought of and meditated upon’^[6]. ‘This Ātman which is free from all stain, deserves to be sought after and striven to be known’. In this manner Vedanta passages of non-duality are not mere descriptions but commandments, with the fruit of Mukti in view.

Hearing the Maṇḍana Miśra’s fanciful interpretation, Śaṅkara says that Mokṣa will become an action. For, meditation is a mental action like any action, it can be done, or not done, or done in a contrary fashion. The implication of making Mokṣa an effect is to make the impermanent like Swarga and all attainments generated by human activity, that is, the very negation of Mokṣa. In meditation you impose one entity on another by an assertion of the will and generate a new effect which did not exist before. Knowledge of Brahma or Brahmavidya is not an activity like that of converting Ātman, which was not Brahman before, into Brahman by mental assertion. In this way Brahmavidya is knowledge but not meditation. All knowledge is a mental mode of ‘Being what one has always being’ and not of ‘becoming into something that was not before’. The text ‘that thou art’ declares the eternal nature of things. Whatever passages look like commandments in the Upaniṣads as ‘This Ātman should be heard of meditated upon, etc’, are only for removing the obstacles or coverings. Jñāna or knowledge if you call it an action at all, is only of the nature of removal of obstacles, and not of bringing about a new condition or effect. In that time when the obstacles are removed the truth that ‘the Ātman has always been Brahman’, stands revealed. This is not an effect but it is in the nature of things Maṇḍana says that ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ is an injunction for meditation.

Then he adopts a new position and argument. He says that let us give up the contention that ‘Tat tvam asi’ convey no special meaning. What harm is there in understanding it as an assertion of similarity between Brahman and Ātman interpreting ‘You are a spirit of similar to Brahman’, and that you are the same as that? Śaṅkara answered, what is the similarity asserted of? Is it of merely being a spirit or of having the distinctive features of Brahman as the Soul of all, omniscience omnipotence etc? The first of the alternative is already accepted, not second. Because it goes against the plain meaning of the Vedantic sentence that the Ātman and Brahman are one. That they are one cannot mean that they are two similar but different entities. Moreover to get meaning, you have to distort a statement like ‘That thou art’ (‘Tat Tvam Asi’) into ‘That is like you’ or ‘Tat tvat sadrso sti’, or ‘Tadasti tvamiva’. Maṇḍana added that there is no need of accepting saṃnyasa firstly. In that time ‘Vīrahatyādi Doṣam’ will happen. So that handicapped, blind, dumb men are only the authority capable for accepting saṃnyasa. Maṇḍana surely says that they are the only authority. He says that ‘Tat tvam asi’ at the most are meaningless words like ‘hum phat vashat’ etc, which are not meant to convey any sense but only to be used in Japa or eradication of sins. Vedic sentences are directly or indirectly meant to prompt men to action. There is no place for mere statements giving information about the nature of anything that is not connected with Vedic ritual.

He says that, in the Vedic context therefore ‘hum phat vashat’ etc are meaningless in themselves, are significant when used in activities like Japa.

sādhnaṃ na punarjñānaṃ duḥkhitvasyānivartanāt |
kṣudhitasya bhujijñānamātrātkṣunna nivartate || 40 ||
bhujikriyātaḥ kṣucchāntirvijñānaṃ tvaprayojakam |
tatra pramāṇamāmnāyāste tu kārtsnyātkriyāparāḥ || 41 ||
nā kriyārtho'sti tadbhāgaḥ syāñcetsa syādanarthakaḥ |
mā bhūdānarthakyamiti vidhivākyaikavākyatām || 42 ||
pratipadyārthavādānāmarthavattvaṃ samarthitam |
iṣetvetyadivākyānāṃ chedanādikriyārthatā || 43 ||
vākyāntarāṇāmapyevaṃ kriyārthatvaṃ hi sādhitam |
iṣṭe pravartayacchāstramaniṣṭāñca nivartayat || 44 ||^[7]

Knowledge could not solve misery. Hunger could not be solved by the knowledge of eating. One should eat food to stop hunger, therefore act or karma is needed to end misery. The Vedas are all favour action and they will become meaningless without action. Therefore the descriptive sentences are read together with sentences inducing actions.

The Śāstrās makes one work in what is desirable and dissociates from what is not good.

te prāhuḥ śārikā yatra vivaderan parasparam |
svataḥ pramāṇaṃ kiṃ kiṃ vā pramāṇaṃ parato bhavet ||
phalapradaṃ kiṃ nu karma kimuteśvara ucyatām |
jagatsatyaṃ nu mithyā vetyevamādi kutūhalāt ||^[8]

As per the instructions of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, Śrī Śaṅkara went in search of Maṇḍana Miśra’s house in the city of Mahiṣmati. The people in that city were well versed in philosophy and sastras. On reaching that place Śrī Śaṅkara saw some women bringing water from river, he enquired them where Maṇḍana Miśra’s house was situated. Hearing this they replied, respectfully: ‘You will find nearby a house at whose gate there are a number of parrots in cages, discussing topics like this: ‘Has the Veda self validity or does it depend in some external authority for its validity? Are Karmas capable of yielding their fruits directly, or do they require the intervention of God to do so? Is the world eternal, or is it a mere appearance?’ Where you find the strange phenomenon of caged parrots discussing such abstruse philosophical problems, know that to be the gate of Maṇḍana’s house.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

satyaṃ jñānaṃ, anantaṃ, brahma, Vide Upanishadbrahmayogini, Daśopaniṣads (Vol.2 part I), Madras: Adayar Library and Research centre, 1996, Taittariyopaniṣad, 2.

[2]:

Mādhava Vidyāraṇya, Śrīmad Śaṅkara Digvijaya, (text in Sanskrit with Tamil Translation and Notes), Ed., Paṇḍit N.S Ananadakrishna Sastri, Palakkad: Samkara Publishing house,1956,VIII, 98, 99.

[3]:

Ibid.,

[4]:

Upanishadbrahmayogini, Daśopaniṣads (Vol.2 part I), Madras: Adayar Library and Research centre, 1996, Taitiriyopaniṣad, 2.1

[5]:

Lakṣmaṇa Sūrin, Bhagavatpādābhyudaya, VI. 46-48.

[6]:

Ibid., VI. 50

[7]:

Ibid., VI. 40-48

[8]:

Ibid., VI. 2,3