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The Self-Realization and Avidyd

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The Self-Realization and Avidyd 5. The Self-realization and Avidyd The question on what the role of avidyd is for the realization of the identity between Brahman and Atman is the main concern of this chapter. This question, however, seems to be unreasonable, since its realization does not depend on avidyd itself but jndna, though the removal of avidyd is the same as the realization of the Self. So far as the epistemological point of view is concerned, it is true that avidyd cannot have any role to attain the Self-realization, yet from the methodological point of view there is a certain possibility of avidyd being an indispensable expedient for liberation. If the roles of avidyd, which have been discussed in the previous two chapters, are related with the establishment and consistency of the text respectively so that the knowledge of the identity of Brahman and Atman is firmly understood in the textual level, it is in this chapter that its role is further expanded to the boundary between inside and outside the text, where avidyd itself is negated and moksa becomes real. In the first section, The Nature of Moksa, the point of discussion is that moksa is an already established fact, and thus, no special effort is needed except the removal of avidyd. The text that contains the teaching of moksa is therefore bound to be sublated after revealing the knowledge of Brahman that removes avidyd. This is why Sankara makes an emphasis on immediate experience (anubhava or avagati), which is possible only through and after the Upanisads. In order to find out a certain method which leads to liberation, the second section. The Method of Instruction, is devoted to the contention as to which method of instruction is central to Sankara’s philosophy. If the Upanisads are finally false, is it possible that the false means leads to the true result of the Self-realization? Saiikara solves this question by adopting the method of “false ascription and its subsequent negation” {adhydropa- apavdda), which starts from superimposition (adhydsa) and ends in “not this, not this” (neti, neti). Avidyd can at last be removed through that method that is surely operated within its own domain. Therefore, there is a seemingly contradictory procedure from avidyd to the Self-realization (this consists of the third section), since avidyd is said to be the object of negation in the text, and again, the text as the creation of avidyd is useless after the Self-realization. As a result the methodological usage of avidyd is known by the fact that it implies its negation and paves the way for the Self-realization. 1. The Nature of Moksa In Indian Philosophy there is a common presupposition of four aims 177 of human life ipurusdrtha), viz. desire (kdma), prosperity (artha), duty (dharma), and liberation (moksa). Out of these four purusdrtha, Advaitins take moksa to be the highest human goal {paramapurusdrtha), and say in general that it is attainable through knowledge alone. For them moksa, of which an equivalent term is mukti, initially means freedom from karma or samsdra (transmigration), as the word itself has a negative meaning, but it also connotes a certain kind of spiritual freedom.' Moksa is certainly “freedom from” something as well as “freedom to” something, as it is that which is negation of something as well as attainment of something. However, from the point of view of the reality there is neither freedom from something to be given up (heya) nor freedom to something to be achieved {upddeya), for moksa is freedom itself in the sense that the individual self is always Brahman or Atman Itself.^ In this way we will see how Sankara describes moksa with reference to “freedom from”, “freedom to”, and “freedom itself”. The transition from bondage {bandha or bandhana) to liberation in Sankara’s Advaita Vedanta is thoroughly based on his epistemological and ontological doctrines. Bondage cannot be real because it is a superimposed idea of individuality on the real Self, and therefore, it has to be a creation of ignorance. Sankara says: ••• for on that view alone bondage is a creation of ignorance, so that the achievement of liberation through knowledge becomes justifiable. If on the other hand, it is understood that ‘Cf. Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, pp. 103- 104. ^Cf. Chandradhar Sharma, The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy, p. J93. 178 the individual soul is under bondage in a real sense, and that it is a certain state of the supreme Self on the analogy of the snake and its coil, or a part of that Self on the analogy of the light and its source, then since a bondage that is real cannot be removed, the scripture speaking of liberation will become useless. And it is not a fact that the Upanisads declare both difference and non-difference as equally valid in the present case; on the contrary the Upanisads declare non-difference alone as the view to be established •••.’ For the consistency of the Upanisads {moksasdstra) which teach only non-difference, bondage should be regarded as unreal and a creation of avidyd. If bondage is real by the presumption that the scripture teaches difference too, then its removal through knowledge becomes an impossible task. If the reality is both difference and non-difference, there is no sublation of the false knowledge by true one. Sankara says: Besides, from this point of view (that both difference and non­ difference are true) the attainment of liberation through knowledge cannot be justified, since (in this view) no such false ignorance is admitted as a cause of the transmigratory state that can be removed by right knowledge. For if both difference and non-difference be true, how can it be asserted that the knowledge of unity will falsify the knowledge of multiplicity?"^ ^BSB 3.2.29, p.368, lines 19-23; Gambhira, p. 632: tathahyaviclyakrtalvdd- bandhasya vidyaya inoksa upapadyate. yadi punah parcimarthata eva haddhah kascidatmahikundalanyayena parasyatmanah samsthanabhiitah prokeisasrayanydyena caikadesabhuto’bhyupagamyeta tatah pdramarthikasya bandhasya tiraskartmn- asakyatvdnmoksasdstravaiyarthyam prasajyeta, net cdtrobhdvapi bheddbhedau iruti- stHlyeivadvyapadisati. abhedameva hi pratipddyatvena nirdisati, ‘*BSB 2.1.14, p. 198, lines 9-11; Gambhira. p. 329: na cdsmindarsane jndndn- rnoksa ityupapadyate, samyagjfidndpanodyasya kasyacinmithydjfidnasya sctnisdra- kdranatvendnabhyupagamdt. ubhayasatyatdydm hi kathamekatvajildnena ndndtvajnd- namapanudyata ityucyate. 179 In order to make liberation possible, the unity of Brahman alone has to be accepted as the metaphysical truth, and the opposite, i.e. the manifoldness of the world should be rejected. The attainment of liberation becomes actuality only through knowledge of that unity by removing knowledge of that manifoldness, which is conjured up by false ignorance, a cause of the transmigratory state. The non-difference and difference are the subject-matters of knowledge and ignorance respectively, and liberation and bondage are the effects of knowledge and ignorance respectively.^ Therefore, it can be said that Sankara’s distinction of liberation and bondage is the result of the division of knowledge and ignorance; in other words, liberation and bondage are dependent on the epistemological status on the ontological reality. Bondage, according to Sankara, consists in the false knowledge on the Self that does not undergo the transmigratory state (samsdra). It is associated with all the products of avidyd, viz. desires, or action, its factors, and result, or means and ends, or sense and sense-objects, etc., and consequently, its root cause is nothing but avidyd. So far as the empirical point of view is concerned, the individual soul who is governed by ignorance cannot avoid the transmigratory state which is beyond doubt beginningless {anddi).^ However, it may be asked how the beginningless transmigratory state is created by the natural (naisargika) ignorance, and where the position of the individual soul between them is. Sankara himself explains the logical background of the beginningless ^Cf. BrB 4.3.34, p. 633, lines 17-18; te caite moksabandhane sahetuke sapra- paiice nirdiste vidydvidyakarye "Cf. Chapter 2, fn. 69. 180 transmigratory state; And it is logical for the transmigratory existence to have no beginning; for had it emerged capriciously all of a sudden, then there would have been the predicament of freed souls also being reborn here, as also the contingency of results accruing from non-existing causes, for the differences in happiness and misery would have no logical explanation.’ If the transmigratory state has beginning, then a freed soul may have a possibility to be reborn again, and there is no proper explanation of inequality of souls. Neither God nor avidyd alone is the direct cause of inequality, and accordingly, avidyd in accordance with the fruits of past works has to be the creator of inequality. Again, if the transmigratory state is not beginningless, it should be explained how action (karma) takes place without body (sarira), and how body is created without previous action. In order to avoid this fallacy of mutual dependence Q {itaretardsrayatvaprasahga) between action and the subject of action, i.e. the body, the transmigratory state must be beginningless like the simile of the seed and the sprout.^ Thus that the transmigratory state is beginningless implies the fact that the individual soul (Jiva) is also beginningless. It should also be noted that the transmigration has no beginning only in the empirical level, as Sankara makes an emphasis on ’BSB 2.1.36, p. 218, lines 21-23; Gambhira, pp. 364-365: upapadyote ca samsarasydnaditvam. adimattve hi samsarasydkasmddudbhutermuktdnamapi pitnah samsarodbhutiprasangah, akrtabhyagamaprasangasca, sukhaduhkhddivaisamyasya nirnimittatvdt. *The same logical fallacy between embodiedness and action (merit, or demerit) is indicated by Sankara in BSB 1.1.4, p. 22, lines 4-6. ®Cf. BSB 2.1.36, p. 219, lines 2-3: andditve tu bijdnkuranydyenopapattenui kasciddoso bhavati. 181 the logically possible explanation about it like the above passages.
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