KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 1 KARMA AND TELEOLOGY A problem and its solutions in Indian philosophy by Johannes Bronkhorst Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. 2000. (Studia Philologica, Monograph Series, XV.) KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 2 Table of contents Preface iii §1. Introduction 1 §2. Teleology 5 §3. Såµkhya 11 §4. Vaiße∑ika and Nyåya psychology 17 §5. Såµkhya and Yoga psychology 23 §6. Nyåya and Vaiße∑ika on liberation 31 §7. Nyåya and Vaiße∑ika on karmic retribution 33 §8. Critical reflections on the role of a creator God 49 §9. Såµkhya and Yoga on karmic retribution 55 §10. Vasubandhu 67 §11. Early Yogåcåra 77 §12. The Mok∑opåya-Íåstra 95 §13. M¥måµså 99 §14. Jainism 119 §15. Conclusion 121 References 123 Abbreviations 133 Passages referred to 137 KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 3 Preface The present volume continues my efforts to understand aspects of Indian philosophy by identifying the problems which confronted the thinkers concerned. In the book Langage et réalité (see "References" at the end of this book) I studied the consequences which the belief in the close relationship between language and reality had for the doctrinal development of Indian philosophy. The present volume concentrates on the consequences of the belief in karma and rebirth. This study cannot and does not claim to be exhaustive. Many questions have not been addressed and others have only been dealt with superficially. Some of the results, however, seem sufficiently interesting to justify publication of the limited material so far collected. It may be of use to those who wish to undertake the more ambitious task of writing a history of Indian philosophy. I have had the privilege of discussing some of the ideas contained in this book in lectures given at the International Institute for Buddhist Studies in Tokyo in November 1997, at the Università di Roma "La Sapienza" in Rome in April 1998, and at the Centre for Advanced Study of Sanskrit of the University of Pune in December 1998 and January 1999. I have also used this material in a course at the University of Lausanne. I would like to thank all those colleagues and students whose critical questions and reactions have allowed me to make improvements. Whatever errors and misjudgements remain are my responsibility. J.B. KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 1 §1. Introduction Robert P. Goldman observed a number of years ago (1985: 418-19): "Although many people in India may generally accept the notion of karma as an impersonal force or mechanism, an understanding of how this mechanism ‘works’, how karmic accounts are kept, how the actual fruition of past deeds actually takes physical form, is something that sensible folk have left to the ingenuity of that country's plethora of metaphysical philosophers and theolo- gians. For the vast mass of people speculations and ‘authoritative’ pronouncements on the workings of karma are uninteresting, unappealing, and in any case incomprehensible. They have, as popular literature such as the epics demonstrate, shown more interest in formulations in which the fruition of past deeds is clearly shown to be the result of the supervision and even intervention of some supernaturally empowered being, a god or a powerful ascetic." India's philosophers, for better or for worse, were not in a position to opt out of the difficulties avoided by "the vast mass of people". The present study will explore how they dealt with these, and how the "problem of karma" influenced their philosophies. The question of the impact of the doctrine of karma on Indian philosophy has not yet received the attention it deserves. The central problem that will engage our attention has been well formulated by Bruce R. Reichenbach, but his treatment of it remains incomplete, and historically unsatisfactory. Let me first cite his formulation of the problem:1 "According to the law of karma, our actions have consequences which affect not only our dispositions and tendencies (saµskåras), but also the non-dispositional aspects of our being (for example, our genetic make- up, our physical characteristics, our social status at birth, our length of life) and our environment. The environment is affected in such a way that in some future life it will be instrumental in rewarding or punishing us according to the merit or demerit resulting from our acts. ... How, it might be wondered, can the acts we performed in some past life affect the present material and physical conditions of our environment or other agents? With the exception of certain theistic systems, ... karma is held to operate in a naturalistic fashion. That is, prior events effect subsequent [2] events without the intervention of any supernatural agent. But if karma operates naturally, is it reasonable to believe that there is any causal link between the original cause ... and the ... effects we experience in a subsequent life? What causal chain can be established between a person's doing good actions in a previous life and the fact that the person has the pleasure of owning a Cadillac, recovered from an attack of influenza, or had a tree blown down by the windstorm miss his house?" 1 Reichenbach, 1990: 79. KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 2 These questions are legitimate and important. And indeed, given the rationalistic tendency of Indian philosophy in the classical period,2 we may assume that the Indian thinkers were aware of them, and looked for answers. However, Reichenbach appears to think they didn't (p. 80): "Strange as it may seem, the precise connection between our actions and the events which bring us happiness and unhappiness in subsequent lives is rarely dealt with in the literature of the traditions which invoke the law of karma, Jainism being the exception." Paul Griffiths criticizes the position, which he attributes to (some) Buddhist philosophers, and more in particular to Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakoßa Bhå∑ya, and which he formulates in the following manner:3 "The material universe (i.e. everything that is not sentient) has as necessary and sufficient condition for both its existence and its nature the volitional actions of sentient beings." Griffiths considers this aspect of the karma doctrine as empirically falsified, and therefore false. It is not our concern at present to express agree- ment or disagreement with Griffiths' conclusion. We are interested to know whether the thinkers of classical India were aware of the difficulties accompanying this position, and whether they made any effort to solve them. The basis of Griffiths' criticism is that "a necessary condition for the truth of any conceptual system is that it be rational".4 Many thinkers of classical India would agree with this. Did they apply their rationalistic approach to solve the difficulties? Did they explain the mechanism by which deeds are related to their results? Wilhelm Halbfass addresses the question of the mechanism of karmic retribution in his book Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian thought (1991: 299-300): [3] "Karma is supposed to be personal, i.e., attached to one individual being or life-process. But how can this be isolated from the shared and public world in which living beings coexist? How do one's own experiences, together with their external conditions, interfere with the bhoga of others? Does one's own personal and private karma contribute to the formation of a public and common reality, so that an appropriate share of pleasure or pain may be derived from it? How literally can the rule that nothing undeserved, that is, not resulting from or corresponding to karma, ought to be experienced ..., be taken in a shared natural and social world? To what extent is this entire world itself, this stage for karmic performances and their results, a product of karma? Is the world essentially a karmic show, a projection of retributional causality? What is the reality of objects apart from their capability to provide karmically relevant experiences ...? 2 Cp. Bronkhorst, 1999; 2001a. 3 Griffiths, 1982: 281; 1984: 481. 4 Griffiths, 1982: 278. KARMA AND TELEOLOGY 3 Again, we find a variety of answers or implicit assumptions relating to these questions. Karma ... has clearly cosmogonic implications in some Buddhist schools; at least, the possibility receives serious attention. Ía∫kara, among others, suggests that acts, primarily those affiliated with the Veda, produce and uphold the reality and structure of the empirical world. On the other hand, most systems credit the world with an independent reality and certain regularities of its own. Among these, the Vaiße∑ika provides the example of a system which is committed to the description and explanation of the world, including natural, ‘physical’ phenomena and processes, and to a comprehensive classification of its basic components. What is the place of karma in such a system? How does karmic causality function in this context? How does it relate to, and interact with, what is going on in the ‘natural world’?" Halbfass' answer for Vaiße∑ika can be found on p. 315: "Ad®∑†a, which may primarily have been a gap-filler in the causal explication of the universe, subsequently offered itself as a channel for a much more decidedly dharmic and soteriological reinterpretation of the Vaiße∑ika theory of the universe. At the same time, this theory of the universe and of the categories of reality was presented as a framework and basis for explicating in a theoretically coherent manner the status and functions of retributive causality, to account for karma in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics and categoriology. Insofar as ad®∑†a is pre- sented as a potentially all-pervasive factor in the universe, in particular as the moving force of its periodic regenerations, a karmic framework has been provided for the functioning of "natural" causality; on the other hand, dharma/adharma, or what is called karma in most of the other systems, has found its theoretical accommodation in a context that remains primarily that of a philosophy of nature and a doctrine of categories." More will be said about the mechanism of karmic retribution as conceived of in Vaiße∑ika in § 7 below.