This is the science underlying technological principles and processes in the domain of traditional art and architecture of Vaastu Shāstras. This ancient science of India is designated by the author of this article (Sthapati) as Mayonic science and technology, not only to make it distinct from the contemporary material sciences, but to restore and revalidate the unique spiritual science of a great scientist and technologist called Mayan, who lived in the land, south of the present Kanyakumari, known today as Kumari Continent. This land mass was called நாவலந்தீவு Jambudweepam, during Sangam days. (10,000 BC and beyond).”
The grids with which we design based on Vaastu principles range from 1×1 module to 32×32 modules. An atom can have so many bonds. Of these, we attach greater importance to the “Manduka Pada Vaastu Purusha Mandala” 8×8 modular lattice and the “Paramasaayika Pada Vaastu Purusha Mandala” 9×9 modular lattice, which are commonly used in temples or residences. These base grids can also be selected for a variety of other designs to be used in accordance with the design requirements, a system that is permitted in Vaastu Science to achieve a functionally sound design. Such modifications are not random: following a rhythmic contraction or expansion, they develop in an orderly manner.
At the residence, three types of grids can be used mainly: 7×7, 9×9, 11×11. The shapes are: Form “I” (DANDAKA), Form “L” (LAANGALA – two of Form “I”), Form “U” (MOULIKA – three of Form “I”) and Form “O”, or a square with a blank center (CHATURMUKHA – from four “I” forms). Also seven forms of “I” (SARVATOBHADRA) or ten forms of “I” (VARDHAMANA) …
The DANDAKA “I” form is also very common and well-known here: the front room, the back room and the kitchen in the middle “in which the fire – the heart of the spirit of the building – never goes out”.
Vaastu Purusha Mandala includes a DANDAKA HOUSE in 3 out of 9, which is why BRAHMASTAN is not (only) in the house but in front of it. That is why (for the sake of cleanliness) the restroom behind the house used to be – outside the Mandala.
This DANDAKA-shaped HOUSE thus consists of 3 cubes of the same size, with separate functions placed next to each other, while the cellar below the middle cube (kitchen) and the attic above it physically form a CROSS (of 5 cubes). If we add this cross to a complete cube, i.e. add 4 corners, we get 9 parts.
The process of creation in 2 dimensions is a cross that is given by the Brahma and Soma Sutras – the Divine Threads or Stems.
(The first letter of Runic writing, as far as I know, is “S”, its form is “I”.)
Source: Rediscovering the Hindu Temple: The Sacred Architecture and Urbanism of India
Source: Vastu-Vaastu
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Key Sources of Research
“Application of Vastupurasamandala in the Indian Temple Architecture: An Analysis of the Nagara Temple Plans of Himachal Pradesh.” (1990).
Thakur, Laxman S..
“Use of Vastu Purush Mandala in Architectural Education.”
Naik, Aniruddha.
INTERANTIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT (2022): n. pag.
“Basic Concepts of Mandala.” (2000).
Shakya, Mila.
“Indian Architectural Theory and Practice: Contemporary Uses of Vastu Vidya.” (1999).
This paper is an attempt to reconsider our current understanding of the role accorded to the mandala within traditional Indian architecture. It is generally held that the mandala-in particular the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala, the mandala associated with vāstu (inhabited or built site)-has played a determining role in the genesis of architectural form in India. Within more popular, and less circumspect, writings, this influence is held to be directly formal; the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala is traditionally drawn within a square grid, and any sign of an orthogonal planning or a grid-like layout is taken to be a sign that the form in question was based upon the mandala. In investigating the foundations of such a belief, this paper reviews two bodies of literature. The first is modern art-historical scholarship, an examination of which shows that the idea of a morphogenetic mandala emerged only recently, and that it was not so much culled from the traditional writing as constructed afresh by art historians such as Kramrisch. The other body of literature examined is that of the traditional writings on architecture, many of which are cited as key sources of evidence for this idea. Here it is argued that there is almost no direct evidence for the use of mandalas in laying out complexes or designing buildings, and that such ideas of the use of mandalas rest on several assumptions that must themselves be questioned.
Revisiting the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala in Hindu Temples, and Its Meanings
Kim, Young Jae (Architectural History and Theory University of Pennsylvania)
Received : 2014.01.13
Accepted : 2014.06.10
Published : 2014.06.30
Architectural research
Volume 16 Issue 2 / Pages.45-56 / 2014 / 1229-6163(pISSN) / 2383-5575(eISSN) Architectural Institute of Korea (대한건축학회)
“Evolution, Transformation, and Representation in Buddhist Architecture : The Square Shrines of Buddhist Monasteries in Central Asia after the Fourth Century.”
Kim, Young Jae and Dong-soo Han.
Architectural research 13 (2011): 31-43.
“Tradition and Transformation: Continuity and Ingenuity in the Temples of Karnataka.”
Hardy, Adam.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 60 (2001): 180-199.
“PARAMETRIZING INDIAN KARNATA-DRAVIDA TEMPLE USING GEOMETRY.” (2017).
Goud, Srushti.
Evolution, Transformation, and Representation in Buddhist Architecture : The Square Shrines of Buddhist Monasteries in Central Asia after the Fourth Century
Young Jae Kim
Dong-soo Han
Tradition and Transformation: Continuity and Ingenuity in the Temples of Karnataka
Adam Hardy
On the Idea of the Mandala as a Governing Device in Indian Architectural Tradition
Evolution, Transformation, and Representation in Buddhist Architecture : The Square Shrines of Buddhist Monasteries in Central Asia after the Fourth Century
Young Jae Kim Dong-soo Han
Maṇḍala and Practice in Nāgara Architecture in North India
M. Meister G. Bhatt Yashaswini Sharma
Measurement and Proportion in Hindu Temple Architecture
M. Meister
On the Development of a Morphology for a Symbolic Architecture: India
M. Meister
Free Vibrations of Thin Shells with Isogeometric Approach
S. J. Lee
Prasada as Palace: Kutina Origins of the Nagara Temple
M. Meister
Geometry and Measure in Indian Temple Plans: Rectangular Temples
M. Meister
Analysis of Temple Plans: Indor
M. Meister
“The Beginning of Dravidian Temple Architecture in Stone.”
Tartakov, Gary Michael.
Artibus Asiae 42 (1980): 39.
“History and Theory of Design in Traditional Temple Architecture of India.”
Kaur, Jasmeet, Naveena Verma and Tamma Bhanu Chandra Reddy.
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research (2024): n. pag.
“Essay on the Architecture of the Hindús.”
Ráz, Rám.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1834): 145 – 146.
Author Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Editor Michael W. Meister Contributor Michael W. Meister Edition illustrated Publisher Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1995 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Nov 14, 2007 ISBN 0195638050, 9780195638059
The Silpa Prakasa is an important edition to the existing literature on Indian Silpa texts.” (V.S. Agrawala). This early text on Orrisan Temple architecture (Possibly from the 10th cent. A.D.) describes various temple types of Orissa, but especially a tantric temple termed Vimanamalini with its sub-types Padmagarbha and Kamagarbha. The latter could be identified with the 10th cent. Varahi temple at Caurasi near Konarak. The text goes into great detail of the architecture, the iconography and the symbolism of all the parts of the temple. Its unique contribution lies in the description of yantras or symbolic diagrams underlying the architecture as well as sculpture.
The original author was not only a practicing tantrika, but also an expert architect speaking from experience.
The text was first discovered, edited and translated by Alice Boner with the help of Pandit Sadasiva Ratha Sarma of Puri, and published by Brill (Leiden) in 1966. The present edition is a completely revised version and text translation, with new illustrations, on the basis of palmleaf manuscript, with added Indices.
The edition will be extremely valuable for understanding not only the temple construction but the entire symbolism underlying the unique temples of Orissa.
About the Author:
Alice Boner (1889-1981) who first discovered and translated the Silpa Prakasa, was a Swiss artist and an outstanding scholar on Indian art, especially Orissan temple architecture and sculpture. Her important publications include principles of composition of Hindu Sculpture: Cave Temple Period (Leiden 1962) and New Light on the Sun Temple of Konarka (Varanasi 1972).
Sadasiva Ratha Sarma was a traditional priest of Jagannatha temple, Puri, who was well conversant with the art traditions of Orissa and who could decipher the meaning on the text.
Bettina Baumer is a scholar of Sanskrit, Agama/Tantra, Indian aesthetics and temple architecture of Orissa. She has been professor of Religious Studies in Vienna University and at present she is a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Her publications include Vastusutra Upanisad (with Alice Boner and S. R. Sarma), Silparatnakosa (with R.P.Das), editing of Kalatattvakosa, A Lexicon of Fundamental Concepts of Indian Arts (Vols. I, II, III), translations from Sanskrit into German and three books on Kashmir Saivism in German.
Rajendra Prasad Das is a noted historian of Orissa who has been serving in the Archaeological Survey of India, then Professor of History and Principal in various colleges of Orissa. He has co-authored Alice Boner’s book New Light on the Sun Temple of Konarka.
Sadananda Das is a scholar of Sanskrit with a Ph.D. from the University of Pune. He has been teaching Sanskrit in various European Universities (Berne, Lausanne, Heidelberg) and is at present Research Officer at the Alice Boner Institute, Varanasi.
Preface to the Second Edition
Alice Boner’s pioneering translation of the Silpa Prakasa a unique text in the field of Silpasastras has remained almost unknown in India since it was published in Leiden and was not easily accessible to scholars in India. Besides the book has been out of print since almost 20 years. Therefore a revised edition became a necessity especially in the light of an increasing interest in the ancient texts on architecture and sculpture Vastu and Silpasastra.
A complete revision of the text and translation could be undertaken on the basis of only one illustrated manuscript which was in the possession of the Alice Boner institute Varanasi and which was therefore made the basis for the new edition. Since the other two MMS which Alice Boner used were no longer available the variants given from MS 2 in the printed text are noted as variant readings. The printed text had been heavily edited by Pandits who were more concerned with correct Sanskrit than with the technicalities of architecture and therefore it could not be used. The editorial principal followed now was not to change the peculiar style of a Silpasastra by making it conform to Paninian grammar. Only the most necessary corrections were done in the text.
At is has been stated by editors again and again the language of these texts is grammatically defective but by this the meaning is not affected the Silpa Prakasa invariably uses the form etani bhedani among other faulty. As the text itself and alicen Boner in her introduction makes sufficiently clear the author Ramcandra Mahaptra Kalula Bhattaraka was not a Sanskrit Pandit but was himself an architect. This is reflected in the character of the text. Along with a revision of the Sanskrit text coming closer to the original as given in the MS the translation was also completely revised. In spite of many mistakes in the earlier edition Alice Boner’s intuition regarding the correct meaning supported by Pandit Sadasiva Rath Sarma’s traditional knowledge is surprising. In many cases her doubts could be clarified on a careful new reading of the MS.
Thus in spite of a revised version of text and translation the basic understanding of the meaning remains especially with regard to identifying the temple types described with extant temples of Orissa the most outstanding example being the Varahi temple at Caurasi belonging to the Kamagarbha type called Vimanamalini.
The last forty years have seen much new research and publications on the temple architecture and sculpture of Orissa (see Bibliography). In this light the dating of both the tect and the Varahi temple at Caurasi could be established with greater precision. Both on historical as well as stylistic grounds this has resulted in an earlier dating of text and temple. The temple is now dated around the early part of the 10th century.
The question remains whether the author of the Silpa Prakasa was also involved in the building of this temple which he describes in great detail and with evident love. His attachment to this temple (and other of its kind which are not extant now) is also related to the fact of his religious affiliation to the Kaula Sampradaya and to the Tantric forms of the Goddess, Bhattarika as his name itself expresses.
Whatever may be the answer to this question the Silpa Prakasa constitutes an important testimony to the Tantric tradition of Orissa and their architectural and sculptural expressions. Alice Boner in her introduction goes into the importance of Yantras described in the text both in the architectural sense of ground plan and in the sense as symbolic ritual and compositional components of Tantra besides Mantra and Mudra they assume here their proper role as the abstract visual form of the Divine. In the much later text of Orissa Silparatnakosa it has been clearly shown that the Rajarani temple of Bhubanesvar (which is dated about a century later at 1025 A.D) is not only based on a ground plan of the Sriyantra. This text shows that at later as the 17th century this Tantric tradition was alive in Orissa not so much in the construction of temple but in their interpretation and ritual use.
This only confirms the earlier insights of the Silpa Prakasa. But the authority on which the text bases its tradition is the Saudhikagama an encyclopaedic text on both secular and religious architecture which therefore must predate the 10th century. This text has been edited and is in the process of translation and publication. This will show the continuity of the Tantric tradition form at least the 9th to the 17th century in Orissa.
Preface to the First Edition
This Silpa Prakasa is an important addition to the existing literature on Indian Silpa text. Four copies on palm leaf of this work are known two discovered in Orissa and two in Andharadesa as detailed in the introduction. Three were exhibited at the 26th international congress of Orientalists in New Delhi in January 1964. There they were examined by scholars and experts and found to be genuine and there cannot be any doubt about the authenticity of this unique text. This work has a character different from other Sanskrit works on Temple architecture. In that it concentrates on one particular temple type and gives a detailed description of its architecture illustrated is one of copies MS.2 with drawings of the component parts. This illustrated manuscript is particularly valuable because it is unparalleled in the whole range of Sanskrit Silpa Sastra literature found until now. It is the work of a master Architect who shows his professional skill in the detailed description contained in the text.
Miss Alice Boner and Pandita Sadasiva Rath Sarma the discover of three of these texts have fulfilled their obligation of making a critical edition and of preparing an English translation of the text with a detailed introduction and historical notes. A very useful illustrated glossary of technical terms is attached at the end. The two authors are to be felicitated on the labor of lover which they bestowed on this self imposed task.
The author of this text who gives his name a Ramacandra Kaula Bhattaraka was an Orissa architect living in a Tantric village on the banks of the Musali river and enjoying the patronage of one Raja Viravarman of Airavata Mandala. As a follower of the Kaulacara doctrine he worshipped Jagannatha under the name of Daksina Kalika. He frequently mentions the Saudhikagama as the source of his knowledge and his authority. This seems to refer to a Tantric school of temple architecture of which not much is known to day and on which this text gives valuable information.
The Saudhikagama was apparently based on Tantric doctrines and the Silpa Prakasa is entirely imbued with this doctrine. The word Saudha Seems here to be taken in the sense of temple or shrine and the title Saudhika seems to correspond to the title Salata in Saurastra which means a stone worker.
The text begins with an invocation to Visvakarman and Yantrakalika as the presiding deities of all temple building and throughout the text the practice is followed of depositing and consecrating yantras in the foundations and below various parts of the temple as well as under the images of deities. This is a disctinctive characteristic of Tantric traditions. In other Silpa Sastra texts as for Instance in Thakura Pheru’s Vastusastra which in the general plan of topics is very similar to the Silpa Prakasa there is no mention of any Yantra consecrated below the temple. These is mention only of the Sesanaga cakra, which however occurs also in the Silpa Prakasa under the name of Nagabandha. For the construction of temples the author also uses the term Pradadmandana which is the title of Rajasthani Silpa text by Sutradhara Mandana a very appropriate expression still current all over northern Indian to denote the complete operation of planning and building a house or a temple.
A distinctive feature however of the Silpa Prakasa is the method followed in the outlay of the ground plan of temple and Mukhasata starting from the centre of the garbhagrha and growing outwards in geometrical proportions based on units of measurement underlying the garbhagrha. Under the garbhagrha a Yogini Yantra has to be consecrated which also does not occur in other Silpa Sastras.
The Orissa temples have all one characteristic in common in that they are divided into vertical sections running from the base to the top of the Sikhara and are called rathas or pagas. These are separated from one another by deep chases called khandis in Oriya and Visrantishala in Sanskrit which would correspond to what is Rajasthani architecture is called salilantra. In front of the entrance of temple and mukhasala there are invariably round steps called nandavarata which occur also in shrines and stupas of South India and Ceylon and they are called moon stones.
The doorframes of temples have since Gupta and post Gupta times been carved with various bands of decorative friezes. Varaha Mihira in his Brhat Samhita goes into the details of these decorations such as of full vessels of patravalli and of love scenes. He also mentions the figures of pratiharas in the lower quarter of the door jambs all features which actually appear on the doorways of the famous Devagarh and Dahaparbatiya temples. The Silpa Prakasa retains some of the older motifs and adds new ones. At the base of the doorjambs the Pratiharas are now called Dvarapalas and are sometimes conceived as furious or grotesque figures of Pramathas and Ganas the dwarfish sons of Kubera. They are sometimes also represented with tiger or lion faces as those on the temples of Ramacandi and alaka padma in Puri.
In those forms they were called Bhairavas and were supposed to ward off and to frighten away all evil influences from the temple.
In the oldest temples we find also Nagarajas with full water vessels flanking the doorway as auspicious and treasure bringing symbols. Much attention was paid in all brahmanical temples to the decorations of these doorframes, And besides the various vertical bands the horizontal lintel always bore the image of Laksmi as a sign of auspiciousness or of a divinity which had some relationship with the divinity installed in the shrine. The goddess Laksmi which could be a general symbol of auspicious or of a divinity which had some relationship with the divinity installed in the shrine. The goddess Laksmi which could be a general symbol of auspiciousness or the distinctive sign of a visnu temple had its correspondence in the figure of Lalatabimba in Rajasthani temples. In Siva temples there may be Ganesa or the Marriage of Siva and Parvati or Lakulisa on the lintel. The silpa Prakasa mentions two types of Laksmis Gaja Laksmi and Subha Laksmi the former having the cloud elephants above her head and the latter having them as pedestal figures.
The Navagraha stone above the door lintel was not known is Gupta temples such as at Devagarh and Dahaparbatiya but came into use in early medieval temples as testified by the Silpa Prakasa.
Another very important feature of medieval temple architecture especially in Orissa was the Vajramastaka of which the Silpa Prakasa gives a detailed technical. It began to emerge in the later Gupta Period as a round gavaksa window dominated or not by a lion face and was appropriately called grasa or Kirti mukha the latter term being derived from the sun windows or openings of a caitya hall rock excavation. The round window with a lion head on top on the face of cave shrines was gradually conventionalized into a decorative motif applied to the front of temples.
The Silpa Prakasa has given this motif the appropriate name of Vajramastaka. In the Vajra doctrine prevalent then in the Tantric schools, the Vajra denoted diamond-like solidity which could not be fractured even by lightning. This motif was placed on the front of the Sikhara in conspicuous dimensions, but also on the base of-temples and door-jambs in smaller size. This motif variously called vajrãñga or vajramastaka could also be placed on the base or top of pillars.
As many other decorative and symbolic motifs of earliest Indian art have come down to medieval times, putting on a new complexion, the ancient tree-and-woman motif is reappearing here in the gelaba-nari, in which beautiful female figures are entwined with creepers, and the love- couples hanging from the ancient kalpa-vrksas (wish-fulfilling trees) are reappearing here as mithunas and keli-bandhas. The Silpa Prakasa also mentions figures of Rama and Krsna on the door-jambs, which in Gupta art (Deogarh Temple) appear on the temple-base. The rangani flowers mentioned in the Silpa Prakasa correspond to the four-petalled mallika flower on Gupta door-ways and the jalapatra motif of the Silpa Prakasa, where semicircular leaves are superimposed in a vertical band is very similar to the srivrka motif in Gupta art, produced by superimposed palm leaf motifs. While other Silpa Sastras take a bird’s eye view of the architecture of various regions and times, the author of the Silpa Prakasa limits himself strictly to his own time and place, although he fully acknowledges the authority of older scriptures.
The very word kirti, which originally meant a rock-excavation or a caitya-hall, as in the Traikutaka inscription of 493 A.D., is used here in the sense of temple.
The ancient motif of the Salabhanjika carved on the toranas of Buddhist stüpas returns in yet another way on medieval temples. In the Silpa Prakasa the graceful female figures distributed in great profusion on the temple-wall are called Alasa kanyas, in the plural Alasa-bandha or Nari-banadha.
This Alasa kanya motif is a great favourite with the author of the Silpa Prakasa and he recommends its use on numerous places of the vimäna and the mukhasala. He even goes so far as to say, that a temple shorn of this type of decoration will remain without interest and bear no fruit (1.393). He enumerates 16 types of female figures, who bear different names according to their features, poses and emotions.
In other Silpa Sastra texts the lists of such figures are even larger. In the Saurastra tradition, 32 types of what is called there Nataka-stri are given. A few figures only are common in the two lists, although even their names differ. What in the Silpa Prakasa is called Alasi, is Lilavati in Saurastra. What is Darpana in the Silpa Prakasa becomes Vidhicita, and what is Matrmurti becomes Putravallabhi in Saurastra, and Gunthana in the Silpa Prakãa becomes Manohamsa there. In Rãjasthni tradition they are called Preksanikas (derived from Preksana or dramatic show) owing to their often assuming dramatic poses.
After having described the mukhasala of his temple in the first part of this text the author proceeds to describe the vimana in the second part. He first gives a short description of 12 types of temples, which he says are in the tradition of Vivakarman, although their list is evidently confined to the types found in Orissa. Other texts like the recently published text Pancaratra Prasada Prasadhana, compiled by H. Daniel Smith, or the i1pa-Ratnakara compiled by Narmada Sankara Mulajibhai contain far larger lists. One of the temples described in the Silpa Prakasa is particularly noteworthy, because it bears a Buddhist name, and although being a Hindu temple points back to the Buddhist tradition, which prevailed in Orissa down to the 12th Cent. A.D. This temple has a rather peculiar form, since it has secondary spires attached to the central spire, somewhat in the way as they are used in Rajasthan under the name of Srñgas or Urusrngas. The followers of the Saudhikagama call this type of temple the Manjus’ri. Then the Silpa Prakasa proceeds to explain in minute detail all elements of the vitnãna, from the pancakarma to the Jangha, the konaka, the anartha and anuraha and the raha, with all their structural and ornamental elements. In the chapter on the vimana the author also makes a cogent and explicit defence of the amorous sculpture. Its style is pure and attains to philosophical heights while frankly declaring that these motifs are in accordance with Kaulacara rites. These sculpture are said to be based on the Kamakala Yantra which is the secret of the Kaulacaras and is represented as a Siva Lingam surrounded by 16 yonis with the names of 16 Saktis and surrounded by a ring of 8 yogins. This is the most important and most sacred decoration of the vimana’s outer parts. The author makes an interesting distinction between the Keli bandha and the Mithuna bandhas the former ones denoting mere love play while the latter may depict Viracara rites or sexual union.
Another feature upon which the author lays great stress is the lion figure and he says that without lions adorning every place the monument would lose all its significance. Four types of lions are prescribed according to the place where they stand. They Viraja lion standing on his hind legs and turning backwards in what elsewhere is called the simhavalokana attitude is mostly used for the khandis between the pagas. The jagrata or seated lion with a raised paw known elsewhere as ksubhyamna or khumman simha is best on top of the roof. The Udyata or jumping lion called elsewhere Jhampa simha is mostly for the front of the Sikhara and the Gajakranta lion overpowering an elephant called elsewhere Simhakunjara is for the front of the sikhara as well as for the front of portals.
Two types of kalasas are also mentioned the one in the form of a yupa or sacrificial post for Devi temple and the other in the form of a full water vessel for Siva or Visnu temples.
This important treatise on Silpa Sastra ends with glowing tributes to the merit of building temples and says that this is equal to the Rajasuya or to a Sona Sacrifice. It also eulogizes the Silpa Sastras descended from Visvakarman which have kept the torch of the science of Silpa burning through the ages.
Introduction
The Silpa Prakãsa occupies, among Silpa Sastras, a special and unique position. The hitherto known texts on Vastu-vidya, and what parts of the Puranas have been dedicated to this subject, are theoretical treatises, whose authorship is mostly attributed to legendary and mythical personalities of Rsis and gods. They are bigger or smaller compendia of general principles and rules of architecture and all allied arts. They cover a vast number of subjects, a vast number of art-forms spread over the length and breadth of India, and even considerable time-perspectives. On critical analysis they appear to be collective works, built up of successive stratifications, of accretions, elaborations and modifications undergone in the course of many centuries. Since they give elaborate classifications and descriptions of all types of temples, towns, forts, houses, gateways, wells etc., of innumerable types of imagery, with theft ornaments and attributes, they have come down to us as veritable store-houses for the study and preservation of art-forms that have been in use since the most ancient times. They form the broad historical foundation on which it was possible to retrace the development of Indian art and architecture from its very beginnings.
The Silpa Sastra presented in this volume is a different type of work. It does not claim divine authorship, but is avowedly written by a historical person, of whom we learn the name, ancestry, religious profession and residence. Since this person happens to be an architect by profession, speaking about his own work, it gives the book from the very outset a complexion of specialized competence. The author concentrates all his efforts on the elaborate description of one particular type of tãntric temple and on the method of its construction. Whatever descriptions there are of a general character appear only in the margin, as a sort of framework to the central subject of the book. They are set at the beginning only of each one of the two parts, into which the book is divided, and almost give the impression of being mere concessions to the generally accepted procedure of presenting a Silpa Sãstra text. This is especially so in the case of the introductory paragraphs to the second chapter, which have no necessary connection with the avowed subject of the book, and appear more like later accretions, added by some zealous copyist who was eager to improve upon his model. They contain brief accounts of temple-forms, such as the Manjusri, the Mahameru and the Kailasa, which most probably are of a later date than the actual subject of the book. Moreover, these cryptic references to other temple-forms do not show in the least the same degree of competence as the rest of the book and are not everywhere intelligible. The same can be said of the short notes on the various forms of konakas, anarthas, anurahas and rams used on these rekha temples, which therefore remain of rather uncertain identification. Although we have done our best to elicit their meaning, our rendering of these parts, from sloka 3 to 44 and from 106 to 151 of the second Prakasa can in consequence not be considered as anything but tentative.
When in these preliminaries our author, however, touches on tãntric forms of temples, like the Rathayukta, the Vaitala and the Hemakuta represented by tile Parauramevara, the Vaitäl and the Gauri temples of Bhubaneswar, the exposition, although brief, becomes perfectly lucid and clear. Not to speak of the main subject of the book, the two Vadabhi types of temples, the Padmagarbha and the Kamagarbha, which are described very systematically and with minutest care of details.
Apart from these excursions into extraneous subjects, the text is of one single piece, as it would necessarily be, when written by a single person and centering around one single theme. If it is thus more limited in scope than other Silpa texts, it has, on the other hand, the unique distinction of introducing the reader right into the very workshop of an architect, where he will not hear disquisitions f theoreticians, or compilers, but the practical instructions of a professional, of a Master-architect, who is initiating and guiding his disciples and coworkers. He has the privilege of hearing froth the Master’s own lips, how every part of the temple has to be fashioned, its proportions in respect to other parts, and the proportions of all parts with respect to the whole. He is enabled to enter into the very actuality of building operations, being guided systematically from the lay-out of the ground plan and the excavation of the foundations to the elevation of the walls, the Sikhara and the roofing. Over and above all, he has the privilege of receiving, together with the disciples, initiation into a number of secrets, religious and professional, connected with the art of temple-building. The Master, being avowedly a Kaulacara, attaches very great importance to the symbolical yantras that have to be placed and consecrated below every part of the temple. Similarly he insists, that all images of divinities that adorn the temple have to be composed on yantras and have to be visualized by the sculptors according to their dhyanas. Even for merely decorative motifs he gives compositional diagrams.
Thus the Silpa Prakasa has the rare merit of providing practical instruction into the art of temple building on all levels on the religious and ritualistic as well as on the architectural and technical plane. This gives a feeling that with an adequate disposition of mind and heart and the availability of trained workers it would be possible even today to build a temple according to its directions.
The text of the Silpa Prakasa exists as far as we know today in four copies only. There of these were consulted for working out the present translation. The existence of the fourth copy name to our knowledge only recently and therefore could not be included in our studies. It is in the custody of Sri Goswami Arisandha Math, Nimapada.
CONTENTS
Preface to the Second Edition by Bettina Baumer
V-VI
Historical Note to the Dating of the Text by Rajendra Prasad Das
VII
Preface to the First Edition by V.S.Agrawala
IX-XIV
Acknowledgements
XV
List of Figures
XIX
Introduction by Alice Boner
1-41
SILPA PRAKASA: TEXT & TRANSLATION
Detailed Contents of the Text
43-47
First Prakasa
48-191
Second Prakasa
192-381
Notes
383-393
Glossary to Technical Terms
395-425
Bibliography
427-429
Sloka Index
431-450
General Index
451-456
List of Plates
467-471
Plates
Vastusutra: Upanishad – The Essence of Form in Sacred Art
by Alice Boner, Sadasiva Rath Sarma, Bettina Baumer
1 North Indian parallels can probably be found for many of the ideas and customs to be discussed below. It just happens that the author is more familiar with the south and so has drawn most of her material from there. Many of the concepts to be outlined, however, are probably familiar throughout.
2 A belief in the possibility of a complete merger of the devotee with the divine is the ‘monist’ position. The extent to which actual merger is possible, however, is not the question here. Getting as close as possible is what is important. Stated this way, the problem is equally salient for Hindus of ‘dualist’ persuasion.
3 The houses of orthodox Brahmin families, furthermore, often have a great open passage stretching through them from east to west intended to maximize this bene ficial influence. In urban areas where this is not always possible, mirrors are some times used to give the substitute visual impression of such a corridor when none, in fact, exists.
4 The great shrine dedicated to Murugan at Palani, for example.
5 An ascetic will sometimes be buried in a seated position. When this is done his body is seated facing the north.
6 Indeed, temples have ‘horoscopes’ too. The nine planets are always represented at a special square shrine inside the whole. Their varying configurations are said to record their alignment at the time of that particular temple’s construction. (See subscript s., Diagram 9.)
7 I have several examples of this extreme response (some fantacized, some attempt ed) from my field notes.
8 All eating, of course, is done directly with the hand.
9 We would call this ‘clockwise’ movement in English, but in India it is described as ‘keeping the object of respect to the right’, a point clarified for me by Dr Veena Das.
10 Surprisingly, the major agricultural caste of the Coimbatore district (the Kavun tar) is an exception. In their wedding ritual the bride must sit on the groom’s right.
11 The squares simply become multiplied for large designs. However, some drawings ‘represent’ specific things such as temple carts or ritual lamps. Under these circum stances it is permissible to break out of the basic format.
12 This basic ritual form is probably not only pan-Hindu but also pan-Indo- European. Thus, the quincunx was once used as a format for planting a grove of sacred trees in Europe. The same structural form also serves as a cardinal principle of church architecture. A more extended discussion of 4-5 and 8-9 as numbers that delimit the sacred in Hindu art and textual tradition can be found in Bosch (1960: 84-89)
13 Some designs are made by connecting the original dots rather than by encircling them.
14 For example, the popular mantra or sacred verse addressed to him is referred to as ‘the five syllables’ chant. It is: na-ma-ci-vā-ya.
15 When Siva’s five-headed form is visually depicted in sculpture, four of his heads actually face outwards from the neck towards the four cardinal points while the fifth sits on top of the others and looks upwards. In early wall reliefs the upward looking face was shown on top of three others. The final head was imagined to face into the wall and was hence not visible. Interestingly, however, after about the third century A.D. the upward looking face was eliminated and said to be invisible. Thus the famous statue of Siva in the Elephanta Caves is three-headed, but is said to depict the five-headed form (Agrawala 1963: 52).
16 He is also known as Skanda, Karttikeya or Subramāniam. Murugan is an extre mely popular god in the south of India, though not particularly well-known in the north.
17 That is, the wedding ritual of the dominant Kavuntar community.
18 A popular description appears in the Visnu Purāna, where Brahmā is said to have made sheep from his breast, goats from his mouth, cows from his stomach and sides, horses from his feet, etc. (O’Flaherty 1975: 45). But this seems to be a late adoption. Earlier myths describe Brahmā in more abstract terms, as a Universal Soul, while the act of creation is attributed to a more concrete being named Prajāpati or Puruşa. In these earlier texts the idea of a great sacrifice and subsequent dismemberment is quite explicit (Rg Veda,10.90 and Satapatha Brahmana, Vol. III, pp. 303-7). In later periods, however, the creator’s role is more that of transformer, maker or insemi nator. Interestingly, the ritual described here bears its strongest affinity to the earlier forms of this Brahmā-Prajāpati-Puruşa complex.
19 This idea is explicitly endorsed by Eggeling, editor of the English translation of the Satapatha Brahmana(Vol. IV, p. xv),
20 All the necessary details for this ‘reconstruction’ are common knowledge to priests, but the explicit reference to a prone body is my own idea. Support can perhaps be found for this interpretation in Volwashen (1969: 45), where he mentions that something similar existed in Aryan sacrificial ritual. There a human being was represented on the altar by the arrangement of sacrificial vessels. The ‘five faces’ of Siva are also represented in this ritual by sacred vessels.
21 This idea fits well with what Levi-Strauss has argued is the basic purpose of all ritual activity, e.g., to reunite what has become differentiated into a new and unparti tioned whole (Levi-Strauss 1971: 596-611). Although I would be hesitant to agree that all rituals are of this type, the above example certainly seems to suggest that some are.
22 Left-overs have a great significance in Hindu ritual more generally. They are usually food offerings of which god is said to have ‘eaten’ the substance but left-overs are considered sacred and are later eaten by devotees.
23 In English these are usually referred to as ‘lunar mansions’.
24 In theory the god’s own body is divided into parts for this and each part is then personified in a fashion that enables it to render homage to the whole. The simile used is that of a wick being held to an already existing flame so that the flame itself is duplicated (Somasambhupaddhati).
25 More elaborate representations, however, are possible in which there are several rows or ‘layers’ of seats. Interestingly, in architectural, as opposed to strictly ritual tradition, the twenty-seven star groups become augmented to thirty-two. Presumably thirty-two makes a much neater subdivision of the sides of a square (nine on each edge) than does the former number. Volwashen (1969: 45), Kramrisch (1946: 31-32), and the editors of the Silpa Prakāsa (p. xxxiii) all mention the idea that the thirty-two segments of the circumference represent lunar mansions. To understand how twenty- seven can so easily become thirty-two see Diagram 5. Note also that the square con taining Vastu’s folded body, shown earlier, has its border subdivided into thirty-two units.
26 The diagram comes from Somasambhupaddhati, Vol. 2, p. 334, and chart 1. A very similar version is given in the Mrgendrāgama, pp. 126-27, and I also collected a diagram showing the same layout from a local priest.
27 Some Indian sea turtl es indeed do have 27 segments marked along the outer rim of their shells and one variety, the caretta caretta gigas, also has an inner ring marked by twelve subdivisions. The two rings overlap by one segment, that nearest the turtle’s head. Together, these two make a lovely model of the basic astronomical system which of course has 27 lunar mansions and 12 solar houses. Since this parti cular turtle is the biggest variety found in the Indian ocean and is noted for its savage biting (it is called the nai amai or ‘dog turtle’ in Tamil) it may indeed be the original ‘natural model’ on which both the astronomical scheme and the myth were able to build. For a further description of this turtle see Deraniyagala (1939: 164-66),
28 This can be found in many astrological handbooks, for example Anantapati ni Cutta Tirukkanita Pancānkam, 1972, p. 96. I have added the directions of space through discussion with Indian astrologers personally. However, the same informa tion is given in Diehl (1956:61), who cites a Tamil astrological handbook as his source. The figure in the centre is my own. In south Indian tradition the zodiac signs are laid out clockwise. In north Indian and European culture, however, the general tradition seems to be to make them go counterclockwise. Either would be observa tionally correct in the sense that the zodiac belt itself appears to rotate slowly clock wise, or (equivalently) the planets, particularly the sun and moon, appear to displace themselves along this belt gradually, anticlockwise. The European list of body parts comes from MacNeice (1964: 126 and 276). The Indian ones are taken from Tecikar (n.d.: 33).
29 These guardians are mentioned in some of the most important popular religious texts of Tamil Nadu. Commonly they are seen as threatened by demonic forces (acuras) so that the social life of the community becomes endangered (La Legende de Skanda, p. 62, and La Legende des Jeux de Civa, story 28). Sometimes these guardians become associated with Siva’s eight lingams (La Legende des Jeux, story 56). The full list of names is found in the Manaiyāti Cāstiram. A convenient reference in English is Gopinatha Rao (1916, Vol. I, pt. 2: 515). The glosses in brackets are my own, but are common knowledge, except perhaps for Indra’s associations as a solar deity (extensive evidence is provided by Bhattacharji 1970) and for Niruti as earth. I derive the latter idea from Niruti’s association with a hole or low spot on the earth and also with the processes of decay in general.
30 This reversal of the European perspective finds collaboration in another opposi tion common to both, namely the male/female pair. In Indian tradition, as in the European, female qualities are most often associated with the element earth, and male qualities with the wind or ether. But the European view considers the male to be the more ‘active’ of the two, while a Hindu associates the female with the dynamic principle (Sakti), and the male with the idea of unchanging essence (purusa ).
31 The accompanying diagram is taken from Kambar (1969), but the interpretation is my own. Since Kambar does not include the compass directions in his description I have taken the latter from a description of the traditional stage and audience in Boner (1972: 213-14).
32 A good example would be the old sections of the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Here a great and almost square temple is to be found surrounded by square streets pierced by arteries oriented in the four directions. In addition, these main streets forming squares around the Madurai Minaksi temple are named after three impor tant festival months, Cittirai (April-May), Āvani (September-October) and Māci (February-March) during which the great chariots of the sacred shrine are pulled along these routes. Here the city space becomes identified not only with the sacred- ness of the square itself, but also with time and with the festival cycle. A similar description can be found in Volwashen (1969: 46 and 56-57).
33 This is reminiscent of the ‘light in darkness’ theme associated with some festival rituals that bear a link to pregnancy.
34 Examples of the ‘burial alive’ of ascetics can be found in Banninga (1913: 1281) and Srinivas (1952: 87-88).
35 This ceremony, called Kumbavicekam, is too complex to be described here in any detail.
36 The ritual is very common and can be used to bring any image ‘to life’.
37 This particular diagram is copied with minor modifications) from Vamikanathan (1971: 17 and 20). Kramrisch (1946, Vol 1: 266 and 359) and Curtis (1973: 49) describe a similar symbolism,
38 Indeed. in the kumpavicekam ceremony of ‘renewing’ the powers of a divine image (described in the text) one of the final steps is showing the god a reflection of itself in a mirror.
39 A similar theme has been reported from the island of Malaita in the British Solomons (Maranda 1970).
References
Agrawala, Vasudeva S. 1963. The matsya purana, a study. Varanasi : All India Kashiraj Trust.
Malamoud, Charles. 1975. Cuire le mond. Purusārtha: recherches de sciences sociales sur L’Asie du Sud. Paris: Centre de L’Inde et de L’Asie du Sud, pp. 91-136.
Maranda, Pierre and Elli Kongas Maranda . 1970. Le Crane et L’Uterus: Deux Theoremes Nord-Malaitains. J. Pouillon and P. Maranda, eds. Echanges et Communications The Hague: Mouton .
The Mayamata is a Vastusastra, i.e. a treatise on dwelling and as such it deals with all the facets of gods and mens dwellings, from the choice of the site to the iconography of the temple walls. It contains numerous and precise descriptions of villages and towns as well as of the temples, houses, mansions and palaces. It gives indications for the selection of a proper orientation, right dimensions, and of appropriate materials. It intends to be a manual for the architect and a guidebook for the layman. Well-thought of by traditional architects (sthapatis) of South India, the treatise is of great interest at a time when technical traditions, in all fields, are being scrutinized for their possible modern application.
The present bilingual edition prepared by Dr. Bruno Dagens, contains critically edited Sanskrit text, which is an improvement over the earlier edition by the same scholar and published as No.40 of Publications de I’Institute Francais d’Indologie, Pondicherry. The English translation, also published earlier, has now been revised with copious notes. The usefulness of the edition has been further enhanced by adding an analytical table of contents and a comprehensive glossary.
About the Author
Dr. Bruno Dagens (b. 1953) is an eminent Sanskritist and archaeologist. He is a member of the Ecole Francais d’Estreme-Orient. Dr. Dagens taught Sanskrit at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and did archaeological research in Afghanistan and Cambodia. He also worked, since 1977, at the Institute Francais d’Indologie, Pondicherry for quite a few years.
Besides articles and research papers on the Archaeology and Iconography of monuments in Afghanistan and Cambodia, two earlier editions of the Mayamata and one edition of the Saivagamaparibhasamanjari (a compendium of Saiva doctrines and rituals), Dr. Dagens has authored Architecture in the Ajitagama and the Rauravagama (Sitaram Bharatia Institute of Scientific Research, New Delhi, 1984).
Introduction
The body of Sanskrit literature dealing with architecture and iconography is voluminous, even if scattered and insufficiently surveyed and it is matched by a vernacular literature, more scattered and less known. It comprises, first of all, independent works which can be classified under the general heading of “technical treatises” (silpaSastra) or under the more precise one of “treatises on dwelling” (vastuSastra) or “treatises on dwellings” (vastuSastra) The scope of these works, and that of the domain they cover, varies considerably and that goes for the comprehensive treatises as much as for those which confine themselves to limited subjects, such as iconography or astrological points bearing upon the founding and the construction of a house. There are few specialized works of importance in this category even so, architecture and iconography being more often dealt with in various works, whether more or less ambitious encyclopaedias or treatises which concentrate upon areas where architecture and iconography are involved. Some of the main purana or upapurana are to be found in this category (e.g. Matsyapurana, Agnipurana, Visnudbarmottarapurana … ) along with encyclopaedias of royal inspiration (e.g. Manasollasa of Somesvara, Samaranganasutradbara of Bhoja … ) and the Saivite and Vaisnavite agama of various persuasions, as well as the Grbyasutra. the Arthasastra and the Brhatsamhita. These types of works are just those in which the material is most abundant but most scattered; it should be added that a number of small independent treatises are nothing more than extracts from much larger works and, as well, that it is hard to be sure whether the Purvakamikagama has borrowed from the Mayamata the very great number of passages common to both texts or whether the reverse is the case (see below).
That the dispersion is also historical and geographical only complicates the problem still further: the architecture and iconography, as they appear in a given work, are but the reflection of what was in existence during the time of its drafting in the region where that was done; significant in relation to the described forms, this factor is also apparent in the technical vocabulary which is always more or less marked by regional usage, as well as by borrowings from the vernacular. Then, there is the sectarian bias, whether stressed or not and very apparent in the iconography and also, even if to a lesser degree, in complex architectural forms, if not in their elements envisaged separately.” The pretension to universality of many of these texts does nothing to conceal this phenomenon, and whether the regional and sectorian features are more or less emphasized, they are still, usually, obvious. It must also be added that the Indian or, more precisely, the Hindu koine, is so much the fruit of such a mixture of regional and unitarian trends that each author, or school, may legitimately imagine that its day-to-day reality is nothing but an accurate reflection of the whole Indian world.
In that very extensive and widely disseminated range of works, the Mayamata occupies a fairly well defined place. It is a general treatise, a vastusastra, written in Sanskrit but originating from Dravidian India, most probably from the Tamil area; it is part of the Saivite agamic literature without the connection being underlined by any pronounced sectarianism and its drafting must have been done during the Cola period, at the time when the architecture it describes had reached the peak of its maturity. Comprising about 3300 verses and divided into 36 chapters, it is identified as a vastusastra, that is, as a treatise on dwelling, for it defines the vastu as “anywhere where immortals or mortals live” (2.1)’ This definition is followed by specifications which show that the concept of housing is very wide and is divided into four categories: the Earth (considered as original dwelling), buildings, vehicles and seats (which last three are nothing but “vastu” deriving from the first “vastu”,the Earth). Once iconography has been added to this list we have a panorama, brief but inclusive, of the content of the work. Leaving aside here the details of this content which we will analyse further on, we note that the Mayamata is arranged in three large sections: the first (Chapters 1-10) deals with dwelling sites, the first vastu, the second section with buildings (Chapters 11- 30) and the third (Chapters 31-36), with the last two vastu, vehicles and seats, and with iconography (Linga images and their pedestals). In these different sections are found entire chapters or significant passages consecrated to particular topics in the sphere of technique or that of the ritual which sets the pace for the construction: system of measurements and quality of the architects (Chapter 5), orientation and laying-out (Chapters 6-7), offerings to the gods of the site (Chapter 8), foundation deposit (Chapter 12), joinery (Chapter 17), rites for the end of the construction of a temple and for the first entry into a house (Chapters 18 and 28) and renovation work and associated rites (Chapter 35).
The work as a whole is coherent in spite of various interpolations which are sometimes, but not always, indicated by changes in the metres.” These appear quite frequently in chapters describing temples where they often give information on details of decorative motifs which were evidently mentioned, though not described, in the original text; in the same way the description of a pavilion of the siddha type (25.39 sq.) is interrupted by fourteen verses given over to ritual firepits (kunda); this interpolation would seem to have been entailed by the mention of the fact that the siddha pavilion may serve “for all rituals”; sometimes definitions of terms have been added, such as in Chapter 26 where we are given, but quite untimely, precise meanings for vimana, barmya and malika (26.100). These interpolations do not seem to give rise to any great internal discrepancy; it is only to be noted that the mention, in a general chapter on temples, of thirteen, fourteen and sixteen storeyed temple ( 11.19) seems to be the result of an updating of the text which never otherwise describes temples with more than twelve storeys (22.66 sq., see below ).
That the Mayamata belongs to Saivasiddhanta literature is demonstrated by the leading place given to Siva temples, by the chapter given over to the Linga and especially by the speculations on the nature of the Linga which it contains and, lastly, by the pantheon described in Chapter 36 which is essentially that found in saivagamas. This being said, the Mayamata nevertheless does not appear to be a sectarian work; the list of Siva’s Attendants is followed by a list of those of Visnu (Chapter 23) and Chapter 36 includes descriptions of images of Buddha and Jina which are not usual in agamic literature, no more than are mentions of the temples of these two deities such as are found here in the chapters dealing with villages and foundation deposits (9.70 sq. and 12.59 sq.). Ram Raz, who has noted the tolerance shown in the Mayamata (and the Mana- sara ) towards Buddhists and jains, says however that the locations attributed to the cult places of these two sects were close to those suitable for inferior deities or for malignant spirits.This absence of sectarianism is marked in a much more general way by constant references to a very classical society such as is presented in the Dbarmasastras. The society for which arc intended the construction prescribed by the Mayamata is that of the four uarnas and the “others”, who are installed at a distance and who are responsible for polluting tasks such as refuse collection (e.g. 9.95-98). If the society of the Mayamata is that of the Dharmasastras, its political organization is that of the Arthasastra; there too the references to classical India are very evident, as well where they concern the hierarchies of towns and villages, as when they give the method of organizing the defence of a kingdom with forts, and the way in which the royal council chamber is to be arranged (cf. Chapters 9 and 10 and 29.191 sq.).
It may be said, quite definitively, that the aim of the Mayamata is to organize the integration of the external manifestations of siddhanta Saivism in a context which could be qualified as “non-sectarian Hindu”, so as to avoid the term “secular” which is not very appropriate when speaking of traditional India.
Preface
This is our third MAYAMATA and it owes a lot to the former Institute of Indology (now French Institute of Pondicherry) we have retained without any substantial change the Sanskrit text and, after revision and emendation, the material for many of the footnotes, which have been added to the translation. That last, as well as the Introduction, has been borrowed after revision from our second work published in 1985 by the Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Scientific Research; we have tried to clarify it on several points, without however being able to make more than little progress in the interpretation of the ones. From the first published in 1970-1976 by the French passages dealing with timber work (chapters 18 and 25). The drawings of that second edition too have been kept with slight corrections; it should be reminded that they are meant to be no more than tentative sketches. Lastly an Index-glossary and an Analytical table of contents have been prepared.
The helps received since 1964 when the late Professor Jean Filliozat introduced us for the first time to the MAYAMATA, have been too numerous to be acknowledged one by one; exception is to be made however for that brought by Pandit N.R. Bhatt, founder and former Head of the Sanskrit Department at the French Institute of Pondicherry; I owe him more than can be expressed.
Lastly we thank Mrs. Kapila Vatsyayana for having asked us some years ago to prepare that book for the I.G.N.C.A. series, and for having friendly stood for out endless delays.
Foreword
In the series of Kalamulasastra early texts on music, namely, Matralaksanam, Dattilam and Brhaddesi, have been published. The medieval texts on music, specially, the Sri hastamuktavali (No.3 in the series) and the Nartananirnaya (No.17 in the series), bring us upto the 15th and 16th century. In the case of architecture, despite the IGNCA’s endeavour to publish portions of the Brhatsamhita, the Agnipurana and the Visnudharmottara-purana, first this has not been possible. Instead, our scholars wrere able to complete work first on a late but important text, namely, silparatnakosa. We hope that the sections on architecture in the Brhatsamhita, the Agnipurana and the Visnudharmottara-purana which predate the medieval texts, will be published soon, alongwith revised and re-edited texts of Manasollasa and Aparajitaprccha.
The Mayamatam is the fourteenth and fifteenth volumes in the Kalamulasastra series of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
Urban development and city planning was, undoubtedly, known to the Mohenjodaro, but its most outstanding survivals of the historical period are in South India. The layout of Tanjore and later, Madurai has been widely commented upon. Understandably, technical texts, which devote attention to village, city planning, house building and temple construction, should be expected. An outstanding example of a comprehensive text, comprising thirty-six chapters, is the Mayamatam, written sometime between 11th and 12th century. The text is, obviously, a deduction from existing practices and actual structures rather than an abstract theoretical treatise on architecture. Its contents are more systematic than those found in other comprehensive texts, such as, the Manasollasa or the Samaranganasutradhara. The latter two are encyclopaedic in nature but are not tightly structured. In contrast, Mayamatam is more definitive and coherent as it situates itself within the larger saiva tradition and even more particularly, the Saivagama tradition and takes into account actual town and village layouts and temple construction. While it would be debatable whether the text precedes or succeeds the construction of the Brhadisvara with architectural plans, techniques of construction and the modular approach in regard to the number of storeys. The text assumes importance not only for its detailed descriptions of temples, but also for its detailed descriptions of houses for different categories of inhabitants in a village and a city, entrances, exists, ventilations and much else. Equally revealing is the concern with examination of the site, the analysis of the soil, the preparation of the foundations, the materials to be used and the methods of construction. A comparative study of the valuable date in this text, with techniques, which survive with the traditional sthaptis and others, would be the next rewarding journey.
As we have observed elsewhere Vastu and the Agama traditions are complementary and often they overlap. This was evident in the Svayambhuvasutrasamgraha and this interdependence has been highlighted by Prof. Pierre Filliozat in his Introduction. The Mayamatam, likewise, complements material in the Kamikagama specially the section on the Purvakamikagama and the two should be seen together, because while the text on architecture details the techniques of construction, the Agama texts lay down the process by which the material is transubstantiated to a non-material plane.
The text of the Mayamatam also interlinks the IGNCA programmes of studying the area of Tanjore and the Brhadisvara Temple. In a related programme, precise measurements have been taken of the city, new layout plans have been made, the Tmple has been measured precisely and a new set of drawings of ground plans, elevation and sections, is ready. Alongside, a volume on sculpture of the Temple, not understood in isolation but in its aspect of a programmed orchestration of the outer and the inner, the lower and the higher is ready for publication. Inscriptions have been re-assessed from the point of view of their placement and the contents of these inscriptions, specially those that have been deciphered recently, throw a fund of information on the organization of temple architecture activity. Alongside, the temple rituals are being documented. Studies are being carried out in regard to adherence or departures in contemporary practice of these rituals from the Agamas- whether the Kamikagama or the Makutagama. A comparison of the material of Mayamatam and the studies in the Brhadisvara project will, undoubtedly, throw up a new set of issues for further study.
With the publication of a group of monographs relating to the Brhadisvara Temple, including the Isanasivagurudevapaddhati and the Makutagama, the architectural, sculptural, painting and epigraphical volumes, and the volume based on the socio-political and cultural aspects and the history of the period and region, and the Mayamatam the Institute will have, hopefully, provided a new or, certainly, an alternate medel for the study of cultural areas and regions. Here theory and practice-the textual and the oral, the historical and contemporary, the monument, the texts and the living traditions are being investigated as interpenetrative categories.
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is grateful to Dr. Bruno Dagens, Editor and Translator of this edition of the text. A French edition was published by the French Institute of Indology, Pondicherry, in 1970-76 and an English translation of the text from Sitaram Bharatia Institute of Scientific Research was published in 1985. The present edition is a revision of Dr. Bruno Dagen’s critical text published as also a revision of the English translation. He has provided an insightful introduction and an exhaustive glossary of technical terms, which will be an invaluable source of understanding for future scholars. Dr. Bruno Dagens brings to this edition the sensitive understanding of an excavator and an archaeologist. Thus, many complex passages have been edited by him with a view not only of grammatical correctness but also from the point of view of comprehension as statements of architectural construction. The question of homogeneity of this text – whether it was all composed during Cola or the post Cola period is somewhat debatable. Dr. Bruno Dagens concedes that there may be some interpolations. However, the question of interpolations in the Indian textual tradition is itself a complex matter. The text was never considered to be a frozen text. Since at all times the text reflected actual practices, as and when actual practices went through modifications, these changes were reflected in the subsequent texts or incorporated into an already prevalent text. Elsewhere, we have taken up the question “What constitutes the authenticity of a text in the Indian tradition, other than the Vedic text under the category of Sruti?”. The Mayamatam, like many other texts in different disciplines but particularly the arts, is also not a frozen text of a particular fixed date and time, but belongs much more to the stream of evolution and development of distinctive schools of architectural style.
I would like to take this occasion to thank Dr. Bruno Dagens for preparing the present text and thank my colleagues, especially Dr. N.D. Sharma who has assisted in proof-reading of the Sanskrit documents and publications, and Prof. Satkari Mukhopadhyaya, for supervision.
CONTENTS
Vol. I
Foreword
vii
Preface
xi
Table of figures
xv
Analytical table of contents of Mayamata
xvii
Introduction
xxxix
Text and translation of Mayamata (Chapter 1 to 23)
Chapter1:
Summary
3
Maya, auditor of the Lord of the Universe and author of the treatise(1-2). Summary of the treatise (3-11). Envoi: divine origin of the treatise which deals with divine and human dwellings (14).
Chapter2:
Dwelling sites
7
Definitions: -Varieties of dwelling sites(1-3); principal and secondary sites (4-6a); various kinds of dwelling sites (6b-8); the Earth as main site (9). Characteristic of sites intended for Brahmins, kings, vaisys and sudra (10-15). Envoi: the perfect site (20).
Chapter3:
Examination of the site
11
Auspicious characteristics (1-10a). Inauspicious characteristics (10b-19). Envoi: the perfect site (20).
Chapter4:
Taking possession of the site
11
How to take possession of the site: -Dismissing of spirits and others (1-3); ploughing, seeding and grazing (4-8a); offering (8b-10a). New examination is necessary before taking possession of the site (19).
Chapter5:
System of measurements
23
System of measurements: -Definition of the various units(1-6a); when to use them (6-11a); unit for rituals etc. (11b-12). The four technicians: -Names (13-14a); the architect (14b-18a); the sutragrabin (18b-19); the taksaka (20); the vardhaki (21-22a); qualities of technicians (22b-24). -Envoi: such technicians are indispensable (25).
Chapter6:
Orientation
29
Preliminaries: – Choice of date (1-2a); preparation of the ground (2b-3a); making the gnomon (3b-7a). Fixing the cardinal points: -Drawing east-west and north-south lines (7b-13a); values of apacchaya (11b-13). Laying out the building: –Making rope and stakes (14-18); the lines to be drawn: definitions (19-21a); order to be followed in drawing them (21b-24a); drawing the lines for four main building houses (24b-26). The apacchaya (cont.) -Various (27); when to make adjustments (28).
Chapter7:
Diagrams
37
List fo the thirty-two diagrams (1-21). Descriptions: Sakala diagram (22); pecaka diagram (23); pitha diagram(24); mahapitha diagram (25-27); upapitha and other diagrams (28-29). Two two main diagrams (manduka and paramasayin): -Common characteristics (30-33a); names of the gods and their respective places (33b-42); manduka diagram (43-48); the Spirit of the site (49-56); manduka diagram (cont.) (57); Paramasayin diagram (58).
Chapter8:
Offerings
51
Individual offerings (1-15); common offerings (16-20); placing the gods (21-23).
Chapter9:
Villages planning
57
Dimensions of settlements: -System of measurements (cont.): liner (1b-2a) and square (2b-4a) units; dimensions of village settlements (4b-8a); dimensions of towns (8b-10); dimensions of village, kheta, kharvata, forts and cities (10-16a); proportions of villages, kheta, kharvata, forts and cities (10-16a); proportions (16b-18a); the ayadi system (18b-24). Number of Brahmins to be installed in a settlement (25-31). General points: -Choosing a diagram(32-33a); list of village types(33b-34); various kinds of streets (35-39); definition of various kinds of settlements (40). Description of village type: -Dandaka type (41-42); svastika type (43-45); prastara type (46); prakarnaka type (47); nandyavarta type (18-50a); paraga type (50b-51a); padma type (51b-52); sripratisthita and srivatsa types (53-54a). Village planning: -General rules (54b-56); doors and sewage outlets (57-60a); defences (50b-60a); concentric zoning (61b-63); shrines (64-75); layout of centre of village (75b-78); harmony between settlement of shrines (84-85); the body of the Spirit of the Site is not to be harmed (86); arrangement of amenities and dwelling quarters (87-91a); houses: dimensions and types (91b-94); constructions around the village (95-98); errors to be avoided in plainning (99-100). The foundation deposit for villages: -Components (101-122a); location (122b-128). Envoi: Gifts to architect and others and their fruits (129-130).
Chapter10:
Towns
89
Dimensions of towns (1-12) General points: -The surrounding wall: layout and dimensions (13-16a); choice of a diagram and places to be avoided (16b-17a); streets (17b-18). Descriptions of towns and other settlements: -Rajadhanin or the king’s capital (19-26a); khata (26b); kharvata and janasthanakubja (27); pattana or harbour (28b-29a); sibira (29b-30a); senamukha (30b-31a); sthaniya (31b-32a); dronamukha (32b-33a); vidamba and kotmakolaka (33b-34a); nigama (34b-35a); skandhavara and cerika (35b-36a). Fort: -Types (36b-38); qualities to be sought (39-40a); gateways (40b-42a); walls (42b-46a); stores (46b-48a); qualities to be sought (cont. 48b-49a). gods of the fort (49b-51a). Town plans: -General rule regarding the number of streets (51b-54a); dandaka, kartaridandaka, bahudandaka, kalakabandhadandaka, vedibhadra and svastika types of plan (54-61a); bhadraka, bhadramukha, bhadrakalyana, mahabhadra, vastubhadra and subhadra types (62-67a); jayanga, vijaya and sarvatobhadra types (67b-76). Town planning: -Habitation quarters and bazaars (77-87); shrines (88-89a); outside constructions (89-90); specificity o pattana (91b-c); list of various kinds of settlement(92). Envoi: Gifts architect and others and their fruits (93-94).
Chapter11:
The number of storeys and the dimensions
113
Differences regarding the plan of buildings and the number of their storeys(1-3a). Dimensions of buildings according to number of storeys (3b-22a). Destination of buildings according to number of storeys (22b-25). Maximum size to be given to a building (?)(26). Envoi: contents of the chapter (27).
Chapter12:
The foundation deposit
121
General points: -Why a foundation deposit is necessary (1-3a); the foundation pit (3b-8); the casker (9-15a); preliminary rites (15b-22); content of the casket (23-32). Temples foundation deposit: -Deposit for Siva temple (33-46a); deposits for Visnu (46b-48a), for Brahma (48b-51) and for Sanmukha (52-53); deposits for dikpalas and similar Attendants (54-58); for Buddha (59-60), for Jina (61-63), for Durga (64-65a) and for Ksetrapala (65b); deposits for Laksmi, Sarasvati, Kali, the Mothers, Rohini, Parvati, Mohini, etc .(67-70). Deposits for human dwellings: -Deposits for each of the four varna (71-83); deposits for the principal main buildings of catussala (84-87); deposits for various buildings (88-95); general points: deposit is not to be placed when he house mistress is pregnant(95); orientation of deposit (97); formula for foundation (98); deposits for wells etc. (99_100). The first bricks: -Number, nature and dimensions (101-108a); placing the first bricks (108b-111). General points: -Order of operations (112); placing a pillar or a door jamb above the deposit(114).
Chapter13:
The socle
151
Definition and proportions (1-5). Descriptions: -Vedibhadra types (6-8); pratibhadra types (9-14); subhadra types (15-19a). General rules: -Decoration (19b-20); proportions (21-22).
Chapter14:
Tha base
157
Foundation works: -Dry and moist grounds (1-4a); preparing the ground (4b-8). General points: -Regulating course, base and socle (9-11a); definition of base (11b); height of the base (12-16); projection(17-18). Descriptions: -Padabandha base (19-20); uragabandhu base (21-22); pratikrama base (23-24); padmakesara base (25-26); puspapuskala base (27-28); sri bandha base (29-30); mancabandha base (31)srikanta base (32); srenibandha base (33); padmabandha base (34); vaprabandha base(35); kapotabandha base(36a); pratibandha base (36b); kalasa base(37); General points: -Decoration and proportion (38-39); synonyms for ‘base'(40); projection and recess (41-44); rule for interruption of base and stereo bate (45-47).
Chapter15:
Dimensions of pillars and choice of materials
179
Pillars: -General points: -Synonyms for ‘pillar’ (2); dimensions (3-8); various kinds of pillars:pratistambha, nikhatastambha, jhasalastambha (9-11a); rule for pillar diameter (11b-12). -Descrioptions: -Brahmakanta, vinsukanta, indrakanta, saumya, purvasra, rudrakanta and rudracchanda pillars (13-17a); proportion of lotiform base (17b); bhadraka pillar (18-19); sundupada and pindipada pillars (20-22a); ictrakhanda, srikhnda and srivajra pillars (22b-26a); ksepanastambha(26b-27a). General points (cont.): -Pillar assembly, general use of bracket capital, definition of module (27b-29a). -Capitals: -Types of bell-capital (29b-30); pillar upper part arrangement (31); bell capital (32-34a); abacus and other elements (34b-39a); bracket capital: dimensions (39b-42); description (43-47), various types (48-50). -Pilasters projection (51); intercolumniation (52-54); wooden and stone pillars (55-56); placing the reference line (57-58a); how to calculate the height of a building (58b-59a); placing the reference line (cont.)(59b-61a).
Choice of building materials: -Materials to be used (61b) -Characteristics of correct materials: -Trees (62-63); list of trees suitable for pillars (64-67a); stone is not to be used for vais, a and sudra buildings (78-79a); pure, ‘mixed’ and ‘mingled’ building (79b-80). -Search for timber: -Preliminary rites (81-83); ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘neuter’ trees (84-86); cutting the tree(87-92); omens (93-98); squaring, transporting and storing timber (99-102); storing the nails, etc. (103-104a); making a muhurtastambha (104b-108); list of trees not to be used for human dwellings (109-114). -The making of bricks: -Choice of earth (115-116a); mixing earth with water and various saps (116b-118a); dimensions of bricks (118b-119a); drying and baking (119b); testing the bricks (120). -Envoi: why good materials are to be chosen (121).
Chapter16:
Entablature
213
The architrave and its upper fascia: -Three kinds of architrave (1-3); four kinds of arrangement for entablature (4); the upper fascia (5-7a). Various features: -Braces (7b-9a); consoles (9b-10a); lierne and cornice (10b-15); struts (16-18a); decoration of cornice (18b-20a); upper fascia (cont.) (20b-23a); cornice (cont.) (23b-27); frieze: description (28-32a), various kinds (32b-35). The ceiling: -Arrangement of architrave and pillars (41b-42a); orientation of architrave, beams, etc. (42b-44a); arrangement of beams, valika, joists and small joists (44b-45); decoration of entablature and making of ceiling (46-47); height of entablature (48); preparation of coating (49); even and odd measurements (50a); position of the door (50b); rule for arrangement of stereobate (51-53). Latticed windows: -Position and dimensions (54-55a); arrangement of upright and transoms (55b-56a); various types of latticed window (56b-60a); jambs and shutters (60b-61); circular windows(62). Walls: -Three sorts of walls (63); description of latticed and plank walls. Envoi: contents of the chapter and emphasis on rules regarding stereo bate (67).
Chapter17:
Joinery
235
General points: -Definition (1); basic principle (2); varieties of assembly: names(3); how to make an assembly (4-8a); position of pieces to be joined (8b-10a); varieties of assembly (cont.); definitions (10b-15a). Descriptions: -Sarvatobhadra assembly (15b-18); nandyavarta assembly (19-22a); svastibandha assembly (22b-23); vardhamana assembly (24-26a). General rules for successful assemblies (26b-28). Assemblies for pillars and for pillars (29) and horizontal elements (30); assembling the pillars: types of assembly (31-34); general rules (35-37); assembling the horizontal elements: types of assembly (38-34); general rules (35-37); assembling the horizontal elements: types of assembly (38-41); general rules (42-43). tenons and pegs (44-45a). Errors regarding tenons and pillars (45b-46); position on diagrams (47-49); middle regarding tenons and pillars (45b-46); position on diagrams (47-49); middle of pieces (50-51a) and confusion of elements (51b-53a); evil result of an error (53b-54); errors regarding use of old pieces (55-56); assembly of pillars and architrave (57-58a) and assembly above the place of Brahma at the centre of the building (58b-59); error regarding male, female and neuter woods (60); happy fruit of a correct assembly (61). Description of a special assembly(/) (62).
Chapter18:
Making of the roof and completion of the building work
251
Upper levels of elevation: -The attic: -Height (2); projections and recess (3-5a); decorative elements (5b-7a). -The roof: -Different types of roof and their proportions (7b-12a); proportions and names of corresponding types of rafter work (12b-14); roof shapes (15-17). Height of the finial (18-19). -Roof timber work: -Number of rafters (20); puskara(?) (21-22); dimensions of rafters (23-29); the five categories of rafters (30-31); rafter work of a wagon roof (?) (32-35); timber-work of a pyramid roof (?) (36-37); dimensions of various roof elements (38-45); roofing (46-47a); lierne and other elements (?) (47b-64); roofing (cont.) (65-66a); axis of the finial: dimensions (66b-67) and setting up (68-77); decoration of the porch gable (78-81). -The finial: -Position of final axis (82); height (83-87a) and width (87b-89a) of finial parts; finial support (?) (89b-90); the finial is suitable only for the first three varna (91). Coatings and mortars: -Different kinds (92-98a); preparation of kalka and cikkana (98b-101a); preparing of bandhodaka (101b-103); making a roofing (?) and a gutter (104-108); paintings (109-112a); recipe to make a rock-like mortar (112b-115). -The crowning bricks (116-121a). -Axis of the finial (cont.): materials, shape and dimensions (121b-127a). Consecration ceremony: -Laying in place of the crowning bricks: -Preparatory rites: arrangement of pavilion (127b-133a); placing the bricks and the finial axis in that pavilion (133b-134a); offerings (134b-136a); settling of the architect for the night (136b-138a). Morning rites: dressing of the architect (138b-141a); meditation (141b-142); washing the bricks and the finial axis (143).
-Setting the bricks: climbing up the roof of the building and placing the bricks (144-147a); placing a sacred deposit under the axis of finial (147b-151); hanging a banner and clothing the building (152-154); honoraria for the architect and others (155-156); where to place the deposit in various kinds of building (157-158). -General rules for the completion of the building work (159-169). -Summary of what has been already told in this chapter (163) -Axis of the finial (cont.): suitable woods (164). -Consecration rites: -Choice of a correct time (165); preparatory rites: arrangement of a consecration pavilion (166-170a); placing twenty-five vases and invoking the gods (170b-172); setting of the architect for the night (173-174); arrangement fo a sacrificial pavilion (175-178a); placing the murtikumbha in that pavilion and dressing the temple (178b-181); offerings to the divinities of the site (182-184). -The opening of the eyes (185-188); climbing up again the temple roof and handing banners (189-193a); making the vase of the finial and setting it in place (193b-195); consecration formula (196-198); end of the architect and others (202-206). -General rules for the consecration: -Necessity for the consecration ritual (207-210); the architect officiates in the consecration (211-212); the time for consecration (213-214); placing the vases (215). Envoi: the rules to be followed for success.
Chapter19:
One storeyed temples
307
General features of single storeyed temples: -Dimensions and proportions (1-3a); shapes (3b-4a). General points regarding temples: -The pavilion in front of the shrine (4b-9); synonyms designating buildings (10-12); dimensions of the sanctum (13-15a); proportions of the finial (15b-17); false-dormer windows set in the roof (18-19a); the attic stereo bate (19b); the door (20-22); the gargoyle: position (23-24); description (25-28); alternative position (29). General appearance of single storeyed temples (30-34). General points regarding temples (cont.): Nagara, dravida and vesara categories (35-38); images to be set on temple facades: ground floor (40-43); second floor (44-45a); third floor (45b-46); attic (47-48a). Envoi: decorative elements which may used. (48b-49).
Chpater20:
Two storeyed temples
325
Dimensions and proportions of two storeyed temples (1-5) Descriptions of two storeyed temples: -Svastika type (6-7); vipulasundara type (9b-10a) General points regarding temples: -Aediculae (10b-12a). Description of two storeyed temples (cont.): -Kailasa (12b-13a); parvata (13b-16a); svastibandha (16b-18a); kalyana (18b-19); pancala (20); visnukanta (21); sumangala (22-23); gandhara (24); hastiprstha (25-26); manohara (27a); isvarakanta (27b-28a); urttaharmya (28b-29a) and kuberakanta (29b-30a). Envoi: there are fifteen types of two storeyed temple (30b-31a). General points regading temples (cont.): -Male,female and neuter building (31b-34a).engaged structures (35); arcatures: proportions (36-37) and positions (?) (38-39).
Chapter21:
Three storeyed temples
337
Dimension and proportions of three storeyed temples (1-2a). Description of three storeyed temples: -Svastika type (2b-10); vimalakrti type (11-14); hastiprstha type (15-18a) General points points regarding temples: -The pavilion in front of the shrine: proportions (18b); decorative features (19-20); position of the reference line(21-23a). Descriptions of three storyed temples (cont.): -Hastiprstha type (cont.)(23b-29a). General points regarding temples (cont.): -Arcatures: tambhatorana (29b-33). Descriptions of three storeyed temples (cont.) -Hastiprstha type (cont.) (34-40a); bhadrakostha type (40b-48a); vrttakuta type (48b-49); sumangala type (50-51); gandhara type (52-59); sribhoga type (60). General points regarding temples (cont.): -Aediculae (61-64a); new classification: buildings with and without aisle (64b-65); the sanctum (66); stereobate (67); arcatures (cont); patratorana, makaratorana and citratorana (68b-80a); other decorative elements; kumbhalata (80b-81), stambhakumbhalata (82-83) and vrttasphutita (84-86a); stairs: four types of stairs (86b-90), rule for step (91-92), proportions and location of stairs(93-97). Envoi: arcatures and stairways have been described in this chapter (98); nagara, dravida and vesara temples (99).
Chapter22:
Temples with four or more storeys
363
Four storeyed temples: -Dimensions and proportions (1-2); Descriptions: subhadraka type (3-12); srivisala type (13-14); bhadrakostha type (15-24a); jayavaha type (24b-34a); bhadrakuta type (34b-36). General points regarding temples:-The kapotapanjara (37-42). Descriptions of four storeyed temples (cont.): -Bhadrakuta type (cont.) (43-46a); manohara type (46b-47a); avantika type (47b-48); sukhavaha type (49-54). Five storeyed temples (55-57). Temples with six to eleven storeys (58-66a). Twelve storeyed temples (66b-71a). General points regarding temples (cont.): -Odd and even measurements: proportion of aediculae (71b-73); engaged structures for temples with four storeys or more (74-75); aediculae:proportions (76-78a), arrangement (78b-79a), projection (79b-81), roof shapes (82-85), other kinds of arrangement (86-92a); dimensions are to be in whole numbers of units (92b-93a). Envoi: thus have been described temples (93b-94).
Chapter23:
Enclosures and Attendants’ shrines
387
Enclosure: -Aim of temple enclosure (1); dimensions of the five enclosures: according to even and odd diagrams (2-5) or according to main temple size (6-16); position of reference line (17); enclosure walls: dimensions (18-22) and decoration (23-25); cloister-like gallery (26-31); decoration of wall coping (32a); height of enclosures base (32b-34). Attendants shrines: -General features (35-38);lists of eight (39-40a), twelve (40b-42a), sixteen (42b-45a) and thirty-two (45b-52) Siva’s Attendants; arrangement of Attendants shrines: ccording to odd and even diagrams (53a); according to number of enclosures (53b-54a); according to orientation of main temple (54b-57a); appearance of Attendants shrines. Storeyed galleries: -General features (58b-61a); proportions (61b-69); temple storeyed gallery and dwelling house annexes (70-71a); storeyed galleries and Attendant’s shrines or other features (71b-73). Enclosures arrangement: -Altars (74-81); flag mast (82-83a); various buildings within the enclosures (83b-88a); flag mast 9cont.) (88b-91);other buildings (92-97). Attendants of Visnu: -Lists and arrangement of eight (89-100a); twelve (100b-102), sixteen (103-105a) and thiry-two (105b-106) Visnu’s Attendants. Characteristics of the image of Vrsa: -General proportions (107-110a); detailed proportions (110b-127a); general features (127b-131).
Vol.II
Text and translation of Mayamata (chapter 24 to Appendix)
Chapter24:
Gateway
421
The five gateways: -Dimensions in relation to that of the main temple (1-10); names (11); dimensions and proportions (12-22); dimensions of doors (23-25), based (27-28) and pillars (29-30); position of foundation deposit (31a). General rules: -List of fifteen types (31-34a), number of storeys (34b-35); elevation: proportions for single storeyed (36-38), two storeyed (38b-40), three storeyed (41-43a), four storeyed (43b-46a), five storeyed (46b-49), six storeyed (50-54a) and seven storeyed (54b-59a) gateways; horizontal proportions for single storeyed (59b-60a), two storeyed (60b-63), three storeyed (63-68a), four storeyed (68b-70), five storeyed (71-72a), six storeyed (72b-74a) and seven storeyed (74b-77) gateways; doors and stairways (78-80). The five gateways(cont.): -Shapes (81-84a); dvarsasobha or gateway of first enclosure: srikara type (84b-88), ratikanta type (89-91a) and kantavijaya type (91b-94a);dvarasala or gateway of second enclosure: vijayavisala type (94b-97), visalalaya type (98-100a), and vipratikanta type (100b-103a); dvaraprasada or gateway of third enclosure: srikanta type (103b-106a); srikesa type (106b-110) and kesvisala type (111-113), dvaraharmya or gateway of fourth enclosure: svastika type (114-116), disasvastika type (117-120a) and mardala type (120b-123a); dvaragopura or gateway of fifth enclosure: matrakanda type (123b-126), srivisala type (127-129); caturmukha type (130-134); rule for gutters (135). Envoi: the wide diversity of the five gateways (139-137).
Chapter25:
Pavilions and halls
451
Pavilions: -General rules: -Position (1-3a) and functions (3b-5) of pavilions; names square (6-8a) and rectangular (8b-11a) pavilions; features to be described in this chapter (11b-12); proportions and dimensions: value of intercolumniation (13-16), dimensions of pillars (17-20a), base (20a-21) and socle (22-24); definition of pavilion (25); etymology of the term mandapa (26a); definition of light building (26b-29), canopy (30-34) and malikamandapa (35-36a). Square pavilions: -Meruka type (36b-37a); vijaya type (37b-39a); siddha type (39b-41). The sacrificial pavilion: – Inside arrangement (42); quadrangular (43-44), vulva-form (47), semicircular (48), triangular (49a), circular (49b), hexagonal (50), lotiform (51), octagonal (52), heptagonal (53) and pentagonal (54) firepits; other method to draw firepits (?) (55-56) -Square pavilions (cont.):
Chapter26:
Houses
515
The main buildings: -Number and general features (1-3a); dimensions: width (3b-6a), length (6b-9a) and height (9b-10). Houses with a single main building: General characteristics (11-12a); names (12b-13a); other features (13b-16a); orientation (16b-17). -Orientation (18-20); use and arrangement (21). Houses with a single main building (cont.): -First and second type of dandaka houses (22b-25); arrangement fo doors (26-27); third (28-31a), fourth (31b-32) and fifth (33-35) type of dandaka houses. Proportions of the verandah for houses with one, two or three main buildings (36), Houses with a single main building (cont.): -dandaka houses (cont.) (37); maulika house (38-39a); svastika house (39b-40); caturmukha house (41-43); features common to dandaka and other types (44-46). Houses with two main buildings: -Caturmukha type (47-51a); svastika type (51b-53); dandavaktra type (54-55). Houses with three main buildings. -Merukanta type (56-58); maulibhadra type (59-62); dimensions of houses with three main buildings: -Dimensions (64-66a) and types (66b-67); calculating the length (68-72). Sarvatobhadra houses with four main buildings: -First type (73-85); second type (86-87); third type (88-91); fourth type (92-95a); fifth type (95b-99). Definitions of verandah (?) (101) vardhamana houses with four main buildings: -First type (102-109a); second type (109b-112a); third type (113b-115a); fourth type (115b-118); fifth type (119-133); sixth type (134-137a); seventh type (137b-151). Nandyavarta houses with four main buildings: -Firth type (152-159a); second type (159b-161a); third type (161b-167); fourth type (168-172a); fifth type (172b-177a). Other types of houses with four main buildings. -Svastika houses with four main buildings: Svastika house (177b-185); rucaka house (186-187). General rules for houses with four main buildings (189). Houses with seven and ten main buildings (190-193) General features of houses: -Verandah and porch (194); ‘limitless’ house (195); even and uneven numbers )196a); placing the door (196b); placing the foundation deposit (197-198); auspicious and inauspicious axial door (199). Monasteries (200-202) General features of houses (cont.): -Dimension of houses pillars (203-205); how to build an auspicious house with reference to ayadi (206-211); annexes of houses (212-213); buildings within the house enclosures (214-218); number of enclosures (219-220). (
Chapter27:
Features of houses for the four classes
573
The enclosure: -Dimensions (1-4); plan (5); endclosure wall (6-9); annexes built around the house (10). Rules for laying out: -Houses with main buildings separated or in blocks (11-13), small and large sizes (14-15a); drawing the house diagram (15b-19). The central pavilion: -Dimensions (20-23); the central platform (24-26); characteristics of central pavilion (27-35). Laying out the principal main-building of a catussala: -General rules (36-39a); laying out the sukhalaya for Brahmins (40-41). General proportions for houses (42-44):Laying out the principal main-building of a catussala (cont.): -The sukhalaya (cont.) (45); the annalaya for ksatriya (46-48); the Elements of the upper part of the house (55-57). Proportions for dwelling pavilions (?) (58-59). Foundation deposit: -Position (60-65); the muhurtastambha (66-69). General points: -Doors (70-73a); placing the gods (73b-75a); pillars (75b-80); the verandah (81-83a); the chamber of the master (83b-91). Roofing of the main building (95a) materials (95b-96a); base (96b-99); distribution of appurtenance (100), the heart (101-103); number of finials (?) (104); distributing oappurtenaces (cont.) (105-108) The four types of dwelling: -List (109-110a); disibhadra dwelling (110b-111); garudapaksa dwelling (112a); kayabhara dwelling (112b-120a); tulaniya dwelling (120b-125a). General rules (cont.) -Why to protect the external wall (125b-126); auspicious proportions (127); door proportions (128-129); time for construction (130-131); auspicious door positions (132); placing the master’s apartment and the gynaeceum (133); period for beginning the construction (134).
Chapter28:
First entry into a house
611
When to enter the house (1-2) First rites: -Preparatory ceremony (3-5); putting in place of the vases (5-6); preparing the food for offering (7-9); installing the gods (10-11a); offerings (11b-23); departure of the architect (24-25a); preparing the house (25b-27). The entering in of the master and mistress of the house: They enter (28); the first meal (29-30); the perfect house (31-33); errors to be avoided (34); the entry is to be joyful(35); Offerings in villages, etc.(36)
Chapter29:
Royal palaces
623
Proportions (1-12a). Features of a small palace: -Plan (12b-21); gateways (22-24a); arrangements of buildings (24b-26); the moat (27-29a); arrangement of buildings (cont.)(29b-30a); first enclosure (30b-42); second enclosure (43-55); third enclosure (56-64). The town: -General features (65-69); the town’s wall (70-72a). Palace gateways (72b-78); number of storeys for palaces (79-86). The palace of narendra: -Enclosure walls (87-94), inner arrangement of the palace (95-102); external enclosure (103-107). Saubala palace: -First enclosure (108-111a); second enclosure (111-118a); third enclosure (118b-120); fourth enclosure (121-122a); fifth enclosure (122b-129). Saubala palace: -First enclosure (108-111a); second enclosure (111b-118a); third enclosure (118b-120); fourth enclosure (121-122a); fifth enclosure (122b-129). The adhikaja palace: -Arrangement of buildings (130-157); walls and most (158-161). Different kinds of royal cities (162-167). Miscellaneous palace buildings: -General features (65-69); the town’s wall (70-72a). Palace gateways (72b-78); number of storeys for palaces (79-86). The palace for narendra: -Enclosure walls (87-94); inner arrangement of the palace (95-102); external enclosure (103-107). Saubala palace: -First enclosure (108-111a); second enclosure (111b-118a); third enclosure (118b-120); fourth enclosure (121-122a); fifth enclosure (122b-129). The adhiraja palace: -Arrangement of buildings (130-157); walls and moat (158-161). Different kinds of royal cities (162-167). Miscellaneous palace buildings: -Elephant stable (168-180); the horses stable (181-187); various buildings (188-190); the council chamber, etc. (191-195a); the bath house (195b-200a); the coronation building (200b-205a); ritual weighing place (205b-215); place for gold embryo ceremony (216-225); the guard lodgings (226); underground apartment (227). Envoi: all is to be arranged according to king’s best pleasure (228).
Chapter30:
Doors
681
General features: -Dimensions of doors (2-11a); dimensions of door jambs (11b-12); door leaves (13-32); auspicious and inauspicious characteristics of doors (33-42); positions of doors(43-51). Gateways: -Dimensions of the door(53-55a); single storeyed gateways; srikara, sita and sribhadra types (61b-67); two storeyed gateways: ratikanta, kantavijaya and sumangala types (68-75a); three storeyed gateways: mardala, matrakhanda and sriniketana types (75b-94a); seven storeyed gateways: bhadrakalyana, subhadra and bhadrasundara types (94b-108a): six storeyed gateways (108b-109); five storeyed gateways (110-114); four storeyed gateways (115-116); general rules (117-118); definition of stereobate (119). Envoi: for whom are intended the various kinds of gateways (120-121).
Beds(1-6) and divans(7-10a). Seats -General rules (10b-13a); lion throne (13b-19); stand for worship(20-23). Rules regarding ayadi series (24).
Chapter33:
The Linga
739
General points: -Different kinds of divine representation (1-3); characteristics of stones(4-7); male, female and neuter stones and when to use them(8-12); young, mature and aged stones (12b-16a) pregnant stones (16b-17a); position of the ‘face’ of a stone (17b-19a); searching for stones: time and place (19b-21), preliminary rites (22-28a); quarrying a stone (28b-31a) and taking it to workshop (31b-33); how to proceed when a suitable stone is not found(34-36). Dimensions of Linga: Linga and temple dimensions (37a); place of Linga in the sanctum (37b-40a); dimensions of nagara Linga (40b-43a); dimensions of dravida Linga (43b-45a); dimensions of vesara Linga (45b-48a); dimensions expressed in cubits (48b-53); dimensions of vesara Linga (45b-48a);dimensions expressed in cubits (48b-53); dimensions calculated from those of door and other elements of the temple (54-57); rule regarding ayadi series (58-64). Fashioning the Linga: -Shapes to be given to the block at the start (65-66); the three parts of the Linga(67) and the way to draw them (68-71). Proportions: -Sarvatobhadra, svastika, sivadhika types of Linga (72-79); surarcita, dharalinga, sahasralinga and trairasika type (80-84). Linga installed by Rsi (85-86). Self-generated Linga (87-92a). The cutting of a rounded shape at the top of the Linga (92b-100)? Bringing out the characteristic signs: -Preparing the Linga (101-102); preliminary rites (103-105); drawing the lines (106-109a); bringing out the characteristics of nagara Linga (109b-114a); of dravida Linga (114b-117a); and of vesara Linga (117b-119a); width and depth of lines (119b-127a); general rules (127b-135); shapes of the frenum (136-143). Other types of Linga: -Crystal Linga (144-152); Linga of various material such as earth (153-158a); banalinga (158b-159). Envoi: -Installation of Linga (161); fruits of installing a Linga (162).
Chapter34:
Pedestals
783
General rules: -Materials (2-3); dimensions (4-10); shapes (10-13a); names (13b-15). Descriptions: -Bhadra pedestal (16-17); padma pedestal (18); vajrapadma pedestal (19-20); mahabja pedestal (21-22); srikara pedestal (23-24); pithapadma pedestal (25); mahavajra and saumya pedestals (26-28a); srikamya pedestal (28b-29). Common features (30-43)? Placing the pedestal: -The liners: Brahma stone (44-49) and nandyavarta stones (50). Pedestals for statues (51-56a). Temple, pedestal and image(?): -Dimensions of temples as calculated from those of pedestals (56b-60); dimensions of temples as calculated from those of the images (61-64a). Making of the eight (ingredients)mortar (64b-66). The gods in the shrine: -Number of gods (67); the biggest shrine is that housing the Linga (68); diagram of the sanctum and place of the gods (69-71). Envoi: all attention is to be given in placing divine representation in the sanctum (72); formless and man-made Linga (73); contents of the chapter (74).
Chapter35:
Renovation work
803
-Temple renovation (2b-14); renovation of Linga (15-33a); renovation of pedestal (33b-36); renovation of images (37-40a); general rules (40b-44); renovation of villages, etc.(45-47). Provisional installation: -Why a provisional installation (48); provisional shrine (49-50); provisional Linga (51-53); provisional image (54-55); provisional pedestal (56); materials?(57); how long may last a provisional feature(580. Envoi: rules for renovation have to be followed (59).
Chapter36:
Iconography
821
Brahma(2-7). Visnu’s images: -Visnu (8-12a); Varaha (12b-14a); Trivikrama (14b-15a); Narasimha (15a-24); Anantasayin (25-35a). Mahesvara (35b-43a). The sixteen manifestations of Siva: -The sixteen manifestation of Siva: -List (43b-46a); common features (46b-48); Sukhasanamurti (49-51a); Vaivahamurti (51b-58); Umaskandamurti (59-62a); Vrsarudhamurti (62b-64a); Tripurantakamurti (65-67a); Dancing forms (67b-89a); Candrasekharamurti (80b-81a); Ardhanarisvaramurti (81b-89a); Hariharamurti (90-91); Candesanugrahamurti (92-93); Kamarimurti (94-95a); Kalanasamurti (95b-97); Daksinamurti (98-101); Bhiksatanamurti (102-103); Kankalamurti (104-107a); Mukhalinga (107b-118). Sanmukha (119-121). Ganadhipa (122-126) Surya (127-136a). Lords of the directions: Indra (136b-138); Agni (139-143); Yama (144-149); Nirrtti (149b-150); Varuna (151-152); Vayu (153-154a); Kubera (154b-156); Candra (157-161a); Isana (161b-162a). Other gods and goddesses: -Kama (162b-167a); the two Asvin (167b-170); the eight Vasu (171-173a); the eight Marut (173b-174); the Rudra and the Vidyesvara (175-177); Ksetrapala (178-185); Candesvara (186-188); the twelve Aditya (189-191); the seven sages (192-194a); the seven Rohini (194b-195a); Garuda (195b-198a); Sasta (198b-210). The Mothers: -List (211-212); Virabhadra (213-214a); Brahmani (216-217); Mahesvari (218-219); Kaumari (220-222a); Vaisnavi (222b-224a); Varahi (224b-227a); Indrani (227b-228); Camundi (229-234a); Vinayaka (234b); installation of the Mothers (235-240a); Camundi (cont.) (240b-242); the Mothers Attendants (234-247a). Goddesses: -Laksmi (247b-255); Yaksini (256-257); Katyayani (258-262); Durga (263-264); Sarasvati(265-268a); Jyestha (268b-273); Bhumi (274-275); Parvati (276-278a);Saptamata (279-280). Buddha (281-283). Jina(284-291). General Points: -Proportions of images (293-303); dimensions of portable images (304-309). Guardians of the doors (310-314). Envoi: What has been told in that chapter(315).
Appendix:
Where and when a well is to be established
899
Choice of the place(?)(1-5);choice of the day (6-7); choice of the asterism (8-13); choice of the place(?)(cont.)(14-15).
Bibliography
905
Editions and Manuscripts of Mayamatajj used for the establishment of the Sanskrit text
911
Index-Glossary
913
The Hindu Temple (2 Vols.)
Author Stella Kramrisch Language, Pages English, 557 Pgs. (HB) Upload Date 2023 / 05 / 08 ISBN 9788120802223, 8120802225
This two-volume work explains in detail the religious and spiritual significance of the temple by means of copious references to Sanskrit texts-both sacred and scientific. It depicts the Hindu Temple as not merely a heap of brick, stone or wood but a visible symbol of aspirations of pious men and women, the throbbings of their hearts in religious fervour and their endeavour for the attainment of salvation.
The first four parts of the work are devoted to the philosophy of temple architecture. Part V deals with the origin and development of the temple from the Vedic fire altars to the latest forms. Part VI discusses the pyramidal and curvilinear superstructures in the main varieties of the Sikhara, the Sikhara enmeshed in Gavaksas and the composite Sikhara. Part VII describes the proportional measurements and the rhythmic disposition of the garbha-grha and the vertical section. It discusses the proportions of the Mandapa and the types of temples described in ancient Sanskrit texts like the Brhatsamhita and the Samarangana-sutradhara.
This most comprehensive and authoritative treatise of ancient Indian Temple Architecture will prove of immense help to the students of ancient Indian culture.
About the Author
Stella Kramrisch, the world-renowned specialist in Ancient Indian Art and Architecture, needs no introduction. Her epoch-making works-The Indian Sculpture, The Indian Sculpture in the Boston Museum and The Hindu Temple – have elicited well-merited praise from the galaxy of art critics all over the world.
Stella Kramrisch passed away in 1993.
Preface
An attempt has here been made to set up the Hindu temple conceptually from its foundation to its final. Its structure is rooted in Vedic tradition and primeval modes of building have contributed their shapes. The principles are given in the sacred books of India and the structural rules in the treatises on architecture. They are carried out in the shrines which still and throughout the country and which were built in many varieties and styles over a millennium and a half from the fifth century A.D.
The purpose of the Hindu temple is shown by its form. It is the concrete symbol of Reintegration and coheres with the rhythm of the thought images in its carvings and laid out in its propositions. Their perfection is a celebration of all the rites enacted during the building of the temple from the ground to its pinnacle. Nothing that is seen on the temple is left unsaid in the verbal tradition nor is any of the detail arbitrary or superfluous. Each has a definite place and is part of the whole.
The Hindu Temple is the sum total of architectural rites performed on the basis of its myth. The myth covers the ground and is the plan on which the structure is raised.
Contents
Volume I
Part I.
The Site
1
Tirtha and temple
3
Site and Builder
7
The Stability of the site
12
Purification Insemination and levelling of the site
14
Part II
The Plan
19
Square and Circle Vedic Origins
22
The Square Mandala of the Earth and of the Ecliptic
29
The symbolism of the Square
40
The Enclosure
40
The Ornament of Visvakarman
40
The Remainder
44
The form of Martanda
44
Vastu the Remainder
45
The two main types of the Vastu Diagram
46
A. The Mandala of 64 Squares
46
B. The Mandala of 81 Squares and the Vastupurusa
49
The Organism of the plan
51
The Series of 32 types of Vastumandala
58
Various closed polygons as shapes of the vastumandala
62
Part III
Plan and Supernal Man
65
Agni Prajapati and vastupurusa
68
The Subtle Body of the Purusa and its Pictures
71
The Descent of the Vastupurusa
73
Nature and Name of the Vastupurusa
79
The Gods as constituents of the body of the Vastupurusa
85
Part IV
The Substances of which the temple is built
99
Brick
101
Stone
108
wood
116
Plaster
121
The Germ of the temple
126
Part V
Names and origins of the temple
129
The Names
131
Vimana
131
Prasada
134
Further names of the Temple
137
The Object of building a temple
139
Architectural Origins
145
1. Citi the Altar
145
2. The Dolmen
150
3. The Shed of Initiation and the Tabernacle
156
The Image of the mountain and the cavern
161
A. The Garbhagrha
161
B. The Superposition of Shapes along the vertical axis
166
C. The Form of the vertical axis
175
Part VI
The Superstructure
177
I. The Pyramidal Superstructure
179
I A. The Pyramidal Superstructure formed of slabs
189
I A1. The stepped truck of the pyramid
189
I A2. The Straight Trunk with round-edged slabs
190
I B. The Pyramidal Superstructure is composed of storeys
193
I B1. The Stepped trunk of the pyramid formed of single storeys
193
I B2. The High Temple
194
I B3. The Enclosure of chapels
197
II
The Curvilinear Superstructure
205
The Main Varieties of the Curvilinear Superstructure
210
II A. The Cluster of Sikharas
210
II B. The Sikhara Enmeshed in Gavaksas
214
II C. The composite Sikhara
218
Function and Form of the Superstructure
220
Part VII
Proportionate Measurement and Varieties of the Temple
225
I. Proportionate Measurement of the temple
227
The Rhythmic disposition of the ground plan and of the vertical section
227
The Norms of Proportionate Measurement
237
From the Sixth Century to C. 900 A.D
237
Proportionate Measurement about 1000 A.D.
244
Proportions of the Mandapa
254
The Proportions of South Indian Temples
261
II.Varieties of the Temple and their genesis
271
A. The Twenty Temples
271
B. The five Vimanas and the 45 temples
277
C. the five Vimanas and the 64 Hall temples Nagara Dravida and Vesara
286
Volume II
Part VIII
The Images of the temple
297
Position and proportion of the images of the gods
299
Symbols of Entry and Exit
313
The Door and its images
313
The Window Gavaksa
318
The face of Glory Kirittimukha
322
Images of Sakti
332
Sardula Lion and lioness
332
The female power
338
Symbols of Reintegration
343
The Images of Immanent Breath
343
Mithuna the state of being a couple
346
Amalaka
348
The Temple as Purusa
357
Explanation of plates
363
Appendix
The Hundred and One temples of the Visnudharmottara
411
Vastupurusavidhana of Narada chapters VIII and X
427
Hayasirsapancaratra Chapter XIII
429
Kamikagama Chapter XLIX
431
Sources
437
Index
443
Plates I-LXXX
467
Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Author Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell Language, Pages English Upload Date 2022 / 08 / 17 ISBN 9788120807518, 8120807510
Gandhāra and the formation of the Vedic and Zoroastrian canons.
Witzel, Michael. 2011.
In Proceedings of the International Symposium. The Book. Romania. Europa. Etudes euro- et afro- asiatiques. 490-532. Bucharest: Biblioteca Bucureştilor.
In this broad historical and critical overview based on a lifetime of scholarship, James Alfred Martin, Jr., examines the development of the concepts of beauty and holiness as employed in theories of aesthetics and of religion. The injunction in the Book of Psalms to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” addressed a tradition that has comprehended holiness primarily in terms of ethical righteousness–a conception that has strongly influenced Western understandings of religion. As the author points out, however, the Greek forbears of Western thought, as well as many Eastern traditions, were and are more broadly concerned with the pursuit of beauty, truth, and goodness as ideals of human excellence, that is, with the “holiness of beauty.” In this work Martin describes a philosophical stance that should prove to be most productive for the dialogue between aesthetics and religion.
Beginning with the treatment of beauty and holiness in Hebrew, Greek, and classical Christian thought, the author traces the emergence of modern theories of aesthetics and religion in the Enlightenment. He then outlines the role of aesthetics in the theories of religion proposed by Otto, Eliade, van der Leeuw, and Tillich, in the cultural anthropology of Geertz, and in the thought of Santayana, Dewey, Whitehead, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. In a global context Martin explores the relation of aesthetic theory to religious thought in the traditions of India, China, and Japan and concludes with reflections on the viability of modern aesthetic and religious theory in the light of contemporary cultural and methodological pluralism.
Originally published in 1990.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Universe and Inner Self in Early Indian and Early Greek Thought
ICONOGRAPHICAL STUDY ON THIRUKKANNAPURAM SAURIRAJA PERUMAL TEMPLE
Dr. N. Rameshkumar, Assistant Professor of History, Post Graduate & Research Department of History, Government Arts College (Autonomous), Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu
International Journal of Advanced Research in ISSN: 2278-6236 Management and Social Sciences
Scaffolds and dissections: computational reconstruction of Indic Temples and their architectural production
Datta, Sambit, and David J. Beynon.
“Scaffolds and dissections: computational reconstruction of Indic Temples and their architectural production.” Architectural Theory Review 22, no. 3 (2018): 410-432.
In EAAC 2011: South of East Asia: Re-addressing East Asian Architecture and Urbanism, Proceedings of the East Asian Architectural Culture International Conference. Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2011.
Vastu Purusha Mandala is one secret that contains the essence of the sacred science of Vastu in its entirety.
From time immemorial, this cosmic geometrical wonder has been used to design everything from the yagya vedis (fire altars), temples, entire villages, towns and individual houses.
Every minute detail with regards to every single structure is based on these universal principles of the Vastu Purush Mandala architecture.
When we observe the energy fields that develop at different stages of a building – starting from the stage of a vacant plot to the digging of land to the laying of the foundation to the completion of the building and finally to the point when it is inhabited by the people – we unravel the secrets of the Vastu purusha mandala.
The Vastu Mandala is the omnipresent, omnipotent soul of every building. It is based on the principle that man and Universe are analogous in their structure and spirit. Vastu Purush Mandala is thus a Yantra or an image of the Universe.
The Yajurveda reveals –
यथाब्रह्माण्डेतथापिंडे II यथापिंडेतथाब्रह्माण्डे
II Yatha brahmande tatha pinde , Yatha pinde tatha brahmande II
As is the universe, so is the physical body. As is the physical body, so is the universe
Thus, the Vastu Purush Mandala represents the manifest form of the cosmic being. Whatever is in the universe is within us.
The belief that the earth is a living organism, throbbing with life and energy is fundamental to the Vastu Shastra. The Vastu Purush Mandala symbolizes that living energy.. The site for the construction is his field- the Vastu Purush Mandala.
The ‘Purusha’ here refers to the energy, power, soul or the cosmic man. Mandalais the generic name for any plan or chart which symbolically represents the cosmos.
The Vastu Purush Mandala is the core of every structure. You can use it to design a temple, a house, an office and even when you’re planning the Vastu of a factory or a whole city. It constitutes the geometrical and metaphysical basis for every construction.
The Origin of the Vastu Purusha Mandala
The ancient Vastu text of Vishwakarma Prakash reveals an engaging story about the origin of the Vastu Purusha Mandala .The story is about a fierce war between the Gods (devtas ) and the demons (asuras). In this war, Lord Shiva represented the devtas while Andhaka asur was fighting for the asuras.
During the war, some drops of sweat fell on the earth. From those drops emerged a gigantic being that scared both the devtas and the asuras. The devtas and the asuras together took this being to lord Brahma. Lord Brahma called this giant his manas putra (mind-being) and named him Vastu Purush.
The Vastu Purush was then laid down on the earth prostrate with his head towards the North East and feet to the South West. Some of his parts were inhabited by the devtas while some by the asuras.
Lord Brahma then ordered that whoever reveres the Vastu Purush and perform the Vastu Purush pooja while constructing a temple, palace, house, pond, city etc. will be blessed by the devtas. The ones who don’t would be destroyed by the asuras.
Hidden Secrets in Symbols and the Mandala
The above story is of course symbolic because in the Vedas, deep secrets have been woven into stories. To unlock these secrets, the deeper meaning of these symbols and the Mandala has to be understood.
The Vastu Purush Mandala is not necessarily an actual picture of a giant encased in numerous cells or squares. It is a diagrammatic representation through symbols, of the inter-sections and the energy current flows in the subtle body of a human being.
The Purusha, in the Vastu Mandala chart is a term of reference. It serves as a means to locate several parts, within the whole. The body here indicates a sphere of coordinated activities; and each part corresponds to a particular function.
The devtas represent our consciousness and the asuras our ignorance and fear. The war between consciousness and ignorance still goes on each moment within all of us. It is not just a Puranic story, it’s the reality we live in each moment.
The Vastu Purush represents the constant phenomenon inside each building. The Purusha means that which is stable and contains all possibilities of existence within him.
The Vastu Purusha is the soul of the building. As soon as a building comes into existence, all the devtas and asuras occupy their respective positions. As a result, they create the effects and results that the inhabitants experience through their lives while living in that building.
Decoding the Devtas & Asuras of the Vastu Purush Mandala
This above story is depicted diagrammatically in the Vastu Purush Mandala with specific portions allocated hierarchically to each deity based on their attributes and powers.
The division of the built-up space represents different energy fields. We call this process – the Pada Vinyasa (modular grid). In total there are 45 energy fields that constitute the Vastu Purush Mandala. They are as follows :
Lord Brahma occupies the central portion – the Brahmasthan. This portion is the Brahma Vithi. It is the most sacred part of the building. It contains within it, all the possibilities of creation and existence.
First the Shilanyas (foundation stone laying ceremony) is done and the construction of the foundation walls begins by digging the earth. When they reach the plinth level, the divine energy field called Brahma starts to originate right in the center of the plot.
This field of Brahma – the absolute is responsible for the evolution of everything in the universe. This is why the universe is also termed as Brahmaand (the golden egg of Brahma).
Bhudhar (the power of manifestation)
Aryama (the power of connection)
Vivaswaan (the power of revolution or change)
Mitra (the power of inspiration and action)
As the construction of the building progresses and the raising of the walls is done to a height of about 5-8 feet , the energy field of Brahma starts to expand in 4 directions.
Out of the 12 Adityas mentioned in the Bhagavata Puran , the above 4 occupy the 4 sides of Brahma.
We all know that Lord Brahma has 4 heads. Thus these 4 devtas are symbolic of the 4 heads of Brahma. They are responsible for carrying forward the process of creation initiated by Brahma.
After the raising of the walls ( but the casting of the roof is remaining) , the energy fields start to spread in the four diagonal directions viz. North East, South East, South West and North West.
This flow of energies is akin to a tortoise spreading its legs and extending them out of its body.
In each of these directions, two energy fields start to take shape and form. If we draw a line dividing the North East to South West and from North West to South East, one energy fields develops on either side of this dividing line.
The names of these energies are as follows :
NORTH EAST
Apaha ( generates the energies responsible for healing)
Apahavatsa (carriers the healing powers to the occupants)
SOUTH EAST
Savita (energies that help to initiate any process or action)
Savitur (energies that give capibilities to continue those actions and overcome all challenges)
SOUTH WEST
Indra (energies that establish stability and enhance growth)
Indrajaya (the tools and the channels through which one can achieve growth)
NORTH WEST
Rudra (energies responsible for support and ensure flow of activities and life)
Rajyakshma ( energies which uphold the support and stabilise the mind)
A total of 32 energy fields develop in a concentric pattern in the outer periphery of the Vastu Purusha Mandala.
Once the roof is cast in the building, four energy fields start to develop in each of the diagonal directions. Thus, a total of 16 fields develop in the diagonal directions which are as follows:
NORTH EAST
Aditi (the mother of the devtas, this energy field provides security and helps one connect with himself/herself)
Diti (the mother od the asuras, this energy field gives the powers of a wider vision and to see the actual truth of life)
Shikhi (symbolic of a pointed flame. This field gives the power of ideas and the ability to project one’s thoughts to the world )
Parjanya (the giver of rains, this field has the powers to bless the occupants with fertility and fructification of all their wishes)
SOUTH EAST
Brisha (the power of friction needed to initiate any action , thinking or activity)
Akash ( the energy that provides the space for manifestation)
Anila ( the energy of air or vayu, it helps to uplift the fire or push further the actions initiated)
Pusha ( the energy of nourishment, it blocks the path of enemies)
SOUTH WEST
Bhringraj (the energy which extracts nutrients from the food and removes the waste)
Mrigah (the energy that drives curiosity and imparts skills)
Pitra ( the ancestors provide all means of safety and happiness required for existence)
Dauwarik (the safekeeper, represents lord Nandi, the trusted vehicle of lord Shiva. The energy of being genius and highly knowledgeable)
NORTH WEST
Shosha (the power of detoxification from negative emotions)
Papyakshama (the energy which gives addiction, diseases and the feeling of guilt)
Roga ( the energy which provides support in the hour of need)
Naga ( the energy which gives emotional enjoyments and cravings)
Once the super-structure, i.e. the civil work is done but the installation of services like plumbing, electrical connections etc. has not begun , 16 more energy fields start to develop in the four cardinal directions. These are as follows :
EAST
Jayant (the energy which gives the sense of being victorious, it refreshes the mind and body)
Mahendra ( the power of administration and connectivity )
Surya ( the core controller, this energy fields imparts health , fame and farsightedness)
Satya ( the energy which establishes goodwill, status, authenticity and credibility)
SOUTH
Vitatha ( the energy field of falsehood, pretension and the unreal)
Gurhakshat ( the power which binds the mind and defines its limits)
Yama ( the power of expansion, this energy field binds the world in laws)
Gandharva ( the energy of preservation of health and vitality, this is also the energy which governs all kinds of arts and music)
WEST
Sugreev ( the power which grants the ability to receive all knowledge)
Pushpadant ( the power which grants blessings and fulfils all desires )
Varun ( the lord of the seas, this energy field observes and runs the whole world. It is the granter of immortality)
Asur ( the energy field that releases the mind from temptations and gives depth in spirituality )
NORTH
Mukhya ( the chief architect or lord Vishwakarma, this energy field defines the main purpose of the building and also helps in their manifestation)
Bhallat ( the energy field which grants colossal abundance, it magnifies the efforts and their results )
Soma (the energy field of lord Kuber, the lord of all wealth and money. It ensures a smooth flow of money and opportunities)
Bhujag ( the lord of hidden treasures, this energy field is the preserver of medicines. It safeguards the health of the occupants )
Conclusion
This is how the 45 energy fields develop and progress as per the Vastu Purush Mandala. These Vastu Mandala devtas and asuras manifest and move life and contribute to everything that happens in the lives of the occupants.
“The Vastu Purusha Mandala represents the manifest form of the Cosmic Being; upon which the temple is built and in whom the temple rests. The temple is situated in Him, comes from Him, and is a manifestation of Him. The Vastu Purusha Mandala is both the body of the Cosmic Being and a bodily device by which those who have the requisite knowledge attain the best results in temple building.” – Stella Kramrisch ; The Hindu Temple, Vol. I
We can replace the word temple above with any built up structure like a house, factory, office etc. Every constructed structure is really the manifest form of the cosmic being.
The universal equation of the Vastu Purush Mandala has been in existence for thousands of years and will continue till eternity. It is the fundamental principle which will continue to create and run the whole universe both at the macro and the micro level.
Thus, it is advisable to keep the eternal rules of the Vastu Purush Mandala in mind while designing any structure. This will certainly ensure peace, health and prosperity. For More Vastu Guides visit our website.
A LIVING STRUCTURE: FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE
Naveen Nishant1, Bijay Kumar Das2 1, 2 Department of Architecture and Planning, National Institute of Technology, Patna, India {naveen.ar17@nitp.ac.in, bijay@nitp.ac.in}
JOURNAL OF NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY Volume 25 Issue 04, 2022 ISSN: 1005-3026 https://dbdxxb.cn/
The central area in all mandala is the Brahmasthana. Mandala “circle-circumference” or “completion”, is a concentric diagram having spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism. The space occupied by it varies in different mandala – in Pitha (9) and Upapitha (25) it occupies one square module, in Mahaapitha (16), Ugrapitha (36) and Manduka (64), four square modules and in Sthandila (49) and Paramasaayika (81), nine square modules. The Pitha is an amplified Prithvimandala in which, according to some texts, the central space is occupied by earth. The Sthandila mandala is used in a concentric manner. The most important mandala are the Paramasaayika Mandala of 81 squares and especially the Manduka/ Chandita Mandala of 64 squares. The normal position of the Vastu Purusha (head in the northeast, legs in the southwest) is as depicted in the Paramasaayika Mandala. However, in the Manduka Mandala the Vastu Purusha is depicted with the head facing east and the feet facing west.
An important aspect of the mandala is that when divided into an odd number of squares, or ayugma, its center is constituted by one module or pada and when divided into an even number of squares or yugma, its center is constituted by a point formed by the intersection of the two perpendicular central lines. In spatial terms, the former is sakala or manifest/ morphic and the latter is nishkala or unmanifest/ amorphous. Mandala in siting
The mandala is put to use in site planning and architecture through a process called the Pada Vinyasa. This is a method whereby any site can be divided into grids/ modules or pada. Depending on the position of the gods occupying the various modules, the zoning of the site and disposition of functions in a building are arrived at. Mandala have certain points known as marma which are vital energy spots on which nothing should be built. They are determined by certain proportional relationships of the squares and the diagonals.
A site of any shape can be divided using the Pada Vinyasa. Sites are known by the number of divisions on each side. the types of mandalas with the corresponding names of sites is given below.
Sakala(1 square)corresponds to Eka-pada (single divided site) Pechaka(4 squares) corresponds to Dwi-pada (two divided site) Pitha(9 squares) corresponds to Tri-pada (three divided site) Mahaapitha(16 squares) corresponds to Chatush-pada (four divided site) Upapitha(25 squares) corresponds to Pancha-pada (five divided site) Ugrapitha(36 squares) corresponds to Shashtha-pada (six divided site) Sthandila(49 squares) corresponds to sapta-pada (seven divided site) Manduka/ Chandita(64 square) corresponds to Ashta-pada (eight divided site) Paramasaayika(81 squares) corresponds to Nava-pada (nine divided site) Aasana(100 squares) corresponds to Dasa-pada (ten divided site) Mandala in construction The concept of sakala and nishkala are applied in buildings appropriately.
In temples, the concepts of sakala and nishkala are related to the two aspects of the Hindu idea of worship – Sagunopaasana, the supreme as personal God with attributes and Nirgunopaasana, the supreme as absolute spirit unconditioned by attributes. Correspondingly, the Sakala, complete in itself, is used for shrines of gods with form (sakalamoorthy) and to perform yajna (fire rites). However the Nishkala is used for installation of idols without form- nishkalamoorthy– and for auspicious, pure performances. The amorphous center is considered beneficial to the worshippers, being a source of great energy. This could also be used for settlements. In commercial buildings, only odd numbers of modules are prescribed as the nishkala or amorphous center would cause too high a concentration of energy for human occupants. Even here, the Brahmasthana is left unbuilt with rooms organised around. In accordance with the position occupied by the gods in the mandala, guidelines are given for zoning of site and distribution of rooms in a building. Some of these are: North – treasury Northeast – prayer room East – bathroom Southeast – kitchen South – bedroom Southwest – armoury West – dining room Northwest – cowshed
“Essay on the Architecture of the Hindús.”
Ráz, Rám.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1834): 145 – 146.
The Vastu Purusha Mandala is an essential component of the Vastu Shastra and serves as a theoretical and graphical analysis. It is a foundation for creating designs, like a spiritual layout that considers the movement of astronomical objects and spiritual powers. Purusha is the Sanskrit word for vitality, strength, life, or celestial humanity. It also depicts the earth from all four sides, illustrating the perpendicular link between dawn and dusk.
According to Vaastu Purusha’s design, the quad corners’ depiction is known as the Chaturbhuji, and within this, Prithvi Mandala is also represented.
Additionally, the square plan will reveal the positions of the stars, sun, moon, luminaries, and a human’s exact zodiac symbol based on their birth date and location.
In this blog, we will glance at the intriguing history of the Vaastu Purusha Mandala, which arose from the Vastu shastra. And also provide a brief explanation of some factors of the Vastu Purusha Mandala.
Table of Contents
The Origin of the Vastu Purusha Mandala
The Scientific Concept of Vastu Purusha
Significance of Vastu Purusha Mandala
Vastu Purusha Mandala: Elements, Gods, and Deities
Where should I place Vastu Purusha in the House?
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vastu Purusha Mandala?
Vastu Purusha Mandala is an ancient Indian architectural concept that helps in designing buildings in harmony with nature and cosmic energies. It’s like a blueprint that represents the energy of a place, with a symbolic figure lying down, head in the northeast and feet in the southwest. This figure is believed to influence the energy flow of the building. Architects and builders use this concept to arrange rooms, doors, and other elements in a way that promotes well-being and prosperity for the people living or working in the building.
“Griha Pravesh Vastu Mandala” refers to the Vastu principles followed during housewarming ceremonies, ensuring auspiciousness and harmony in the new home’s energy flow.
The Origin : Vastu Purusha Mandala
It all begins with Brahma, the Planet’s founder, experimenting with several species. Brahma used all his abilities to create an ideal man-made, and that is how Vaastu Purusha was introduced.
Vishwakarma Prakash’s old Vastu manuscript tells a fascinating narrative about Vastu Purusha Mandala’s origins. The plot revolves around a bloody battle between the Gods, devtas, demons, and asuras. In the battle, God Shiva fought for the devtas, and on the other side, Andhaka Asur fought for the asuras.
When the conflict occurred, a few drops of sweat landed on the ground from Lord Shiva’s head. The devtas and asuras were both terrified when a giant entity appeared from that exact spot, namely, Vaastu Purusha, who started claiming to be Lord Shiva’s son and got approval to eat Triloka, because of his insatiable appetite. Additionally, Triloka is a combination of three worlds the land of God (Swargaloka), the middle men’s kingdom (Mrityuloka), and the house of the Asuras and Devtas(Pataloka). Due to this, the gods were terrified when the enormous creature began eating Trilok and turned to Brahma to preserve the Planet. Furthermore, to save Triloka, Lord Brahma sought the assistance of Astha Dikapalakas, the protector of the eight cardinal points and instructed other Devtas and Asuras to kill him with his head to the northeast and feet to the southwest.
The core part of Vastu Purusha was created by Brahma, which consisted of 44 other deities and 45 energy fields. It symbolizes the diverse facets of our lives inhabiting the other components of our body. The chart conveys the message of worshipping Brahma for your overall well being. According to Hinduism, an individual must perform a Vastu Purusha Mandala planning ritual before partaking in a new endeavour for good luck.
The Scientific of Vastu Purusha
Mandala refers to a map or blueprint that reflects the cosmos figuratively. ‘Purusha’ means celestial man, spirit, relationship, strength, or life.
The Vastu Purusha Mandala is the metaphysical plan that encompasses the journey of supernatural forces and heavenly bodies. It is an essential component of Vastu Shastra. Mathematically, it is a diagrammatic representation of the stars and planetary movements.
Importance of the Vastu Purusha Mandala
Vastu Shastra is a theoretical construct because the earth consists of living or non-living organisms. It also holds vibrations and positive and negative energy. Vastu Purusha Mandala represents a human being’s activity, and its origin has been explained above. Besides, every minute, any inherent magnetic and positive energy fields happen due to Vastu Purusha Mandala principles.
It begins with the excavation of a blank area and ends with the construction process with Brahma and the other 44 deities; therefore, 45 in total are called energy fields. Generally, they gradually occupy their assigned positions as the edifice progresses. Vastu design for residences, workplaces, and industries is determined by Mandala.
Vastu Purusha Mandala: Elements, Gods, and Deities
According to Vastu Purusha Mandala, all living beings are composed of a combination of five elements, namely the sky (Akasha), air (Vayu), water (Jal), fire (Agni), and earth (Prithvi), and these elements are also known as Panchabhutas. Moreover, the world’s surface magnetism and energetic zones support the growth of surrounding architecture, which aids in the creation of the most optimal household. Besides, numerous rooms are built to maintain adequate natural light as well as provide a sense of solitude to relatives.
The Vastu Purusha Mandala diagram splits the globe into squares. All of these fair parts are defended by 45 gods, of which some protect you from internal conflicts, while others help protect you from external factors.
The innermost area of the home is run by Brahma. It is claimed by Vastu that this portion is the gem of the house, which maintains all the positive energy of the surrounding area.
The picture depicts the oldest Vastu Purush sculpture, situated in Rameshwara temple, Karnataka.
Vastu Purush Direction
Regardless of the time of day, living beings face various challenges. The ancient Vastu experts represented the eight cardinal angles who split the 24 hours into eight halves. They constructed and aligned different rooms of a home towards the eight cardinal points so that the occupants might receive tranquility from the sun’s rays based on their location. Some of the directions are as follows:
North-East: Brahma Muhurta time varies from 3 am to 6 am, immediately before sunrise, when the sun points towards the apartment’s north-eastern corner. However, these hours are considered beneficial for yoga, meditation, or study. Moreover, the puja or meditation rooms should be located in the northeast corner.
East: When the sun is in the eastern portion of the home from 6 am to 9 am. However, the east direction is an excellent location for a bathroom and a perfect time for bathing.
South-East: The most excellent time to prepare meals is during the day between 9 am and 12 pm. The sun lies in the home’s southeast corner, which is also an ideal location for a kitchen space.
South: The interval between noon and 3 pm is the best time to recover after lunch, also known as Vishranti. The sun is in the south, which is the perfect time to sleep.
West: 6 pm to 9 pm are ideal for dining, resting, or studying. The sun rises in the west, making this the most acceptable spot for a dining room or sitting area.
North-West: The period to sleep is between 9 pm to midnight; The sun is in the northwest corner of the home. This area is also suitable for a spare bedroom.
North: The time from midnight to 3 am; the sun appears in the north, the time of darkness and secrecy. The northern direction is the best place to hide valuables and keep them protected.
Art and Cosmology in India
Subhash Kak
Patanjali Lecture given at Center for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, May 5, 2006
Fractal geometry as the synthesis of Hindu cosmology in Kandariya Mahadev temple, Khajuraho
Iasef Md Rian a, Jin-Ho Park a, Hyung Uk Ahn a, Dongkuk Chang b a Department of Architecture, Inha University, South Korea b Department of Architecture, Chosun University, South Korea
Received 4 May 2006, Revised 21 July 2006, Accepted 15 January 2007, Available online 23 April 2007.
Symbolism in Hindu Temple Architecture and Fractal Geometry – ‘Thought Behind Form’
Tanisha Dutta – PhD Research Scholar, Department of Architecture and Planning, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur, India Vinayak S. Adane – Professor, Department of Architecture and Planning, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur, India
In ancient India, town planning was considered an important aspect of architecture and was influenced by religious and cultural beliefs.
The term is used to indicate the arrangement of various components in such a way that the town as such attains significance of a living organism. The town planning was done in scientific footing even in the ancient times.
Planning of a town is dependent on the various factors:
Soil Type
Climatic Conditions
Topography
Wind Orientation
Orientation to Take Advantage of Sun and Wind
The towns were highly influenced by the Site conditions.
The towns were generally located along the bank of the water body.
A flowing stream was preferred for Sanitary requirements.
The towns on the river edge were OBLONG shape; to take maximum advantage of the river.
Main Street (King/ Raja Marg) were aligned East-West to get roads purified by the Sun’s rays; while the shorter roads were along North – South.
Roads around the village called Mangal Vithi were reserved for priests.
A typical Indian town consisted of the following:
Market
Street
Public Buildings
Residences
Temples
Royal Palace
Recreational Centers
Tank
City Fort
1) Classification of Ancient Town Planning
(BASIS – Shape and Size Of the TOWN)
There are quite a number of books written by ancient authors about town planning in India. Also known as ‘VASTU SHASHTRA’ (TOWN PLANNING SCIENCE)
Dandaka
Sarvathobadra
Nandyavarta
Padmaka
Swastika
Prastara
Karmuka
Chaturmukha
i) Dandaka
Dandaka is a Sanskrit term that refers to a type of town plan shaped like a staff or rod. In ancient Indian town planning, different shapes and designs were used to symbolize different things and to promote specific qualities in the built environment.
The Dandaka town plan was characterized by its straight lines and regularity, which symbolized stability and order. This type of plan was often used in the design of military fortifications and other structures that required a strong and orderly layout. The Dandaka plan was also believed to promote positive energy and to enhance the functionality of the structures it was used in.
Dandaka, Literally means a village that resemble, a staff. Its streets are straight and cross each other at right angles at the center, running west to east, and south to north.
This type of town plan provides for two main entrance gates and is generally adopted for the formation of SMALL TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
Village is Rectangular / Square with street width of street varies from 1-5 danda.
Village office located in the east.
Female deity (Gramadevata) will generally be located outside the village, whereas Male deities in the northern portion.
ii) Sarvathobadra
Sarvatobadra is a Sanskrit term that refers to a type of town plan shaped like an umbrella. In ancient Indian town planning, the umbrella shape symbolized protection and shelter. The Sarvatobadra town plan was characterized by its circular shape and radiating streets, which provided a sense of harmony and balance to the built environment.
This type of plan was often used in the design of religious and spiritual structures, such as temples and ashrams, where people sought refuge and peace. The circular shape of the Sarvatobadra plan was also believed to promote positive energy and to enhance the functionality of the structures it was used in.
This type is applicable to larger villages and towns, which have to be constructed on oblong or square sites.
The whole town should fully be occupied with HOUSES of various descriptions that should be inhabited by all classes of people.
Templedominates the village.
iii) Nandyavarta
Nandyavarta is a Sanskrit term that refers to a type of town plan that is circular with a central square and streets radiating outwards. This type of town plan was commonly used in ancient India, particularly in the design of cities and large settlements. The circular shape of the Nandyavarta town plan symbolized unity and completeness, while the central square served as a gathering place for the community.
The radiating streets provided easy access to different parts of the city and promoted connectivity between the various neighborhoods and areas. The Nandyavarta town plan was also believed to promote positive energy and to enhance the functionality of the structures it was used in.
Mainly used for construction of TOWNS and not villages.
Adopted for sites which are either circular or square in shape with 3000-4000 houses.
The streets run parallel to the central adjoining streets with the temple of the presiding deity in the center of the town.
Temple of the presiding deity at the center of the town.
This name is derived from a flower, the form of which is followed in this layout.
iv) Padmaka (Lotus Petals)
Padmaka is a Sanskrit term that refers to a type of town plan shaped like a lotus flower. In ancient Indian town planning, the lotus flower was a symbol of purity, enlightenment, and beauty. The Padmaka town plan was characterized by its circular shape, with streets radiating outwards in a petal-like pattern.
This type of plan was often used in the design of religious and spiritual structures, such as temples and ashrams, where people sought refuge and peace. The circular shape of the Padmaka plan was believed to promote positive energy and to enhance the functionality of the structures it was used in, while the petal-like pattern of the streets added to the overall aesthetic appeal of the built environment.
This type of plan was practiced for building of the TOWNS with fortress all around.
Pattern of the PLAN resembles petals of lotus radiating outwards from the center.
The city used to be an island surrounded by water.
No scope for expansion.
v) Swastika
Swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol that is widely used in Hindu architecture and town planning. The word “swastika” comes from the Sanskrit word “svastika,” which means “good fortune” or “well-being.” The symbol consists of four arms that are bent at right angles, arranged in a cross-like pattern. The arms are typically of equal length and can be arranged clockwise or counterclockwise.
In Hinduism, the swastika is a powerful symbol of good luck and prosperity. It is often used as a decorative element in Hindu temples, homes, and other structures to bring good fortune and to ward off evil spirits. In ancient Indian town planning, the swastika was used to mark the entrance of a building or town, and to provide a visual representation of the Hindu belief in the cyclical nature of life.
This type of plan contemplates some diagonal streets dividing the site into certain triangular plots.
The site may be of any shape.
The town is surrounded by a rampart wall, with a MOAT at its foot.
Two main streets cross each other at the center running north to south and west to east.
Temple is at the centre.
Jain temple is in south-west cell.
vi) Prastara
Prastara is a Sanskrit term that refers to the arrangement of tiles or stones used in the construction of floors or pavements. In ancient Indian architecture and town planning, the prastara was an important decorative element that was used to create intricate and beautiful patterns on the floors of buildings.
The characteristic feature of this plan is that the site may be either square or rectangular but not triangular or circular.
The sites are set apart or the very rich, rich, middle class and poor.
The size of the site increases according to the capacity of each to purchase or build upon.
The main roads are much wider when compared to those of other patterns.
The town may or may not be surrounded by a fort.
vii) Karmuka
This refers to a town plan that is shaped like a bow.
This plan is suitable for the place where the site of the town is in the form of a bow or semi-circular or parabolic and mostly applied for towns located at sea shores or riverbanks.
The main streets of the town run from north to south or east to west and the cross streets run at right angles to them. This divides the whole area into BLOCKS.
Female deity (the presiding deity) is installed in the temple built in any convenient place.
viii) Chaturmukha
Chaturmukha is a Sanskrit term that refers to a building or structure that has four faces or entrances. In ancient Indian town planning and architecture, Chaturmukha structures were used for a variety of purposes, including as temples, gateways, and other religious or secular buildings.
The four faces of a Chaturmukha structure symbolized the four cardinal directions, and were believed to provide protection and access to the building from all directions. The four entrances also allowed for easy flow of people and goods in and out of the structure, promoting connectivity and accessibility.
This is applicable to all types of towns (from the largest town to the smallest village).
The site may be either square or rectangular having four faces.
The town is laid out east to west lengthwise with four main streets.
The temple of the presiding deity is always at the center.
These principles of town planning in ancient India helped create well-organized, functional, and beautiful towns and cities that were capable of supporting their populations and promoting a sense of community and well-being.
Manasara Vastushastra is an elaborate treatise on town planning in ancient India. It is written by a sage named Mansara. It is one of the 5 documents that exists now which deals with Vastu Sasthram. There are several chapters in this book on town planning and construction of buildings. Vastu Sastra has laid strong emphasis on the selection of a proper site for establishing a new village, town or a city. A traditional city designed according to the principles of sacred geometry was based on cosmological theories. – Vaastu Purush Mandala. Silpasasthras refers to four distinct categories of habitation settlements within the forts and fortified cities; 1. Janabhavanas : houses for common mass. 2. Rajbhavanas : palaces and gorgeous mansions for ruling class. 3. Devabhavanas : religious shrines. 4. The public buildings such as public rest house, public gardens, public libraries, public tents, reservoirs, and wells. The Manasara describes that these sites for establishing a city used to be determined from its smell, taste, shape, direction, sound and touch. It speaks of the street that is on the border of the street (Mangalaveedhi) and the street that surrounds the Brahmasthana (Brahmaveedhi) It says that an ideal city should be placed in such a local geographical position where various kinds of trees, water bodies, rivers, plants, shrubs, green vegetation cover, including cattle should be present in great numbers. If a river adjoins the site it should run from left to right or West to East or South to North. Also the site should have water table at a depth equal to a man’s height with his arms raised above his head. The site should also comply with moderate temperature during summers and winters. If these parameters were not met with, the land would be rejected. Varanasi is located in such a way that the river flows from south to north.
Patna (Pataliputra) is located in such a way that the river flows from left to right. Opposite side of the river is not part of the main city. According to the shapes there are eight different types of settlements mentioned. Dandaka Sarvathobhadra Nandyavarta Padmaka Swastika Prastara Karmuka Chaturmukha
1. Dandaka Streets are straight and cross each other at right angles at the centre Has 4 gates on four sides Rectangular / square Width of the street varies from one ‐ Five danda (1 danda is 1-2 meters) 2 transverse street at the extremities Have single row of houses The village offices located in the east. 2. Sarvathobhadra This type of town plan is applicable to larger villages and towns, which have to be constructed on square sites. According to this plan, the whole town should be fully occupied by houses of various descriptions and inhabited by all classes of people. The temple at the central area dominates the village 3. Nandyavarta Commonly used for the construction of townsand not for villages. It is generally adopted for the sites either circular or square in shape 3000 – 4000houses The streets run parallel to the central adjoining streets with the temple of the presiding deity in the center of the town. “Nandyavarta” is the name of a flower, the form of which is followed. 4. Padmaka This type of plan was practiced for building of the towns with fortress all round. The pattern of the plan resembles the petals of lotus radiating outwards from the center. The city used to be practically an island surrounded by water, having no scope for expansion 5. Swastika Contemplates some diagonal streets dividing the site into rectangular plots. The site need not be marked out into a square or rectangle and it may be of any shape. A rampart wall surrounds the town, with a moat at its foot filled with water. 2 main streets cross each other at the center, running S to N and W to E. 6. Prastara The site may be either square or rectangular bu t not triangular or circular. The sites are set apart for the poor, the middle class, the rich and the very rich, the sizes of the sites increasing according to the capacity of each to purchase or build upon. The main roads are much wider compared to those of other patterns. The town may or may not be surrounded by a fort. 7. Karmuka Suitable for the place where the site of the town is in the form of a bow or semi‐circular or parabolic and mostly applied for towns located on the seashore or river banks. The main streets of the town run from N to S or E to W and the cross streets run at right‐angles to them, dividing the whole area into blocks. The presiding deity, commonly a female deity, is installed in the temple build in any convenient place 8. Chaturmukha Applicable to all town sstarting from the largest town to the smallest village. The site may be either square or rectangular having four faces. The town is laid out east to west lengthwise, with four main streets. The temple of the presiding deity will be always at the center
Topic – Ancient and Modern Town Planning in India
Invited Lecture at Yangon Technology University (YTU), Yangon, Myanmar:
Presentation · January 2018 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28448.23041
Prafulla Parlewar School of Planning and Architecture
Maharishi Vedic Architecture and Quality of Life: An International Mixed Methods Study of Lived Experience
Subject Areas : Architecture
Lee Fergusson 1 (Professor of Vedic Science, Education and the Environment, Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, Gold Coast, Australia) Sanford Nidich 2 (Director, Center for Social-Emotional Health and Consciousness, Fairfield, Iowa, USA) Anna Bonshek 3 (Professor of Vedic Science, Art and Vedic Architecture, Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, Gold Coast, Australia) Randi Nidich 4 (Director, Center for Social-Emotional Health and Consciousness, Fairfield, Iowa, USA)
Received: 2020-07-08 Accepted : 2020-08-06 Published : 2020-10-01
anthropologist, has written that: “Those who believe the ancient peoples of Asia were incapable of crossing the ocean have completely lost sight of what the literary sources tell us concerning their ships and their navigation. Many of the peoples of Southeastern Asia had adopted Indian Hindu-Buddhist civilizations. The influences of the Hindu-Buddhist culture of southeast Asia in Mexico and particularly, among the Maya, are incredibly strong.
The term Navigation originates from the Sanskrit word “Navgati” (meaning science of sailing) (Nav – gati) Nav means sailor or ship and gati means pace or speed in Sanskrit.
With great zeal Indian historians pointed out that, in the past, Hindu civilization had extended far beyond the present boundaries of India. It had included not only Southeast Asia but extended as far as Indonesia (Bali and Java), the Philippines and perhaps it has influence even to South America, is something the world may have to think again, with the strong evidences emerging with time.
== The question arises whether the ancient Hindus of Indonesia had contact with Mayan civilisation across the pacific which is evident from the pyramid constructions in Indonesia very similar to that of the Mayans. I shall share some information of what I collected from my reading. ==
The strongest, and indeed a hard piece of evidence established for trans-Pacific contact is the use of a particular technique for the manufacture of bark paper, common to China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Mesoamerica.
Michael Coe (2001a:58) in his book says that knowledge of this paper-making method “was diffused from eastern Indonesia to Mesoamerica at a very early date.” He further argues that since bark paper was used to make books, information may have been exchanged between Pacific and Mesoamerican peoples.
The Indonesian Hindu temples Resembling Mayan Pyramids
Candi Sukuh Hindu Temple dedicated to Bhima of Mahabharata in Indonesia
Candi Sukuh Hindu Temple dedicated to Bhima of Mahabharata in Indonesia strikes a disquieting alien chord with its flat topped step pyramid and its Mayan calendar carvings.
The religious structures in Java are commonly called Candis, a term which originally meant a commemorative building.
In general layout, the temple conforms to the plan of most other Hindu temples. There are three precincts, consisting of three concentric terraces. However, where most temples would have a large square shrine, Candi Sukuh has a pyramid reminiscent of Mayan structures from Central America.
Another new discovery is a Candi-Sukuh like pyramid and even a stone sphinx on a remote island off New Guinea. The site is known to even a nearby logging company, but no-one to the outside world in general. This giant pyramid has only been seen by helicopter pilots and a few natives of the island. It is another example of Hindu/Maya connection in the early pacific. So far no photographs of the site have come forth. No one yet knows the age of this New Guinea pyramid and its “sphinx” on a remote island near the Solomons.
Reference : Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored. BOOK Authored by Frank Joseph and Zechariah Sitchin.
The Hindus are also the only older people besides the Mayans who are known to have employed the concept of zero in their mathematics.
—-
Ancient Architects Employed Analogous Design Doctrines and Masonry Methods
Sri V. Ganapati Sthapati, has just measured with tape, compass and a lay-out story pole, the Mayan structures. He has confirmed that the layout of these structures, locations for doors, windows, proportions of width to length, roof styles, degree of slopes for roofs, column sizes, wall thicknesses, etc., all conform completely to the principles and guidelines as prescribed in the Vastu Shastras of India. Residential layouts are identical to those found in Mohenjodaro ruins of India. The temple layouts are identical to those that he is building today and that can be found all over India.”
Ganapati Sthapati is India’s foremost traditional temple architect and an expert in sculpture and stone construction to personally examine these ancient buildings. Sthapati is the architect of the San Marga Iraivan Temple being built at Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii.
Sthapati was accompanied by two California builders and architects Deva Rajan and Thamby Kumaran. The trio began 11,000 feet high in central Peru at the Incan site of Machu Picchu. Sthapati believes, Indian architecture originated from the Mayan people of Central America. In Indian history, Mayan appears several times, most significantly as the author of Mayamatam, “Concept of Mayan” which is a Vastu Shastra, a text on art, architecture and town planning. The traditional date for this work is 8,000bce.
The fundamental principle of Mayan’s architecture and town planning is the “module.” Buildings and towns are to be laid out according to certain multiples of a standard unit. Floor plans, door locations and sizes, wall heights and roofs, all are determined by the modular plan. More specifically, Mayan advocated the use of an eight-by-eight square, for a total of 64 units, which is known as the Vastu Purusha Mandala. The on-site inspection by Sthapati was to determine if the Incan and Mayan structures followed a modular plan and also intended to examine the stone working technology-his particular field of expertise.
Sthapati was born in 1927 into a family whose ancestors, members of the aboriginal tribe of Viswakarmas, built the great temple at Tanjore in the 10th century ce at the request of Raja Raja Chola. He learned the craft from his father, Sri M. Vaiydyanatha Sthapati and his uncle, Sri M. Sellakkannu Sthapati. He spent 27 years as head of the Government College of Architecture and Sculpture in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, and is responsible for India’s significant resurgence in the ancient art of stone carving. After his retirement in 1988, he continued building temples and founded the Vastu Vedic Research Foundation to explore the ancient origins of the temple craftsmen. He is responsible for the construction of dozens of temples in India, and others in Chicago, Washington D.C., Kentucky, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Hawaii in the USA as well as in the UK, Singapore, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Machu Pichu He proceeded to measure the buildings in detail and discovered each to be built on a module-based plan, following the system of eight-by-eight squares. The module method was followed within small fractions of an inch. The buildings were oriented toward certain points of the compass. Also the lengths of buildings were never more than twice the width.
Saqsayhuman, an Incan site dated from 400 bce to 1400 ce Here are the famous stone walls made of rocks weighing up to 160 tons and fitted together so expertly that a knife blade cannot be put in any joint. Sthapati pointed out small knobs left on their faces, used for the use of levers, the exact same method used in India to move large stones. Thirty to forty men moved these large rocks with this method, he explained to the guide’s astonishment.
He observed details of the stone working being identical to what is practiced in India, such as the method of quarrying stones by splitting off slabs, the jointing and fitting of stones, the use of lime mortar, leveling with a plumb bob line and triangle, and the corbeling for the roofs. Corbeling is the method by which stones are drawn in layer by layer until they meet or nearly meet to allow a roof slab to be placed on top.
Sthapati considers the similarity of this technology to that used in India to be very significant. The use of the horizontal lintel and the absence of the arch are additional noteworthy points of correspondence between the two traditions.
The Mayan Yucatan Peninsula Having arrived at Chichén Itzá in time for the summer equinox on March 21st. The trio got to witness the moment of sunset at equinox, a shadow is cast by the steps of the Pyramid which creates the image of a serpent’s body which joins a stone carving of a serpent’s head at the bottom of the stair case. It is a stunning demonstration of Mayan astronomical and architectural precision.
The trio got back to work and tape measured and closely examined the Pyramid of the Castle. It too conformed to the Vastu Vedic principles of Mayan. The temple structure at the top was exactly 1/4th of the base. And the stepped pyramid design derived from a three-dimensional extension of the basic eight-by-eight grid system. The temple room at the top was also modular in design, with the wall thickness determining the size of doorways, location of columns, thickness of columns and the width and length of the structure.
From Chichén Itzá, they traveled on to Uxmal where they observed the snake and “bindu” designs on the wall faces. They were astounded by the thousands of pyramids at Tikal and Uxacturn in Guatemala, all laid out to conform to a grid pattern and oriented in astronomically significant directions.
Use of lime mortar for all of the stone and brick buildings, can been seen in the monumental creations in Mahabalipuram and the stone temples of Tanjor and Gangai Konda Choleswram in Tamil Nadu. The outer surfaces were plastered, embellishments worked out in lime mortar, then painted. This method was strongest among the Mayas at Tikal and Uaxactún, where all of the structures once had a plaster coating painted with many colors.
Sri Ganapati Sthapati is vigorously continuing his research and is open to suggestions one may contact him with queries or information at :
Vastu Vedic Research Foundation, Plot A-1, H.I.G. Colony, 1st Main Road (New Beach Road), Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Madras 600 041, India.
Vastushastra System – Measurements and Proportions
Prof. S. K. Gupta1 1Dean & Director, Amity University Haryana, Panchgaon, Manesar, Gurgaon
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET) ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor:6.887 Volume 5 Issue X1, November 2017- Available at http://www.ijraset.com
ANALYSIS OF FACTS, UNDERSTANDINGS & USES OF VASTU SHASTRA IN HEALTHCARE
Dr. Karthikeyan S Affiliation: Yukan Energetical Vastu, Institute of Scholars & Indian Science Congress Association, Govt. of India DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10061488 Published Date: 01-November-2023
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research ISSN 2348-3164 (online) Vol. 11, Issue 4, pp: (215-226), Month: October – December 2023, Available at: http://www.researchpublish.com
Vedic Physics includes a theory of the emergence of matter from the invisible Substratum of Thaamic matter, into either the stable 8 x 8 Satwa Material or the dynamic 9 x 9 Raja form. Matter emerges in two dimensions from the Substratum, emerging at the very center of a circle, with the extrusion of tiny particles of Dark Matter through a central hole, at the logarithm of e, or the Euler Number. The extrusion of matter through the central hole exerts force on peripheral areas. This phenomenon helps to explain why Brahma is considered as the center of the Vedic Square, or the 9 x 9 Vastu Shastra, as well as the central No. 5 Square in the 3 x 3 Magic Square of Chinese divination, including Qi Men Dun Jia.
Quintessence of Vastu Art and Architecture: Forms of Spirit and Atoms of Consciousness
A Shilpi Sp«aks-6
TEMPLES OF Space SCIENCE
Dr. V.Ganapati Sthapati
English version of Tamil text By
Dr. S.P. Sabharathnam
REVELATION OF AN ESOTERIC GEOMETRY OF NORTH INDIAN HINDU TEMPLES
E-Book (PDF) Availability: Published ISBN: 978-90-04-49237-0 Publication: 15 Nov 2021
Hardback Availability: Published ISBN: 978-90-04-12902-3 Publication: 30 Jun 2003
Michael W. Meister, M. A. Dhaky and Krishna Deva (ed.): Encyclopaedia of Indian temple architecture: North India: Foundations of North Indian style c. 250 b.c.–a.d. 1100. I: xvii, 422 pp. 158 figures, 15 maps; II: viii, 778 plates.
New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies, and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Kashmiri Temples: a Typological and Aedicular Analysis
Adam Hardy
2019, Indology’s Pulse: Arts in Context (Essays Presented to Doris Meth Srinivasan in Admiration of Her Scholarly Research) edited by Corinna Wessels-Mevissen and Gerd J. R. Mevissen
Chakshudana or Opening the Eyes Seeing South Asian Art Anew Edited by Pika Ghosh and Pushkar Sohoni First published 2024 ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 20783- 4 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 27121- 7 (pbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 29147- 3 (ebk)
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Constructing Community: Tamil Merchant Temples in India and China, 850-1281
This dissertation studies premodern temple architecture, freestanding sculpted stones, and Tamil language inscriptions patronized by south Indian merchants in south India and China. Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, Indian Ocean trade was at its apex, connecting populations on European and Asian continents through complex interlocking networks. Southern India’s Tamil region, in particular, has been described as the fulcrum of the Indian Ocean circuit; however, knowledge of intra-Asian contact and exchange from this period has been derived mostly from Arabic and Chinese sources, which are abundant in comparison with the subcontinent’s dearth of written history. My project redresses this lacuna by investigating the material culture of Tamil merchants, and aims to recover their history through visual evidence, authored by individuals who left few written traces of their voyages across the Indian Ocean.
The arguments of my dissertation are based primarily on unpublished and unstudied monuments and inscriptions, weaving together threads from multiple disciplines–art history, literature, epigraphy, and social theory–and from across cultures, the interconnected region of the eastern Indian Ocean and the South China Seas, spanning the Sanskritic, Tamil, Malay, and Sinocentric realms. My dissertation challenges traditional narratives of Indian art history that have long attributed the majority of monumental architecture to royal patrons, focusing instead on the artistic production of cosmopolitan merchants who navigated both elite and non-elite realms of society. I argue that by constructing monuments throughout the Indian Ocean trade circuit, merchants with ties to southern India’s Tamil region formulated a coherent group identity in the absence of a central authority.
Similar impulses also are visible in merchants’ literary production, illustrated through several newly translated panegyric texts, which preface mercantile donations appearing on temple walls in the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, my work analyzes the complex processes of translation visible in literary and material culture commissioned by merchants, resulting from inter-regional and intercultural encounters among artisans, patrons, and local communities. Rather than identifying a monolithic source for merchants’ artistic innovations, in each chapter I demonstrate the multiple ways in which merchants employed visual codes from different social realms (courtly, mercantile, and agrarian) to create their built environments. In Chapter Four, I provide a detailed reconstruction and historical chronology of a late thirteenth century temple in Quanzhou, coastal Fujian Province, and southeastern China, which both echoes and transforms architectural forms of contemporaneous temples in India’s Tamil region.
Piecing together over 300 carvings discovered in the region in light of archaeological and art historical evidence, I develop a chronology of the temple’s history, and propose that Ming forces destroyed the temple scarcely a century after its creation. In Chapter Three, I interpret stone temples patronized by the largest south Indian merchant association, the Ainnurruvar, as being integral to their self-fashioning in India and abroad. While the temples do not project a merchant identity per se, I show that they employ an artistic vocabulary deeply entrenched in the visual language of the Tamil region. Chapter Two looks at other forms through which merchants created a shared mercantile culture, including literary expressions and freestanding sculptural stones. These texts demonstrate that merchants engaged in both elite and non-elite artistic production. Chapter One analyzes the distribution, content, and context of Tamil merchant sponsored inscriptions within the Indian Ocean circuit, focusing on the modern regions of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. An appendix offers new translations of important Tamil language mercantile inscriptions discovered throughout south India.
“Infinite Sequences in the Constructive Geometry Of Tenth-Century Hindu Temple Superstructures.”
The Construction Geometry of Early Javanese Temples
David Beynon, Deakin University
Sambit Datta, Curtin University
Papers presented to the 30th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, July 2-5, 2013. http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/sahanz-2013/
Archive: The University of Pennsylvania houses a photographic archive of Indian art and architecture (now over 100,000 photographs) as part of the W. Norman Brown South Asia Reference Room on the fifth floor west end of Van Pelt library. To gain access, contact the South Asia bibliographer, David Nelson, or his staff. This Archive should be an integral part of your work this semester.
Intention: This seminar will both introduce you in the remarkable variety of India’s architectural accomplishments and encourage you to discuss the broader issues of how architecture can be designed to express meaning. In the past I have sometimes asked students to divide into groups to work together to frame one area of India’s architecture. Categories have been: Early Indian architecture; South Indian architecture; North Indian architecture; early Islamic architecture in India.
This year, I propose to organize readings around a variety of approaches and methodologies: issues of construction, translation of architectural forms into new materials, architectural symbolism, typology and chronology, and praxis (the use and survival of buildings over time).
I will ask you to work collectively, but on different aspects or examples of the general area, reporting in class on the literature, issues, ideas, and substance appropriate to each.
Books: Four books have been ordered by the Penn Book Center (130 S. 34th St.):
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Essays in Early Indian Architecture, ed. Michael W. Meister, Oxford University Press, 1993. (This may now be out of print, but is available in the Fine Arts Library reserve.)
Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images, Princeton, 1997 (Princeton University Press paperback).
James C. Harle, The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent (Pelican History of Art). New York, 1986.
George Michell, The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms, New York, 1977 (Chicago University Press paperback).
Other books of interest will be placed on Reserve in the Fischer Fine Arts Library and the South Asia Reading Room in Van Pelt, near the photo archive.
Course assignments: In addition to participation in class discussion, students will be asked to prepareshort reports on reading for presentation in class and to choose an area for research leading to a final presentation and paper.
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Brief Bibliography of General Surveys:
Batley, Claude. The Design Development of Indian Architecture, 3rd rev. enl. ed., London, 1973.
Brown, Percy. Indian Architecture, vol. 1. Buddhist and Hindu periods, vol. 2. Islamic period, 5th ed., Bombay, 1965-68.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon. London, 1913.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. History of Indian and Indonesian Art. New York, 1927.
Fergusson, James. History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, London, 1876; rev. and ed. by James Burgess, 2 vol., London, 1910.
Herdeg, Klaus. Formal Structure in Indian Architecture, preface by Balkrishna Doshi, New York: Rizzoli, 1990 (1978).
Mayamata. An Indian Treatise on Housing, Architecture, and Iconography, trans. by Bruno Dagens, Delhi, 1985.
Pereira, José. Elements of Indian Architecture, Delhi, 1987.
Tadgell, Christopher. The History of Architecture in India: From the Dawn of Civilization to the End of the Raj, London: Architecture Design and Technology Press, 1990.
Volwahsen, Andreas. Living Architecture: Indian and Living Architecture: Islamic Indian, New York, 1969-70.
Purusha Sukta (Text, Transliteration, Translation and Commentary)
AUTHOR: S.K. RAMACHANDRA RAO PUBLISHER: SRI AUROBINDO KAPALI SASTRY INSTITUTE OF VEDIC CULTURE LANGUAGE: SANSKRIT TEXT WITH TRANSLITERATION AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION EDITION: 2014 ISBN: 8179940462 PAGES: 96
Exploring Kāfirkot: When is a Rose Apple not a Rose?
MICHAEL W. MEISTER
This article is the consequence of excavations by the Pakistan Heritage Society and University of Pennsylvania at Kāirkot North that resulted in the discovery and exploration of an undocumented temple (E) in that fort, and recovery of an important seventh-century cult image broken in two pieces. These were discussed in preliminary reports in The Pakistan Heritage Society Newslet- ter (Khan et al 1998), Expedition (Meister 2000), and the Lahore Museum Bulletin (Rehman 1998).
In following through an iconological investigation of the excavated image, I became fascinated with the sceptre held in his left hand, which terminated in a cluster of spear-pointed leaves. These could be matched with leaves framing a large textured ‘fruit’ used as one of the eight auspicious signs in reliefs from early Mathurā and as the base of one of Mathurā’s earliest liṅga pillars (Meister 2007). Following a long tangled process of deductive analysis, I came to a tentative conclusion that this sceptre was a ‘jambū-dhvaja’ and that ‘jambū’ in this period of early India was not ‘rose apple’ but rather the gigantic fruit of the jack tree. A note on the tangled web of this discovery was ofered to an issue of the Journal of Ancient Indian History issued at the time of D. C. Sircar’s birth centenary (Meister 2007-08). This note I would like to share along with a full portfolio of illustrations not possible to publish in the original journal. My purpose also has been to probe and question the relativity of our claims to knowledge.
Once populated with temples, only traces of Hinduism remain in Laki
This is a far cry from the past when the area was dotted with temples and Hindu monastic establishments.
Book review: Historic Temples in Pakistan by Reema Abbasi and Madiha Aijaz
Reema Abbasi and Madiha Aijaz’s magnificent photo-essay profiles the core of Pakistan’s millennia-old Hindu heritage – its temples – and makes a strong case for keeping pluralism alive in the ‘Fortres
For many Indians, especially those who are Hindu or Sikh, reading anything about Pakistan’s religious minorities can be a painful affair. As if Partition was not enough, subsequent events have brought death and destruction to these beleaguered people. More than 30 years after Mard-e-Momin Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started his Islamisation programme, all of Pakistan is paying the price. There are regular attacks on the two biggest non-Muslim minorities, Hindus and Christians. There are also non-Sunni firqas, which are under siege — the Shias and the hapless Ahmadis, declared by the Ulema and the government to be Wajib-e-Qatl, to be killed by every ‘true Muslim’ as a religious duty. I picked up veteran journalist Reema Abbasi and photographer Madiha Aijaz’s Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience with trepidation. Poring over it reaffirmed what I had been hearing all along — of the country’s minorities being in a state of siege. Still, the book’s very publication is a reaffirmation of faith in humanity. There are still people in Pakistan who have the courage to examine and profile its pre-Islamic past, which is currently dying a slow death. The work, say its authors, is a call to Pakistanis to take charge of their destiny and make their society more pluralistic. Abbasi states in the preface: “At times like these, civilisations in denial can reinvent themselves through free expression of faith and ideas…the time is now ripe to put paid to divides that are like to cost an entire country its rationale….” The book has many layers. Not only does it profile Pakistan’s most ancient and important Hindu temples, but also details their histories, locales, architecture, the people whom they serve and the dangers they have faced and are facing. Five of the six sections in this book are on the temples in the four provinces that make up Pakistan. Abbasi does not include the temples of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, like the hallowed Shardapeeth in the Neelum Valley on the Line of Control, or the Raghunath and Shivala Mandirs in the city of Mirpur. Balochistan has a single temple profiled — the Hinglaj Mata Mandir — one of the Shaktipeethas of the subcontinent. According to legend, Sati’s head fell at this spot when Vishnu whirled his chakra at her corpse and it smashed into pieces.
The temples of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are grouped into one section. The most prominent is the fabled Katas Raj near Chakwal in Punjab. One of South Asia’s better known Shiva temples, it is among the two spots (the other being Pushkar) where Shiva’s tears fell in his grief over Sati’s death and formed a pool. The spot is also the site where Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandava princes, was questioned by a Yaksha, who turned out to be Dharma in disguise, testing his son. There are other temples in the cities of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and one in the town of Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. But it is Sindh, Hinduism’s last stronghold in Pakistan, that constitutes the lion’s share of the book. Three sections detail its temples — in the teeming metropolis of Karachi, in the districts of Umerkot and Tharparkar in the Thar Desert, and in riverine Sindh, along the course of the (once) mighty Indus. Pakistani temples are located in a variety of locations. Hinglaj is in a giant cavern on the desolate Makran coast. The Varun Dev Mandir is on Manora Island off Karachi. The famed Sadhu Bela temple is on an islet in the middle of the Indus in Upper Sindh, neat Sukkur. The temples of Umerkot and Tharparkar are in a hot, though strikingly beautiful desert. Katas is located in the Salt Range, a unique elevated geographical feature amidst the otherwise flat, Punjabi plains. And the Shivala Mandir in Mansehra is in the Himalayas. Pakistan’s Hindu temples are dedicated to all three of the faith’s main branches — Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism. Deities worshipped include Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars, Rama and Krishna, Ganesha and Hanuman and the Mother Goddess in all her forms. But there are others too. The temple at Manora, for instance, is dedicated to Varuna, lord of the oceans. In Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, sage Valmiki is worshipped. The book reminds us that most of the Hindus left in Pakistan are Dalits, as caste Hindus fled during Partition. In Punjabi cities like Lahore and Pindi, as well as Peshawar, the main temples are those of Balmikis, the Dalit community also found across North India. In Sindh, most Hindus are Dalit Meghwars or tribal Bhils. A permanent theme in the book is the Hindu-Muslim syncretism that still astonishingly survives in Pakistan, especially in Sindh. For instance, Varuna in Manora is the Hindu Jhule Lal/Udero Lal in interior Sindh, who is also worshipped by Muslims as Zinda Pir or Khidr, a revered figure in Islam, especially Sufi mysticism. The Ratneshwar Mahadev Mandir in Karachi’s posh Clifton sits alongside the dargah of Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi, Karachi’s patron saint. Both, Shiva and the Pir are considered by Sindhi society as the city’s guardian protectors against the Arabian Sea’s fierce waters. But the dangers to Pakistan’s temples far outweigh such harmonious co-existence. Most temples profiled in the book were attacked by frenzied mobs when the Bahri Mosque came down in Ayodhya in 1992. That time saw the razing of 1,000 historic temples from Pakistan’s landscape, notes Abbasi. Since then, some temples have been reconstructed with funds from Hindus, Muslim feudals and sometimes, the government. But the picture is far from rosy, concedes the author. The last chapter in the section on riverine Sindh highlights an even more important issue: the declining murti makers of Pakistan. There are no Hindu craftsmen left. Inevitably, the task falls to Muslims like the subject of the chapter: Fakira. Even there, the numbers are declining. Most murtis are thus brought from India. In places like Punjab, however, you have to make do with images, so virulent is the sentiment against idol worship. The book’s most powerful appeal lies in Madiha Aijaz’s photographs. Colourful and vivid, they are a treat for the eyes. After reading the book, I was deeply depressed. Then I read a line on the back cover, which is the book’s main message, and my blues ebbed away. It read: ‘As long as life is infinite, faiths will be indestructible.’ Historic Temples in Pakistan: A call to conscience Author: Reema Abbasi Photographs by Madiha Aijaz Publisher: Niyogi Books Pages: 296 Price: Rs 1,250
Temples of Mari Indus (Hindu Shahi Period 8th to 10th Century AD)
The Temples along the Indus
(All pictures in this blog are photographed by the author, research references from different archaeological papers)
This magnificent ancient Hindu temple in Sialkot, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, was built by Sardar Teja Singh and has been closed for worship for 72 years, recently becoming a den of drug addicts. But under the directives of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, and Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Chairman Dr Amir Ahmed, Pakistani followers of Hinduism are again permitted access to worship in the Shawala Teja Singh Temple.
So often it is said that religion divides nations, but in this case it seems to be mending disputes. In April this year the Pakistan government announced that they would “reclaim and restore 400 temples to the minority group in Pakistan”. According to a recent report by The Organization For World Peace (TOFWP) this “compliments a joint decision by Prime Minister Khan and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to construct the Kartarpur corridor, allowing visa-free access to Hindi pilgrims from India”.
Signs Of Peace In The Hyper-Violence?
Is this move potentially an effort towards ending the brutal conflict that began during the Partition of India in 1947, that displaced between 10 and 12 million people, and has caused deaths varying between 200,000 and 2,000,000? Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor of Indiatoday, said that Fawad Chaudhry, Information Minister of Pakistan, “believed India and Pakistan had been fighting for too long” and he added “I think there’s a need for it. If India takes one step, Pakistan will take two steps”.
However, the TOFWP report says, “there are concerns that the peace agreement is not genuine” but rather and “attempt to win a perception war” and the corridor might be “a tool to gain territorial foothold by opposing separatists”. However, the repossession of ancient temples to the Hindu community in Pakistan suggests the effort is genuine and already the political decision is having glaringly positive effects.
Is the reopening of the ancient Shawala Teja Singh Hindu Temple a sign of the end of violence? (Junaid Syed / YouTube Screenshot)
Seeds Of Peace In The Destroyer’s Temple!
Temple remains contain not only the architectural prowess of a nation’s artisans, but they are also books in stone telling stories about a civilization’s culture. To access the Shawala Teja Singh Hindu temple pilgrims climb a steep staircase to reach the temple, which according to ‘History of Sialkot’ is about 1,000 years old. Here, at the center of the temple, at the apex of their sometimes hundreds of miles long pilgrimages, they connected directly with the creation energy of the Hindu deity Shiva.
Shiva was the destroyer of ignorance that had spread all across the universe and according to Axel Michael’s Hinduism: Past and Present, the Shaivism theology is broadly grouped into two: the popular theology influenced by Shiva-Rudra in the Vedas, Epics and the Puranas; and the esoteric theology influenced by the Shiva and Shakti-related Tantra texts. In Shaivism, the god is also worshipped by all other gods including the Devas Brahma and Vishnu, who with Shiva compose the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity.
The Hindu Trinity – Brahma, Siva, Vishnu. (Calvinkrishy~commonswiki / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Coming Back Online
SAMAA TV has interviewed several people connected with the reopening of the temple, including ‘one Hindu’, who said, “We are thankful to the government for opening our temple and we can come here whenever we want now”. Deputy Commissioner Bilal Haider said that they “collaborated with the Evacuee Trust Property Board to reopen the temple and “people are free to visit anytime”, and since then many tourists have already started coming to this almost forgotten heritage site.
Ancient Hindu temple now open to public. (Junaid Syed / YouTube Screenshot)
And most importantly, the government has stated that preservation work to restore the temple will start soon and this English News Track Live article says the government announced “Shivala will be kept open permanently while conservation work at this unique specimen of archaic Indian architecture” is undertaken. And, slapping down hard money, where their mouth is, and Pakistani government have vowed to spend “Rs 50 lakh” on the protection of Shivala, which is about $70,000 (57,250 GBP).
For 72 years the ‘Partition’ has given rise to continuing conflict between India and Pakistan which is now beginning to show signs of slowing down, a ‘hope’ that’s supported in the TOFWP report which states that in “2017 3,000 violations” of the peace agreement occurred, while in 2018 “this reduced to 1,000”. When we consider that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, any de-escalation of ‘breaches’ in the peace agreement and military confrontation can only, surely, be a step in the right direction.
Close up of entrance of Shawala Teja Singh Hindu Temple. (Junaid Syed / YouTube Screenshot)
Top image: Ancient 1,000 year old Shawala Teja Singh Hindu Temple. Source: Junaid Syed / YouTube Screenshot
Michael W. Meister, W. Norman Brown Professor, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, and Consulting Curator, Asian Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has served as Chair, Departments of South Asia Studies and History of Art, and Director of Penn’s South Asia Center
In 1947, Pakistan emerged on the world map with a predominantly Muslim population. However, before partition, a number of other religions were practiced in the region, including Hinduism. Hinduism first established its roots, and was adopted by the Indus civilisation, between 2300 BC and 1500 BC. Some of the earliest Hindu temples once stood in what is now Pakistan; their traces can still be seen in the ruins that exist today, in varying degrees of dilapidation.
Hindu temples were dotted all around the region that is now Pakistan. The presence of these venerated sites is well documented in various historical narratives; primary among these are the chronicles of renowned Muslim scholar Al-Biruni who joined Mehmood Ghaznavi on his conquests of India in the 11th century and spent 20 years there. Al-Biruni in his encyclopaedic book Kitab-ul-Hind, talks extensively about Indian culture and religion, expressive in his wonderment at the religious sites.
In modern day India, centuries-old temples still stand in prime condition, receiving hundreds of devotees every day. One therefore has to ask, what happened to the Hindu temples that found themselves in Pakistani territory upon partition?
Largely overlooked in conversations around cultural heritage (though I argue that they still form an essential part of this cultural heritage landscape), they often fall victim to the political and religious debacles of the day. The 1992 riots that ensued in Pakistan as a result of the demolition of Babri Mosque in India, is one such example. The incident led to protests erupting throughout Pakistan, and Hindu temples were the obvious and easy target of this uproar. During these protests, thirty Hindu temples were attacked in different parts of Pakistan. These attacks ranged from vandalism to complete destruction.
The way temples are positioned, in both public consciousness and the administrative framework, in Pakistan is highly influenced by the tense relationship between India and Pakistan since partition. Although 1.6% of Pakistan’s population is Hindu, anything associated with Hinduism is usually (if not always), associated with India, thus immediately barring any constructive dialogue on the measures that could be taken to improve the state of Hindu temples. While Buddhist sites were preserved and promoted, Hindu cultural heritage, which has been equally responsible in shaping the historicity of Pakistan, was ignored.
Cultural heritage sites in Pakistan are protected under the Antiquities Act 1975. The sites listed under this act are declared protected monuments and special measures are taken for their preservation and promotion; most are Muslims sites. Out of 145 monuments in Punjab, only one is a Hindu temple, meaning that no measures for the conservation of other existing temples are in place.
There has, however, been some improvement. Post 2005, the new government took to the restoration of selected Hindu temples to help shape a ‘softer’ image of Pakistan on the international stage. Since then, Pakistan has seen an increased propensity for restoration and conservation of ancient Hindu temples, a monumental improvement considering that previously even the existence of such venerated sites was unknown. The current government has pledged to restore 400 Hindus temples for the Hindu population of Pakistan, beginning with a 1000 year old temple in Sialkot. Though not yet fully restored, the temple was reopened for the local Hindu community following a 72 year hiatus.
The Temples
Hindu temples can be found in several Pakistani cities, in various states of preservation. Some still receive devotees from within the country, as well as from across the border, while others have suffered extreme negligence and have thus been abandoned.
Temples of Rawalpindi
Before the British divided India, Rawalpindi had the largest Hindu and Sikh populations of the cities that were to become a part of Pakistan. The multi-religiosity of the city was diminished when most of its Hindu and Sikh residents relocated to the Indian side, leaving behind their rich religious and historical heritage. Most of their places of worship have been readapted to be used as living quarters, scrap yards and storage areas. These non-Muslim places of worship were once spread out all over the city; there are around 20 temples and Gurdwaras that are no longer in use, having fallen victim to administrative negligence, but some still exist in a well-preserved state. The skyline of the older areas of Rawalpindi boasts both mosques and temples, a reminder of the of multi-religiosity that the city once possessed.
The temples that are still functional are maintained and funded by affluent Hindu families and politicians in Pakistan. One of the best known temples among these is the Krishna Temple which lies in the middle of the bustling old part of Rawalpindi. The plaque on the entrance of the temple tells visitors it was built by Ujagar Mal Ram Richpal in 1897. His descendants relocated to the Indian side upon partition and became untraceable. Krishna Temple is the biggest in Rawalpindi and can accommodate almost 2500 people, and so all Hindu religious festivities, such as Holi and Diwali, are celebrated here by the Hindu population of the city and its adjoining areas. The temple building, although in a dilapidated state, is still an excellent example of Hindu temple architecture, flaunting an elaborately decorated spire that looms over its surrounding bazaar. Recently, as an effort to acknowledge the importance of the religious cultural heritage of the non-Muslim populations of Pakistan, the government has taken measures to renovate and extend Krishna temple so that it may house more devotees.
Apart from Krishna Temple, there are several other centuries old temples in old Rawalpindi that are in dire need of attention from the authorities, if they are to be saved from the unrelenting ravages of time that have threatened since partition.
Dating back to 615-950 CE, Katas Raj Temples exist on the outskirts of Chakwal in the province of Punjab. It is the only Hindu site that has made it to the Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Pakistan. An extremely venerated site among Hindus from within and across the border, Katas Raj temples hold an elevated position in Hindu mythology. The pond in the middle of the temple is said to have been filled by the tears of Shiva due to his inconsolable grief at the loss of his wife. The teardrops that fell when he was carrying his wife whilst flying, are said to have fallen in two places, forming one pond in Katas Raj and another in Ajmer, Rajasthan in India.
It is not only the Hindu religion that has a historical association with the Katas Raj Temples; the site is believed to have been constructed on the ruins of a Buddhist Stupa which towered 61m high with streams running around it, as accounted by Alexander Cunningham, the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. The remains of these Stupas can still be seen in the temple complex.
Next to the temples there also exist remnants of a Sikh gurdwara where Guru Nanak took residence while he was travelling the world. In the 11th century, Al-Biruni is also said to have lived in the temple complex while studying Hinduism. Katas Raj Temples narrate 1500 years of the religious history of Pakistan, and how different religions superseded one another at various times, creating a multi-layered picture of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. These temples are an excellent testimony of the stratified nature of the historical religious sites of Pakistan.
The complex consists of seven old temples known as Satgarah. Among these, Shiva Temple is in the best state of conservation. The presence of the pond in the middle of the complex makes Katas Raj unique among all temple sites in Pakistan, but this body of water is also what makes this site comparatively hard to maintain and conserve. In recent times, the effect of negligence of several decades had begun to take shape in the form of structural failures, vandalism and the drying up of the sacred pond. The latter factor in particular drew international attention to the dilapidating site, causing outrage. Since that incident, special attention has been paid to the restoration and conservation of the temples and the issue of its condemnable state was raised in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018. At the end of that year, after several decades of suffering negligence, a Hindu ritual was carried out in Katas Raj as pilgrims from India visited the revered site.
Sun Temple of Mulasthana (Multan)
Located in the historical city of Multan, the Sun temple was first mentioned in the accounts of the Greek admiral Skylax in 515 BC, during the invasion of northern India. Later in the 7th Century, a Chinese pilgrim called Hsuen Tsang also records details of an opulent temple in the famous city of Mulasthana, mentioning with awe its golden idol of the Sun God and its dancing girls. The city of Multan, now located in the province of Punjab, makes its appearance in historical chronicles under different names, including Mulasthana, which is derived from Sanskrit words Mula and Sthana, meaning ‘original-adobe‘. There are twelve Sun Temples located throughout the Indian subcontinent, believed by Hindus to have been constructed by Samba, son of Hindu God Krishna. The one in Multan is the oldest among them. The Sun Temple is said to have been the biggest temple of the city, attracting pilgrims from far off lands. The importance of this site is evident from the fact that Multan was given its name based on the presence of the Sun Temple and Sun God. It is also a reminder of the deep historical association the city had with Hinduism.
When the Muslim conqueror Muhammad bin Qassim reached Multan in 712 AD, the Sun Temple had already existed for over a century. It was a famous and venerated pilgrimage site, forming an important link in the chain of twelve Sun Temples. Perhaps recognising the importance it held, the temple, although stripped of all its gold and valuables, was not destroyed by the invaders. In the 10th century, Al-Biruni also visited the building during his journey throughout India and gave a glowing description of it. In his book ‘Tarikhu’l-Hind’, which chronicles his journey, Al-Biruni writes:
“A famous idol of theirs was that of Multan, dedicated to the sun, and therefore called Aditya. It was of wood and covered with red Cordovan leather; in its two eyes were two red rubies. It is said to have been made in the last Kritayuga.the time which has since elapsed amounts to 216,432 years. When Muhammad Ibn Alkasim Ibn Alinunabbih conquered Multan, he in-quired how the town had become so very flourishing and so many treasures had there been accumulated, and then he found out that this idol was the cause, for there came pilgrims from all sides to visit it.” (Al Biruni’s India,Page 116, Abu Rihan Muhammad bin Ahmad al-Biruni al-Khwarizmi, Tarikhu’l-Hind)
Towards the end of the 10th century, the temple was destroyed, and later rebuilt and restored. This rebuilt temple received thousands of worshippers until the 17th Century, when it was destroyed by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. After that, the building existed only in ruins, completely lost to obscurity until it was traced and marked on the map during British colonisation. In 1992, during a time of extreme religious tension between India and Pakistan, the temple was again attacked by a mob, inflicting even greater damage to a structure already in ruin.
The ruins of the temple are now located in the walled city of Multan, next to the shrine of the Muslim saint Bahauddin Zakariya. Multan is known as the ‘city of saints’ due to the hundreds of sufi Muslim shrines throughout the city. The Sun Temple now only exists in ruins, overshadowed by the well-preserved Muslim sites located in its vicinity. Evidence of the presence of an ancient grand temple at this location now only exists in history books.
The Sun Temple is a testament to how cultural heritage sites fall victim to religious conflicts. A centuries-old place of worship, that has been praised in several historical narratives,1 now exists as a ghost of the past, overlooked and completely neglected by the authorities and public alike. The site where the grand temple once existed now suffers from encroachment. It is put to use very rarely, for the purpose of pitching tents for the Muslim pilgrims that come to Multan for the Urs (death anniversary) of the saints in the surrounding shrines. Major portions of the temple have been demolished, the roof the temple has caved in, all the idols are gone, and nothing indicates presence of a majestic spiritual site that once existed here in all its glory. The centuries-old Sun Temple has been forever lost to posterity.
Hinglaj Mata Temple
Hinglaj Mata is a temple located in a small, naturally formed cave in the Kheerthar hills in the province of Baluchistan. It is one of the few sites that still receives thousands of pilgrims from within and across the border. The temple has existed for millennia and the rituals carried out at the temple during the four-day pilgrimage have been performed at the sites for generations. There is no man-made idol at the temple but rather a shapeless stone is worshipped during the rituals. In Hindu mythology, the temple is located here because the head of Shiva’s wife, Sati, fell on this location when she died. The temple is attributed to the goddess Hinglaj Mata, who is considered a powerful deity, believed to bestow her blessings on all her worshippers.
Although a revered Hindu site, Hinglaj Mata Temple is also revered by some Muslims of the region, who call the temple Nani Mandir (lit. “maternal grandmother’s temple”) and the goddess is called ‘Bibi Nani.’ Bibi Nani is believed to be the protector of region and Muslims from surrounding areas also participate in the annual pilgrimage to the site along with Hindu devotees. Muslim residents have been protecting the site against vandalisation and mob attacks, thus preventing the site from falling victim to the same fate as other temples in the country. The site exists in a good state of conservation because of the combined efforts of local Hindus and Muslims.
Lava Temple
Sitting inconspicuously next to the Alamgiri Gate of the Lahore Fort is a small room which was once a Hindu Temple called Temple of Loh or Lava Temple. Now abandoned, the Temple of Loh is said to have been dedicated to the son of Hindu Lord Rama. Some historians have even claimed that the birth of Loh, the son of Lord Rama, took place in the very temple.
The temple is comparatively smaller in scale compared to other famous Hindu sites, but is integral in highlighting the historical significance of Hinduism in the foundation of Lahore. The origins of Lahore are still unknown and have been a point of debate among historians for a long time, some of whom trace the city’s existence as far back as 4000 BC. The main religion of Lahore before the 10th Century was Hinduism, with Hindu temples present at various locations throughout the city as stated in chronicles of Al-Biruni. The city of Lahore was earlier called Lavpor or Loh Kot, meaning ‘Fort of Loh’, pointing to the deep association the city has with Loh, son of Lord Rama. That the foundation of the city and this temple are connected to the same Hindu entity, perhaps suggests the site is as old as the city itself. The Temple of Loh is one of the lesser known sites in the Lahore Fort, and although open to tourists, it receives few visitors. There are no religious rituals carried out at this temple.
Recent findings have indicated that the temple was once bigger than the current size of a few square metres that it has been reduced to. During the excavation of the nearby Royal Kitchen, the archaeological findings included a structure and fresco work that once had been part of the temple. Lahore Fort was commissioned by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and it is unclear what existed in its place before the fort was erected.
Concluding remarks
Now predominantly Muslim, the land that is now Pakistan has Hindu and Buddhist roots, going back thousands of years. As has been shown, the cultural heritage of both of these religions, and Hinduism in particular, still exist in Pakistan, though in various states of dilapidation, primarily due to administrative negligence and falling victim to religious or political debacles. Though there have been some sparks of hope for these sites, a more concerted effort will need to be made if they are to be saved from the sands of time.
References
1The Lost Sun Temple of Multan, Vikas Vaibhav) (Buddhist Records of the Western World (Ta-T’ang-Si-Yu-Ki) by Hieun Tsiang)(Tarikhu’l-Hind, Abu Rihan Muhammad bin Ahmad al-Biruni al-Khwarizmi)
The book under review presents the results of a joint inter-disciplinary University of Pennsylvania and Peshawar University research project carried out over a decade (from 1991 to 2001), which included both art historical and archaeological components. The project involved documentation and study of early medieval temples located in the Khisor range of hills on the west bank of the river Indus and those on the escarpments, and plateau of the Salt Range between the Indus and the Jhelum rivers. Two seasons of excavations were undertaken in the fort at north Kafirkot above the Indus on the west bank, and further fieldwork was done in the Salt Range from 1996 to 1998. Michael W. Meister has put together the present volume based on data generated on temples, while the report on the archaeological excavations is being compiled by Abdur Rehman of Peshawar University.
The Salt Range temples have been known since Alexander Cunningham visited them in 1875 during his first field tour of the region. He dated them to the latter half of the ninth century. Aurel Stein visited Kafirkot in 1903 and was able to conduct an extended survey as a result of which he discovered many new temples. They were placed on the List of Protected Monuments in 1904 and continued to be visited by officers of the Frontier Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India. With their fluted pillars and peculiar trefoil arches, early scholars considered them as characteristic examples of the Kashmir style of temple architecture and were often assigned to the 9th- to 10th-century CE. In the 1960s and 1970s, F.A. Khan and Abdur Rehman contributed to a renewed interest in the temples of Pakistan. In addition, Abdur Rehman also documented a number of inscriptions and other evidence for the Shahi period of architecture in the Peshawar valley and Swat.
Michael W. Meister: Temples of the Indus: Studies in the Hindu Architecture of Ancient Pakistan.
(Brill’s Indological Library.) xv, 85 pp., 88 plates. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. €93. ISBN 978 9004 18617 0.
Michell G.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 2011;74(3):506-508. doi:10.1017/S0041977X11000589
TEMPLES, RITUAL, AND COSMIC SYMBOLISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
edited by
DEENA RAGAVAN
with contributions by
Claus Ambos, John Baines, Gary Beckman, Matthew Canepa, Davíd Carrasco, Elizabeth Frood, Uri Gabbay, Susanne Görke, Ömür Harmanşah, Julia A. B. Hegewald, Clemente Marconi, Michael W. Meister, Tracy Miller, Richard Neer, Deena Ragavan, Betsey A. Robinson, Yorke M. Rowan, and Karl Taube
Papers from the Oriental Institute Seminar Heaven on Earth Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 2–3 March 2012
Oriental Institute Seminars 9 Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-96-7 Pp. viii+463; 174 illustrations
The Three-Treatise (or Sanlun) school is an orthodox Chinese Mādhyamika tradition, which was pioneered by Kumārajīva (344?−413?), a prestigious thinker and translator of Indian extraction, and his distinguished disciple Sengzhao (Seng-chao; 374?−414), and later vigorously revived by Jizang (Chi-tsang; 549−623). The school derives its name “three-treatise” from its emphasis on the three translation texts of early Indian Madhyamaka, the Middle Treatise (Zhong lun), the Twelve Gate Treatise (Shiermen lun), and the Hundred Treatise (Bai lun). Both Sengzhao and Jizang, the two leading philosophers of the school, uphold the view that all things are indeterminate and empty. Sengzhao affirms the nonduality of motion and rest, the myriad things and emptiness, and also the subject and the object. Jizang highlights the notion of nonacquisition (or nonattachment) and famously reinterprets and reconstructs the Mādhyamika doctrine of two truths.
Key works
Liebenthal 1968 contains a complete, though often inaccurate, English translation of Sengzhao’s main work, the Zhaolun; a few essays in the work are available in English in Chan 1963 and Robinson 1967. Jizang’s main writings include the Profound Meaning of the Three Treatises (Sanlun xuanyi), the Meaning of the Two Truths (Erdi yi), and A Commentary on the Middle Treatise (Zhongguan lun shu). However, none of the texts is available in English.
Three Treatises school ［三論宗］ (Chin San-lun-tsung; Sanron-shū): A school based on three treatises—Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way and Treatise on the Twelve Gates, and Āryadeva’s One-Hundred-Verse Treatise. Kumārajīva translated these three treatises into Chinese in the early fifth century. Their doctrines were successively transmitted by Tao-sheng, T’an-chi, Seng-lang, Seng-ch’üan, and Fa-lang, and finally systematized by Chi-tsang (549–623), who is often regarded as the first patriarch of the Chinese Three Treatises, or San-lun, school. The doctrines of the Three Treatises school were transmitted to Japan by three persons during the seventh and early eighth centuries: First, by the Korean priest Hyekwan, known in Japan as Ekan, who went to Japan in 625. He was a disciple of Chi-tsang. Second, by the Chinese priest Chih-tsang, known in Japan as Chizō, who also went to Japan in the seventh century. He studied the Three Treatises doctrines under Ekan at Gangō-ji temple in Nara and returned to China to further his study under Chi-tsang. On his return to Japan, he taught the Three Treatises doctrines at Hōryū-ji temple. Third, by Chizō’s disciple Dōji, who went to China in 702 and returned to Japan in 718 with the Three Treatises doctrines. He lived at Daian-ji temple in Nara. Actually, a priest named Kwallŭk (known in Japan as Kanroku) of the Korean state of Paekche had brought the Three Treatises teachings to Japan in 602, but Ekan established the theoretical foundation of the school. For this reason, Ekan is regarded as the first to formally introduce the Three Treatises doctrine to Japan. The lineage of Chizō’s disciples, carried on by Chikō and Raikō, was called the Gangō-ji branch of the Three Treatises school, and that of Dōji, the Daian-ji branch. The Three Treatises doctrine holds that, because all phenomena appear and disappear solely by virtue of their relationship with other phenomena (dependent origination), they have no existence of their own, or self-nature, and are without substance. The school upholds Nāgārjuna’s “middle path of the eight negations” (non-birth, non-extinction, non-cessation, non-permanence, non-uniformity, non-diversity, non-coming, and non-going), and sees refutation of dualistic or one-sided views in itself as revealing the truth of the Middle Way.
(Jap.). One of the Six Schools of Nara Buddhism during the early history of Buddhism in Japan. The word is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese ‘San-lun’, and represented an effort to import the texts and teachings of the Chinese school into Japan. It is said to have been transmitted to Japan by the Korean monk Hyegwan (Jap., Ekan) in 625. Perhaps as many as three other transmissions occurred over the next century, leading to various streams of Sanron thought based in different temples. However, the school, which limited itself to academic study and practice by a handful of clergy, never reached out to the masses of people, and so never became a major force outside the realm of theory and doctrine. The various streams died out one by one, and the last actual Sanron master passed away in 1149.
Jizang. (J. Kichizō; K. Kilchang) (549–623). In Chinese, “Storehouse of Auspiciousness”; Chinese Buddhist monk of originally Parthian descent and exegete within the San lun zong, the Chinese counterpart of the Madhyamaka school of Indian thought. At a young age, he is said to have met the Indian translator Paramārtha, who gave him his dharma name. Jizang is also known to have frequented the lectures of the monk Falang (507–581) with his father, who was also [an] ordained monk. Jizang eventually was ordained by Falang, under whom he studied the so-called Three Treatises (San lun), the foundational texts of the Chinese counterpart of the Madhyamaka school: namely, the Zhong lun(Mūlamadhyamakārikā), Bai lun (*Śataśāstra), and Shi’ermen lun (*Dvādaśamukhaśāstra). At the age of twenty-one, Jizang received the full monastic precepts. After Falang’s death in 581, Jizang moved to the monastery of Jiaxiangsi in Huiji (present-day Zhejiang province). There, he devoted himself to lecturing and writing and is said to have attracted more than a thousand students. In 598, Jizang wrote a letter to Tiantai Zhiyi, inviting him to lecture on the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. In 606, Emperor Yang (r. 604–617) constructed four major centers of Buddhism around the country and assigned Jizang to one in Yangzhou (present-day Jiangsu province). During this period, Jizang composed his influential overview of the doctrines of the Three Treatises school, entitled the San lun xuanyi. Jizang’s efforts to promote the study of the three treatises earned him the name “reviver of the San lun tradition.” Jizang was a prolific writer who composed numerous commentaries on the three treatises, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra, etc., as well as an overview of Mahāyāna doctrine, entitled the Dasheng xuan lun. (“Jizang”. In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 395. Princeton University Press, 2014)
The Chinese Buddhist Schools.
Lusthaus, Dan.
Buddhist philosophy, Chinese, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-G002-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis,
In the critical environment that followed Dao’an, two sets of events moved Chinese Buddhism in new directions. First, Kumārajīva, a Mahāyāna Buddhist from Kucha in Central Asia, was brought to Changan, the Chinese capital, in 401. Under the auspices of the ruler, he began translating numerous important works with the help of hundreds of assistants, including some of the brightest minds of his day. Some works, such as the Lotus Sutra, Vimalakīrti Sutra and Diamond Sutra, quickly became popular classics. He also introduced the emptiness philosophy of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka thought (see Buddhism, Mādhyamika: India and Tibet; Nāgārjuna), which in China came to be called the Three Treatise School (Sanlun) after the three Madhyamaka texts he translated: the Madhyamaka-kārikās, the Twelve Gate Treatise and Āryadeva’s One Hundred Verse Treatise. In a series of famous letters exchanged with a disciple of Dao’an, Huiyuan (344–416), who had mastered most of the Buddhist theory and practice known in China up to that time, Kumārajīva attacked the shortcomings of the current Chinese Buddhist theories and argued persuasively for the preeminence of Madhyamaka in matters of both theory and practice. His leading disciple, Seng Zhao (384–414), further popularized Madhyamaka thought by packaging it in an exquisite adoption of the literary style of Laozi (see Daodejing) and Zhuangzi, both of whom were extremely popular amongst literati at that time. Sanlun thought continued to spread through the fifth through seventh centuries, greatly influencing other Buddhist schools. After Jizang (549–623), who attempted to synthesize Madhyamakan emptiness with the Buddha-nature and tathāgatagarbha thought gaining prominence at his time, the Sanlun school declined, its most important ideas absorbed by other schools.
Second, in 418 Faxian (the first Chinese monk successfully to return to China with scriptures from pilgrimage to India) and Buddhabhadra produced a partial translation of the Mahāyāna Nirvāṇa Sutra. One of the topics it discusses is the icchantika, incorrigible beings lacking the requisites for achieving enlightenment. Daosheng (c.360–434), a disciple of Huiyuan, convinced that all beings, including icchantikas, must possess Buddha-nature and hence are capable of enlightenment, insisted that the Nirvāṇa Sutra be understood in that light. Since that violated the obvious meaning of the text, Daosheng was unanimously rebuked, whereupon he left the capital in disgrace. In ad 421, a new translation by Dharmakṣema of the Nirvāṇa Sutra based on a Central Asian original appeared containing sections absent from the previous version. The twenty-third chapter of Dharmakṣema’s version contained passages declaring that Buddha-nature was indeed universal, and that even icchantikas possessed it and could thus reach the goal. Daosheng’s detractors in the capital were humbled, suddenly impressed at his prescience. The lesson was never forgotten, so that two centuries later, when Xuan Zang (600–64) translated Indian texts that once again declared that icchantikas lacked the requisite qualities to attain enlightenment, his school was attacked from all quarters as promoting a less than ‘Mahāyānic’ doctrine. However, it should be noted that there is no clear precedent or term in Indian Buddhism for ‘Buddha-nature’; the notion probably either arose in China through a certain degree of license taken by translators when rendering terms like buddhatva (‘Buddhahood’, an accomplishment, not a primordial ontological ground), or it developed from nascent forms of the theory possibly constructed in Central Asia. However, from this moment on, Buddha-nature become one of the foundational tenets of virtually all forms of East Asian Buddhism.
“Zen and San-Lun Mādhyamika Thought: Exploring the Theoretical Foundation of Zen Teachings and Practices.”
‘Non-dualism of the Two Truths: Sanlun and Tiantai on Contradictions’,
Deguchi, Yasuo,
What Can’t be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought (New York, 2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Feb. 2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197526187.003.0004, accessed 23 May 2024.
China possesses a history of over five thousand years. Therefore, if one tries to talk about Chinese culture without touching on Buddhism, one will be in the position of a blind man as told in the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. Even though Buddhism had been established some twenty-five centuries ago, it was only transmitted to China during the Chin and Han Dynasties (some five hundred years after the Parinirvana of Sakyamuni Buddha). Even though Buddhism in China had risen and fallen according to the law of constant changes during the past two thousand years, it had been well established in China. The Chinese have been open-minded in their nature and have been capable of absorbing foreign culture. Therefore when Buddhism was introduced into the well-cultured land of China, it has flourished abundantly and developed fruitfully. The golden age of Chinese Buddhism was from the age of the Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty. During this period the various Schools in Buddhism evolved their irreproachable and infallible theories based on the doctrine of Sakyamuni Buddha. Historically speaking the rise and fall of the various schools had been closely connected to the evolution of cultural thoughts and current events in China. A student of Chinese Culture cannot simply neglect Buddhism as his progress will be handicapped like a wheel without an axis. Therefore it is the duty of a lover of Chinese culture to shoulder the responsibility of fostering the study of Buddhism so that the culture will again radiate its splendid light.
The Ten Schools of Chinese Buddhism are as follows: 1. Reality School or Abhidharma School. 2. Satysiddhi School or Cheng-se School. 3. Three Sastra School or San-lun School. 4. The Lotus School or T’ien-t’ai School. 5. The Hua-yen School or Avatamsaka School. 6. Ch’an School or Dhyana School. 7. Discipline School or Vinaya School. 8. Esoteric School or Chen-yen School. 9. Dharmalaksana School or Fa-siang School. 10. Pure-land School or Ching-t’u School.
The principles of all the above schools are based on the partial doctrine of Sakyamuni Buddha. In the beginning there were no such things as schools in Buddhism. The disciples of Buddha, however, took up what had been most beneficial and most practicable for them. Thus ten schools have evolved. This is just a general view of classification on the Buddhist Schools in China. (Source: BDEA & Buddhanet)
Nagarjuna’s Contribution Towards Chinese Buddhism
by Cheng Jianhua Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
Po: Jizang’s Negations in the Four Levels of the Twofold Truth.
Zhang, E.Y. (2018).
In: Wang, Y., Wawrytko, S. (eds) Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2939-3_9
Abstract
As a synthesizer of the Māhayānic Prajñāpāramitā tradition in the early development of Chinese Buddhism, Jizang (549–623 CE) was one of the most important representatives of the Sunlun School (aka. The Three-Treatises School), whose doctrine centers on emptiness. This paper concerns the unfolding of the deconstructive strategies in Jizang’s rendering of the four levels of twofold truth, demonstrating how Jizang’s method of negation as a form of “critical philosophy” is utilized to correspond to the Sanlun appropriation of the Madhyāmikan understanding of emptiness. According to Jizang, the doctrine of the twofold truth functions as a pedagogical means, aiming to achieve two major purposes: (1) to put forth a critique of both nihilist and absolutist interpretations of emptiness; and (2) to resolve certain obscurities and inconsistencies in the teachings within the Buddhist tradition.
The author submits the idea that the Sanlun philosophy exhibits a more positive attitude toward the conventional through Sinicized conceptualization of the Middle-Way-as-Buddha-Nature, and that the Sanlun thought is more dependence upon affirmative expressions (i.e. kataphasis) than negative ones (i.e. apophasis) to promulgate its thesis. The paper concludes by pointing out that the Jizang’s method of negation has a significant impact on the later development of Chinese Buddhism, such as the Tiantai school’s doctrine of Emptiness-Provision-Middle and the Chan Buddhist teaching of non-abiding.
Notes
The Sanlun School, known as the “School of Emptiness” (Kong Zong 空宗) and the School of Wisdom, (Bore Zong 般若宗) is one of the earliest Buddhist schools in China during Sui and early Tang periods. The Sanlun School is also known as the Chinese representative of the Indian Madhyamaka school of Nāgārjuna. It was introduced to China by a half-Indian missionary-scholar names Kumārajīva (鳩摩羅什 344–413 CE) who translated into Chinese three Madhyāmika texts, namely, the Zhong Lun 中論 (Treatise on the Middle Doctrine, Madhyāmika Śāstra) by Nāgārjuna, the Shiermen Lun 十二門論 (Treatise on Twelve Gates, Dvadasamukha Śāstra) by Nāgārjuna, and the Bai Lun 百論 (Treatise on One Hundred Verses, Satasastra Śāstra) by Aryadeva 提婆. See the section on “The Philosophy of Emptiness: Chi-Tsang [Jizang] of the Three Treatise School” in Chan 1973. The five Sanlun precursors whose works influence Jizang’s philosophy include Nāgārjuna, Kumārajīva, Sengzhao 僧肇 (Seng-Chao 364–414 CE), and Falang 法朗 (507–581 CE), Jizang’s mentor. While some scholars have pointed out that there was no Sanlun School existed before Jizang, others contend that the Sanlun thought represented by Kumārajīva and his disciples are called in the Buddhist history of China “The Old Sanlun of Central Gate” (Guanzhong Jiulun 關中舊論) or “The Old Sanlun of West Gate (Guanxi Jiulun 關西舊論). The two names here indicate the places where the group transmitted Mādhyamika. For a more detailed discussion, see Yang 2008: 251–252.
The Sanskrit word bhāva denotes a metaphysical existence which Nāgārjuna rejects. See Kalupahana 1986: 32.
Also see Liu 1994: 140. Liu also contends that Jizang’s negative argument aims at making “nonattachment” the common thread for the Sanlun school in order to ultimately overcoming existence/nonexistence duality.
The citation is from Jingang Bore Shu 金剛般若疏. Also see Shih Chang-Wing 2004: 99.
The quotation is cited from Cheng 1981. The English translation has been modified for the sake of consistency, and those in [] are added by me.
In the article “Once More on the Two Truths: What Does Chi-tsang [Jizang] Mean by the Two Truths as ‘Yueh-chiao [Juejiao]’?” Whalen Lai contends that the distinction between the verbal teaching and a fixed principle is critical for Jizang’s non-attached position on the hermeneutical understanding of the Madhyāmika notion of emptiness. For a detailed analysis, see Lai 1983: 505–521. Also Nagao 1989.
CT here refers to conventional truth and UT refers to ultimate truth.
In his insightful essay “The Non-duality of Speech and Silence: A comparative Analysis of Jizang’s Thought on Language and Beyond,” Chien-hsing Ho points out that there are two kinds of silence implied in Jizang’s notion of silence even though Jizang has not spelt it out explicitly for the sake of avoiding a dualistic distinction. That is, silence as a principle and silence as teaching, and the latter belongs to the level of conventional truth. See Ho 2012: 13.
I need to point out here that the notion of non-conceptual religious/spiritual knowledge qua silence has been the subject of some debate in past decades among scholars. Stephen Katz, for example, questions the claim of a pure, unmediated experience, that is, a non-conceptual, mystical experience maintained by Buddhism. Katz insists that the mystical experience or direct awareness spoken by Buddhism must be conceptually-laden. See Katz 1978: 22–74.
See Ho 2012: 11. In fact, Ho in his essay renders ti as “body” rather than “substance” in order to avoid substantiating Jizang’s position and thus making the principle of the twofold truth dualistic.
The concept of “mutual identity” is another way for Jizang to express his idea of non-duality of the twofold truth.
Jizang sometimes follows traditional interpretations. For example, he takes śāstras (lun論) upon which his own Sanlun theories have formulated as a “zheng” to a variety of inconsistence existent in śutrās (jing 經). This is Jizang’s way of operating panjiao (判教) through which different teachings and doctrinal issues can be harmonized by reclassification.
The terms truth-qua-instruction (jiaodi 教諦) and truth-qua-viewpoint (yudi 於諦) are used to refer to the conventional truth and the ultimate truth by the Sanlun School exclusively. See Hong 2009: 137.
Here the first view, “mental non-existence” (xinwu 心無), refers to the idea that one has noawareness of things, but the things are not non-existent. The second view, “identical with form” (jise 即色), refers to one that identifies emptiness with form (or matter) even though it agrees to the idea that form does not cause itself to form. The third view, “original non-existence” (benwu 本無), refers to a position that takes “non-existence” as the non-existence of existence. All these views are rejected by Sengzhao. See Swanson 1985: 35–36.
Some changes have been made to his translation for the sake of consistence in terms and concepts.
The word “un-negation” here refers to Jizang’s notion of weiwu 非無, a method of negation. At the same time, it has a similar meaning to Derrida’s idea of “de-negation” which I use in the paper as well. It is a method of a negation that “denies itself” rather than a pure negation of negation. See Coward and Foshay 1992: 25.
Here Jizang also uses water and fire metaphors, pointing out that emptiness is like water and the purpose of it is to extinguish fire (of attachment). But “if water itself were to catch on fire, what would one use to distinguish it? Both nihilism and eternalism are like the fire, and emptiness is capable of extinguishing them. But if one persists in becoming attached to emptiness, there is no medicine which can extinguish this.” (T45, 1852: 7a14).
Sanlun Xuanyi. Quotation is from De Bary and Bloom 1999: 438–9. Minor changes in translation are done for the sake of coherence in wording for this paper.
Fox argues that Jizang’s threefold category of being corrective can be recapitulated as three methods of negation: (1) the method of refuting competing points of view in terms of independent criteria; (2) the method of using opponent’s own logic against himself (reduction absurdum), and the method of putting to rest of obsessive intellectualized and discursive discourse. See Fox 1992: 17.
It should be noted that sometimes it is ambivalent that Jizang’s suspicion of concepts is due to their intrinsic limitations or confusions caused by the fact that there is a problem of having a clear definition in Chinese Buddhism. Alan Fox has pointed out the Sanlun tradition, including Jizang, seems to ignore the problem of definitions such as the concept of “self-nature” that so occupied Candrakirti and others in the Indian Madhyāmika tradition. Fox is correct on this difference since the Chinese tradition as a whole does not pay much attention to conceptual definitions. For more detailed discussion on Jizang’s view on language, see Ho 2012: 1–19. Ho insists that Jizang does not hold a clear-cut distinction on conventional speech and sacred silence as one would see in the works of Nāgārjuna.
Although the Hongzhou Ch’an lineage is the subject of some contention, the descended line, namely, the lineage in the order of MazuBaizhangHuangboLinji is traditionally accepted according to the dialogical history of Ch’an Buddhism. For a comprehensive and systematic study of the method of negation in Ch’an, see Wang 2003: 52–80.
For example, before the arising of the Sanlun school, one of the most popular notions of the Buddha-nature is the “Buddha nature of a correct cause” (zhengyin foxing 正因佛性) which puts an emphasis on the existence of a subjective mind. See Yang 2007: 259–260. Yang argues that Jizang in his late life held more affirmative views such as the idea of the Buddha-nature due to his interaction with masters of other schools such as Zhiyi 智顗 (Chih-i 538–597 CE) of the Tiantai School 天台宗). At the same time, Zhiyi’s theory on emptiness-provision-middle-way (kong-jia-zhong 空-假-中) shows the influence of the Sanlun School. For a more comprehensive study of the relationship between the Sanlun School and the Tiantai School with regard to the doctrine of emptiness, see Ng 1993.
Cf. Chap. 7 of this anthology for the discussion of Sengzhao’s Wubuqian Lun.
Also see Chapter Six on Sengzhao in Robinson 1967: 123–155.
Mogliola plays with the Buddhist notion of coming/going, pointing out that emptiness is BETWEEN “easy come and easy go” and “hard to come by.”
It should be noted that whether Nāgārjuna’s ultimate truth in his twofold truth theory points to something absolutely transcendent is a question under the debate. T.R.V. Murti, for example, has pointed out that for Nāgārjuna the ultimate truth transcends discursive thought in a sense that it is unreachable via rationality, either empirical investigation or philosophical speculation. Yet this does not mean that Nāgārjuna is a nihilist or negativistic thinker, for “[t]he dialectic should not be taken, as it is done by the uniformed, as the denial of the Real – Nihilism” See Tuck 1990: 52.
Of course, whether or not Jizang dichotomizes ti and yong is debatable. Wing-Tist Chan argues that in Jizang “substance and function are sharply contrasted” in comparison with Sengzhao who identifies substance with function. See Chan 1973: 358. Aaron K. Koseki holds the same opinion. See Koseki 1982: 58. Ho, on the other hand, shows a different viewpoint. I concur with Ho on this point. I think one of the major differences between Sengzhao and Jizang is that the former tends to use more conjunctions (both…and) whereas the latter more disjunctions (neither…nor), yet both expressions can lend to the idea of nonduality.
For Jizang, “loss” or “non-acquisition” is another word for “emptiness.”
Shih Chang-Qing, who has offered a historical overview of the development of the Sanlun School, points out that Jizang’s emphasis on the relationship between acquisition and loss is due to the influence of Falang, his mentor. To establish the relationship between these two concepts enables Jizang to contend his argument on nonduality between the wisdom of the sage and the mind of the ordinary people. See Shih 2004: 337–338.
When speaking of a Derridean deconstruction, John Caputo makes a remark that deconstruction is a “religion without religion” that points to a moment of transcendence yet not “transcendence” in a traditional sense, since it means “excess,” the exceeding of the stable boarders of the presently possible.” See Caputo 1997: xix. I think that the same thing can be said of Sanlun Buddhists in China.
Scholars like Wing-Tist Chan, however, argues that Sanlun thought is not Chinese enough which accounts for its failure to survive in China. He says, “Ironically, Chi-tsang’s (Jizang) success was at the same time the failure his school, for it became less and less Chinese. As a systematizer and transmitter of Indian philosophy, he brought about no cross-fertilization between Buddhist and Chinese thought.” See Chan 1973: 358.
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Convergence and Harmony: On the Schools of Chinese Buddhism
Volume 9 of Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy Editors Youru Wang, Sandra A. Wawrytko Edition illustrated Publisher Springer, 2019 ISBN 9048129397, 9789048129393 Length 440 pages
Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy
Editor Antonio S. Cua Publisher Routledge, 2013 ISBN 1135367485, 9781135367480 Length 1020 pages
The different Buddhist schools of thought, still operating in the present day, developed after the death of the Buddha (l. c. 563 – c. 483 BCE) in an effort to perpetuate his teachings and honor his example. Each of the schools claimed to represent Buddha’s original vision and still do so in the modern era.
Although Buddha himself is said to have requested that, following his death, no leader was to be chosen to lead anything like a school, this was ignored and his disciples seem to have fairly quickly institutionalized Buddhist thought with rules, regulations, and a hierarchy.
At first, there may have been a unified vision of what Buddha had taught but, in time, disagreements over what constituted the “true teaching” resulted in fragmentation and the establishment of three main schools:
Theravada Buddhism claims to be the oldest school and to maintain Buddha’s original vision and teachings. Mahayana Buddhism is said to have split off from Theravada in the belief that it was too self-centered and had lost the true vision; this school also claims it holds to the Buddha’s original teaching. Actually, however, the two schools may have been established around the same time, just with different focus, and probably emerged from two earlier schools: the Sthaviravada (possible precursor to Theravada) and the Mahasanghika (also given as Mahasamghika, considered by some the earlier Mahayana). The connection between these earlier schools and the later ones, however, has been challenged. Vajrayana Buddhism developed, largely in Tibet, in response to what were perceived as too many rules in Mahayana Buddhism and emphasized living the Buddhist walk naturally without regard to ideas of what one was “supposed” to do and so it, too, claims to be the most authentic.
All three schools maintain a belief in the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path as preached by the Buddha but differ – sometimes significantly – in how they choose to follow that path. Objectively, none are considered any more legitimate than the others, nor are the many minor schools which have developed, although adherents of each believe otherwise while, at the same time, recognizing they are all part of Ekayana (“One Vehicle” or “One Path”) in that all embrace Buddha’s central vision and seek to promote harmony and compassion in the world.
Although Buddhism is often perceived by non-adherents as a uniform belief system, it is as varied as any other in practice but, theoretically at least, a modern-day secular Buddhist can participate in rituals with a religious Buddhist without concern or conflict and all work toward the same essential goals.
Buddha & Buddhism
According to the foundational account of Buddha’s life, he was born Siddhartha Gautama, a Hindu prince, and his father, hoping to prevent him from following a spiritual path instead of succeeding him as king, kept him from any experiences which might have made him aware of suffering and death. The king’s plan succeeded for 29 years until Siddhartha witnessed the famous Four Signs while out riding one day – an aged man, a sick man, a dead man, and a spiritual ascetic – and became aware of the reality of sickness, old age, and death.
He renounced his wealth and position and followed the example of the spiritual ascetic, eventually attaining enlightenment upon recognizing the inherent impermanence of all aspects of life and realizing how one could live without suffering. He developed the concept of the Four Noble Truths, which state that suffering in life is caused by attachment to the things of life, and the Eightfold Path, the spiritual discipline one should follow to achieve release from attachment and the pain of craving and loss. Scholar John M. Koller comments:
The Buddha’s teaching of [the Four Noble Truths] was based on his insight into interdependent arising (pratitya samutpada) as the nature of existence. Interdependent arising means that everything is constantly changing, that nothing is permanent. It also means that all existence is selfless, that nothing exists separately, by itself. And beyond the impermanence and selflessness of existence, interdependent arising means that whatever arises or ceases does so dependent upon conditions. This is why understanding the conditions that give rise to [suffering] is crucial to the process of eliminating [suffering]. (64)
Buddha illustrated these conditions through the Wheel of Becoming which has in its hub the triad of ignorance, craving, and aversion, between the hub and rim the six types of suffering existence, and on the rim the conditions which give rise to duhkha (translated as “suffering”). Ignorance of the true nature of life encourages craving for those things one believes are desirable and aversion to things one fears and rejects. Caught on this wheel, the soul is blinded to the true nature of life and so condemns itself to samsara, the endless repetition of rebirth and death.
Spread & Fragmentation
Buddha preached his vision from the time of his enlightenment until his death at 80 years of age, at which point he requested that his disciples should not choose a leader but that each should lead themselves. He also requested that his remains be placed in a stupa at a crossroads. Neither of these requests was honored as his disciples fairly quickly organized themselves as a group with a leader and divided his remains among themselves, each choosing to place them in a stupa in a location of their choice.
Around 400 BCE, they held the First Council at which they established accepted Buddhist doctrine based on the Buddha’s teachings and, in 383 BCE, they held a Second Council at which, according to the standard account of the meeting, the Sthaviravada school insisted on the observance of ten proscriptions in the monastic discipline which the majority rejected.
At this point, either the Sthaviravada school left the community (known as the sangha) or the majority distanced themselves from the Sthaviravada and called themselves Mahasanghika (“Great Congregation”). All the later schools then developed from this first schism.
These schools had to contend with the more well-established belief systems of Hinduism and Jainism and, in an effort to level the playing field, developed an illustrious foundation story for their founder and attributed to him a number of miracles. Still, Buddhism remained a small sect in India, one among many, until it was championed by the Mauryan king Ashoka the Great (r. 268-232 BCE) who embraced the faith and initiated its spread. He sent missionaries to other nations such as Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Thailand, and Buddhism was accepted in these places far more quickly than in its home country.
Doctrinal differences, however, led to further divisions within the community of adherents. As the belief system became more institutionalized, these differences became more significant. Different canons of scripture developed which were held by some as true while rejected by others and different practices arose in response to the scripture. For example, the Pali canon, which emerged from Sri Lanka, maintained that Buddha was a human being who, although endowed with great spiritual power, still attained enlightenment through his own efforts and, when he died, he was set free from samsara and achieved total liberation from human affairs.
As Buddhism spread, however, the founder was deified as a transcendent being who had always existed and would always exist. Buddha’s death was still understood as his nirvana, a “blowing out” of all attachment and craving, but some adherents no longer saw this as simply an escape from samsara but an elevation to an eternally abiding state; freed from samsara, but still present in spirit. The Mahasanghika school held to this belief as well as many others (such as the claim that the Buddha had never existed physically, only as a kind of holy apparition) which stood in direct contrast to the Sthaviravada and, later, the Theravada schools. Although the central vision of the Buddha was retained by adherents, doctrinal differences like this one led to the establishment of the different schools of Buddhist thought.
Although there were actually many schisms before the establishment of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana (the Mahasanghika school alone produced three different sects by c. 283 BCE), the division of these schools from the original sangha is said to have been predicted by the Buddha himself in what is known as The Three Turnings. This concept is based on that of the Dharmachakra (wheel of eight spokes, a familiar Buddhist symbol) which represents the Eightfold Path, informed by dharma which, in Buddhism, is understood as “cosmic law”. The Dharmachakra has always been in motion and always will be but, as far as human recognition of it goes, it was set in motion when Buddha gave his first sermon, would then make the first turn with the establishment of Theravada Buddhism, a second with Mahayana, and a third with Vajrayana.
Theravada Buddhism
Theravada Buddhism is said to be the oldest form of the belief system, but this is challenged by modern scholars. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr. explain:
Despite the way in which scholars have portrayed the tradition, Theravada is neither synonymous with early Buddhism nor a more pristine form of the religion prior to the rise of the Mahayana. Such a claim suggests a state of sectarian inertia that belies the diversity over time of doctrine and practice within what comes to be called the Theravada tradition. (904)
Even so, many of those who self-identify as Theravada Buddhists do still make the claim that it is the oldest version of Buddhism and the closest to the founder’s vision. It is known as the “Teaching of the Elders” which derives from the same name held by the earlier school of Sthaviravada, and this is sometimes interpreted to mean that its founders were those closest to the Buddha but, actually, the term was commonly used in India to denote any monastic sect, and this applies directly to Theravada.
Adherents focus on the Three Trainings (trisksa):
Sila (moral conduct)
Samadhi (meditation)
Prajna (wisdom)
This discipline is observed as part of the Eightfold Path and is inspired by the central figure of the school, the sage Buddhaghosa (5th century CE) whose name means “Voice of the Buddha” for his ability to interpret and comment upon Buddhist doctrine. They hold the Pali canon to be the most authentic and focus on a monastic interpretation of the Buddhist path in which the individual seeks to become an arhat (saint) and has no obligation to teach others the way toward enlightenment. One may certainly do so if one chooses but, unlike Mahayana Buddhism, the goal is not to become a spiritual guide to others but to free one’s self from samsara.
Theravada Buddhism is divided between a clergy of monks and a congregation of laypeople and it is understood that the monks are more spiritually advanced than the common folk. Women are considered inferior to men and are not thought capable of attaining enlightenment until they are reincarnated as a male. The Theravada school is sometimes referred to as Hinayana (“little vehicle”) by Mahayana Buddhists, but it should be noted that this is considered an insult by Theravada Buddhists in that it suggests their school is not as important as Mahayana.
Mahayana Buddhism
Mahayana Buddhists named themselves the “Great Vehicle” either because they felt they retained the true teachings and could carry the most people to enlightenment (as has been claimed) or because they developed from the early “Great Congregation” Mahasanghika school and wished to distance themselves from it, however slightly. It was founded 400 years after Buddha’s death, probably inspired by the early Mahasanghika ideology, and was streamlined and codified by the sage Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century CE), the central figure of the school. It may have initially been a minor school before interacting with Mahasanghika or, according to some scholars, developed on its own without that school’s influence but, either way, Mahayana is the most widespread and popular form of Buddhism in the world today, spreading from its initial acceptance in China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet to points all around the world.
The Mahayana school believes that all human beings possess a Buddha nature and can attain transcendent awareness, becoming a Bodhisattva (“essence of enlightenment”), who can then guide others on the same path. Adherents seek to attain the state of sunyata – the realization that all things are devoid of intrinsic existence, nature, and lasting meaning – a clearing of the mind that enables one to recognize the true nature of life. Having attained this higher state, just as Buddha did, one becomes a buddha. This transcendental state is similar to how gods and spirits were viewed by the Buddha himself – as existing but incapable of rendering any service to the individual – but, as a Bodhisattva, both women and men who have awakened are able to help others to help themselves.
As with Theravada and every other school of Buddhism, the focus is on the self – self-perfection and self-redemption – and no other can do the spiritual work which one needs to do to release one’s self from suffering. Although Buddha is sometimes seen as a deified being by Mahayana Buddhists, the tenets do not encourage one to call on him for help. Following Buddha’s own vision, a belief in a creator god who is attentive to one’s prayers is discouraged because it attaches one to a power outside of one’s self and sets one up for disappointment and frustration when prayers go unanswered.
This is not to say that no Mahayana Buddhists pray directly to the Buddha; the tradition of representing Buddha in statuary and art, of praying to these objects, and considering them holy – observed in Mahayana Buddhism – was initiated by the Mahasanghika school and is among the many compelling reasons to believe the younger school emerged from the older one.
Vajrayana Buddhism
Vajrayana Buddhism (“Diamond Vehicle”) is so-called because of its association of enlightenment with an unbreakable substance. Its name is also given as “Thunderbolt Vehicle”, especially in reference to Tantric or Zen Buddhism, in that enlightenment falls like a thunderbolt after one has put in the required effort at perfecting the self. It is often considered an offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism – is even referenced as a sect of that school – but actually borrows tenets from both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism while adding an innovation of its own.
In both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, one decides to follow the path, accepts the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as legitimate, and commits to a spiritual discipline which will lead to enlightenment by renouncing unprofitable habits. In Vajrayana Buddhism, it is understood that one already has a Buddha nature – everyone does, just as Mahayana believes – but, in Vajrayana, one only has to realize this in order to fully awaken. An adherent, therefore, does not have to give up bad habits such as drinking alcohol or smoking right away in order to begin one’s work on the path; one only has to commit to following the path and the desire to engage in unhealthy and damaging behaviors will steadily lose their allure. Instead of distancing one’s self from desire, one steps toward and through it, shedding one’s attachment as one proceeds in the discipline.
As with Mahayana Buddhism, the Vajrayana school focuses one on becoming a Bodhisattva who will then guide others. It was systematized by the sage Atisha (l. 982-1054 CE) in Tibet and so is sometimes referred to as Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama, often referenced as the spiritual leader of all Buddhists, is technically only the spiritual head of the Vajrayana School, and his views are most directly in line with this school of thought.
Other Schools
There are many other Buddhist schools which have developed from these three all around the world. In the West, the most popular of these is Zen Buddhism which traveled from China to Japan and was most fully developed there before arriving in the West. As Zen Masters are fond of saying, “What you call Zen is not Zen; What you do not call Zen is not Zen” meaning that the state of being one wishes to attain cannot be defined; it can only be experienced. One arrives at this state through deep meditation and mental concentration on koans – usually translated as “riddles” – which have no answer, such as the famous “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” – in order to clear the mind, rid the self of attachment, and attain the state of samadhi, a state of psychological and spiritual vision similar to sunyata. Students of Zen Buddhism frequently study with a master who might slap them, shout, or suddenly hit them with a stout stick in order to awaken them from the illusion of who they think they are and what they think they are doing. These sudden attacks without warning are engaged in, like the koans, to snap an adherent out of rational, linear thinking into a higher state of awareness.
Pure Land Buddhism is another which developed from Mahayana Buddhism and its goal is rebirth in a “pure land” of a Buddha Realm which exists on a higher plane. The belief comes from a story in the text known as the Infinite Life Sutra in which the Buddha tells a story of a past buddha named Amitabha who became a Bodhisattva and to whom were revealed the Buddha Realms available to the enlightened. Amitabha’s efforts to save all sentient creatures from suffering resulted in the creation of the realm of Sukhavati, the greatest of all, in which one experiences complete bliss after leaving the body at death. Although Pure Land is its own school, some Mahayana Buddhists observe the same tenets.
An increasingly popular school in the West is Secular Buddhism which rejects all metaphysical aspects of the belief system to focus on self-improvement for its own sake. Secular Buddhism recognizes the Four Noble Truths and Eight-Fold Path but on purely practical and psychological levels. There are no saints, no Bodhisattvas, no Buddha Realms, no concept of reincarnation to be considered. One engages in the discipline as set down by the Buddha in order to become a better version of one’s self and, when one dies, one no longer exists. There is no concept of a reward after death; one’s efforts in being the best person one can be in life is considered its own reward.
Conclusion
It is actually impossible to tell which, if any, of these schools is closest to the original vision of the Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama, himself, wrote nothing down but instead – like many great spiritual figures throughout history whose followers then founded a religion in their name – lived his beliefs and tried to help others in their struggles. Since the earliest Buddhist texts were written centuries after the Buddha lived, and in an era when the events of a famous person’s life were regularly embellished upon, it is unknown whether his so-called “biography” is accurate nor even the dates between which he is said to have lived.
However that may be, and whoever he was, the Buddha established a belief system which attracts over 500 million adherents in the present day and has, for centuries, offered people a path toward peace of mind and inspiration to help others. The Buddhist belief in the sanctity of all life – no matter which school one attaches one’s self to – promotes care for other human beings, animals, and the earth in an effort to end suffering and offer transformative possibilities. In this respect, each school works toward goals that Buddha himself would approve of and differences in how those goals are reached are ultimately irrelevant.
“DOXOGRAPHICAL APPROPRIATION OF NĀGĀRJUNA’S CATUṢKOṬI IN CHINESE SANLUN AND TIANTAI THOUGHT”
It is well known that the cultural development in ancient China from the Eastern Han (25-220 AD) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) was directly and deeply influenced by Indian culture and civilization. The influence was largely achieved through the dissemination of Indian Buddhism. Without this magnificent religious media, it is hard to imagine that a foreign culture with considerably different characters could have made such great influence on the already highly developed and extremely secularized Chinese culture. For this reason, scholars nowadays in China generally tend to consider the influence of Indian culture as resulting from the influence of Indian Buddhism. In this regard, Prof. Ji Xianlin once said, “Without studying the impacts of Buddhism on Chinese culture, it is impossible to write an authentic history of Chinese culture, a history of Chinese philosophy, or even a history of China”. The term “Buddhism” mentioned here does not only refer to the religion per se, but to the whole complex of ancient Indian culture that had been brought by Buddhism into China. One may wonder: how did Buddhism, the carrier of Indian culture, find its way into China? The languages used for transmission of Indian Buddhism and Indian culture are basically from the Indo-European language family, while the Chinese language as the essential vehicle of Chinese culture belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. The huge typological gap between Indian and Chinese languages reflects the great underlying difference between Indian and Chinese cultures. Anyone who has some knowledge about this difference is astonished by the fruitful achievements of the communication of these two cultures made in ancient times. A substantial part of the achievements, fairly speaking, owes to the enterprise of translating Buddhist texts into Chinese, which lasted between the early first millennium AD and the early second millennium AD. This enterprise represents perhaps one of the most spectacular examples of intercultural exchange in human history: during nearly ten centuries from the Eastern Han to the Northern Song Dynasty, hundreds of Buddhist masters coming from India or Central Asia to China, along with their Chinese assistants, translated thousands of Indian Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and thereby made known to Chinese people not only Buddhist teachings, but also an extensively rich set of Indian cultural information, which finally even had effects on their daily life. In this sense, it is reasonable to say that without the translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese, there could have neither been the widespread dissemination of Buddhism in China, nor the establishment of Chinese Buddhism, not to mention the profound influence of Indian culture on the Chinese popular culture. Among those honourable Buddhist masters, the most outstanding one is Kumārajīva whom we commemorate today. The present paper consists of three parts: 1) The significance of Chinese Buddhist translations in the history of Chinese Buddhism and the history of Chinese culture; 2) Kumārajīva and his translation activities; 3) The characteristics of Kumārajīva’s translations and their influence on the Chinese culture.
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Wisdom is an essential concern of Buddhism, and “education” in the Buddhist sense should be understood as a process of attaining wisdom or becoming wise-in getting oneself enlightened and ridding oneself of the original ignorance. The teaching of and about wisdom should be considered as part of this process. Since the attainment of wisdom is for Buddhism not a remote possibility but rather a spiritual reality, as evidenced by Buddha himself and so many other bodhisattvas, the answer to questions such as whether or not wisdom is possible is indubitably “yes”. Also, as the final end of Buddhist teaching is to attain enlightenment and to get rid of the original ignorance, the question as to whether wisdom could be taught is also definitively “yes”. Therefore, instead of questioning whether it is possible to teach wisdom, what we should ask here is rather the nature of the Buddhist wisdom and the Buddhist pedagogical process of attaining it. In this chapter I’ll deal with the concept of “wisdom” in three schools of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism: the Sanlun Zong (Three Treatises School), the Weishi Zong (Conscious-Only School) and the Chan Zong (Chan School), which have appeared successively in the history of Chinese Buddhism. We know that Mahayana Buddhism has two major schools in its Indian tradition: Mādhyamika and Yogācāra. They must have contained in themselves such an original generosity to go outside of themselves and the capacity to recontextualize themselves in Chinese culture and become Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. After their spreading and recontextualization in China, the Sanlun School could be seen as the Chinese development of Mādhyamika, whereas the Weishi School should be seen as Yogācāra in its Chinese version. As to the Chan School, which later in its Japanese version was called “Zen”, it should be seen as a properly Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. For reasons of space, we will leave other Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Schools undiscussed, such as Tiantai Zong, which was thus named because of its being built on theMt. Tiantai by Master Zhiyi (538-597), and Huayan Zong, founded by Fazang (643-712) and was thus named because of its focusing on the Huayan Jing(Avatamsaka Sutra, or The Flower Splendor Scripture). In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, the mostly used term for “wisdom” is the Chinese phonetic translation “bore” of the Sanskrit word “prajñā”. In its Indian tradition, the term “prajñā” means knowledge as well as wisdom, perfect wisdom as well as imperfect wisdom; whereas in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, “prajñā” is taken to mean only perfect wisdom. It is in this sense that when Xuanzang (596-664), who had launched the biggest project of translation of the Buddhist Scriptures in Chinese intellectual history, set up a system of rules for translation, he showed a particular respect for this term in establishing the wu bu fan (five categories of terms not to be translated), of which the fifth concerns itself with the term prajñā. There, it is said, “the use of the Sanskrit term ‘prajñā’ shows respect, whereas the use of the Chinese term zhihui (wisdom) turns out to be superficial”. Nevertheless, in this chapter, we still have to use the term zhihui (wisdom) to render the meaning of prajñā. This is especially the case in Weishi’s concept of zhuanshi dezhi (transformation of consciousness to obtain wisdom) or zhuanshi chengzhi (transformation of consciousness into wisdom). For the Weishi School, wisdom is based on the marvellous being of the Alaya-consciousness (Alya-vijñāna). But, for the Sanlun School, prajñā would mean the attainment of and the marvellous function of emptiness. In Chan Buddhism, prajñā would mean the immediate self-realization of the Buddhahood in the details of everyday life. One of the major focuses of this chapter is to relate the concept of wisdom (and various ways to learn to be wise) to the relation between the mind (or consciousness) and the multiple others in which it finds itself. My basic idea, to be developed in the following sections, is that both Mādhyamika and Yogācāra in their Indian traditions keep a certain dimension of the other. For example, Yogācāra pays respect to the “textual other” and the “ethical other”, in the sense that wisdom is to be acquired by appropriating the meaning of the Scriptures; and the meaning of life thus acquired is to be put into practice with an unconditional generosity towards multiple others, that is, all sentient beings, without even expecting a return from them. For the Mādhyamika, the dimension of the other becomes that which lies always beyond, in denying or making empty that which one achieves in negative dialectics: to render empty in order to show the nonsubstantial character of the Ultimate Reality. The Middle Path, which is the way wisdom or prajñā takes, consists in understanding the interdependent causation in the sense of non-substantiality. After destroying any dualistic situation in the process of negative dialectics, even the reality of interdependent causation should be denied. Unfortunately, the dimension of the other gradually got lost in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, through Sanlun and Weishi, finally to be radically abandoned in absolute immanentism without any necessity to refer to the other-in Chan Buddhism.
The Beopseong sect, as the name hints at, attempts to clarify the meaning of various dharmas. The Beopseong sect used the Three Treatises as their primary texts. These three texts are: 1. The Middle Treatise – Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, 2. The Treatise on the Twelve Gates – Dvādaśadvāraśāstra, 3. The Hundred Verse Treatise – Śataśāstra. As a result, the Beopseong sect is also sometimes called the Three Treatises School, or the “Samnon-jong” in Korean.
One of the main focuses of the Samnon-jong sect, which is known as the “Buddha Nature” in English, focuses on how it’s possible for sentient beings to attain the state of a Buddha. This is a central topic in Mahayana Buddhism. So one of the meanings of the term “Buddha Nature” is that all sentient beings contain an enlightened Buddha within themselves. Another approach to the idea of “Buddha Nature” is the idea that allows for the enabling of sentient beings to become Buddhas. Debate continues to this day on what the “Buddha Nature” means, and it plays a major role in doctrinal Mahayana Buddhism.
With this in mind, the Samnon-jong (Buddha Nature) sect sharply criticized the Smaller Vehicle – Hinayana Buddhism. The reason for this is that the Samnon-jong sect believed that the Smaller Vehicle served no purpose. The Samnon-jong sect considered the idea of emptiness found in Prajnaparamita (the Perfection of [Transcendent] Wisdom) as corresponding perfectly to the ultimate end, or “Gugyeong” in Korean. That’s why the Samnon-jong sect is also known as the Emptiness of Nature Sect, or “Seonggong-jong” in Korean.
So how did Samnon Buddhism first develop? In China, during the reign of Emperor Yao Chang (r. 384-394 A.D.) of Later Qin, a monk from Kucha named Kumārajīva (344-413 A.D.) followed Lü Guang (337-400 A.D.) to Liangzhou and reached Changan in 400 A.D. Kumārajīva immediately started to translate Buddhist sutras. Among the 380 sutras that he translated, the Śataśāstra was completed in 404 A.D. And the other two sutras, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and the Dvādaśadvāraśāstra, were both completed in 410 A.D. It was from these sutras, and their translations, that a sect was founded. But not only was it founded, but it began to flourish right away, as well. Kumarajiva became the first patriarch of the sect.
With all that being said, it’s unclear how this sect first came to the Korean peninsula. Also, it’s impossible to know the person that first expounded and taught these teachings, as well. However, it can safely be assumed that because of the proximity of Northern China (which is where Sanlun Buddhism was first founded and developed) to the Korean peninsula, that it was transmitted through trade and cultural exchanges. And because Sanlun Buddhism passed through the Korean peninsula to arrive in Japan, which it did as Sanron Buddhism in 625 A.D., Sanlun Buddhism was already present in the Three Kingdoms of Korea (18 B.C. – 660 A.D.) at this time. With this in mind, and without being able to be more specific, Sanlun Buddhism is believed to have first been introduced around the time other sects arrived on the Korean peninsula from Tang China (618–690, 705–907 A.D.) like Huayan and Vinaya Buddhism. Additionally, the Hwaeom-jong sect and Samnon-jong sect were believed to have strong ties. Later, and at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), the Samnon-jong sect was unified with the Jungdo sect, and it became the Jungsin sect. This sect continued to use the same doctrinal content of the Three Treatises.
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Chien-hsing Ho
pp. 397–418. in: Chen-kuo Lin / Michael Radich (eds.) A Distant Mirror Articulating Indic Ideas in Sixth and Seventh Century Chinese Buddhism Hamburg Buddhist Studies, 3 Hamburg: Hamburg University Press 2014
Empty Logic: Mādhyamika Buddhism from Chinese Sources
Author Hsueh-li Cheng Publisher Philosophical Library, 1984 Original from the University of Virginia Digitized Aug 2, 2007 ISBN 0802224423, 9780802224422 Length 220 pages
The study on The Philosophy of Zhao Lun
Yan Li Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing 100083, China
The meaning of the two truths–the worldly or mundane truth samvrtisatya , and the real or supreme truth — was a hotly debated topic among Chinese Buddhists in the 5th and 6th century a.d. From the time of Kumarajiva this issue was discussed in terms of yu and wu . Usually yu was iden- tified with samvrtisatya and wu with paramarthasatya, leading to the mistaken conclusion that the two truths represent two separate realities. The ambiguous meaning of these terms also contributed to the confusion. Yu and wu have both positive and negative conno- tations for Buddhist philosophy. Yu understood as substantial Being is denied by the Buddhist concept of emptiness sunyata , but yu as conventional, conditioned, co-arising dharmas is compatible with the Buddhist concept of pratityasamutpada. Wu understood as a nihilistic nothingness is a misunderstanding of emptiness, but wu as a lack of substantial Being is synonymous with emptiness. The use of these ambiguous terms to interpret the meaning of the two truths prevented a satisfactory resolution of the problem until the issue was dealt with by Chi-tsang, of the Sanlun tradition, and Chih-i, founder of T’ien-t’ai philosophy. ;In this dissertation I outline the debate on the two truths in China from the time of Kumarajiva and Seng-chao, the first appearance of three truth formulations in Chinese apocryphal Sutras, the debate on the two truths led by Prince Chao-ming, Hui-yuan’s discussion in his Ta ch’eng i chang, the positive evaluation of conventional existence by the Ch’eng shih lun scholars, and the contributions of Chi-tsang. Finally I discuss Chih-i’s T’ien-t’ai philosophy and his resolution of the problem by means of his threefold truth concept. Chih-i tran- scends the yu/wu duality by emphasizing the oneness of reality and discussing the issue in terms of emptiness sunyata , conventional existence prajnaptirupadaya , and the middle madhyama . An annotated translation of the pertinent section of the Fa hua hsuan i is included in an Appendix
Sŭng Tonang (僧 道朗) (a.k.a. Sŭngnang (僧朗), fl. 476?-512) from Koguryŏ and his Role in Chinese San-lun
Joerg Plassen
Joerg Plassen is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Ostasienwissenschaften at Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the First World Congress of Korean Studies, Academy of Korean Studies, Sŏngnam, July 18-20, 2002.
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture February 2005, Vol. 5, pp. 165~198.
Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE) is the founder of the Madhyamaka or Middle Way school of Buddhist philosophy and the most influential of all Buddhist thinkers following the Buddha himself. Throughout his works, Nāgārjuna repeatedly calls for the complete abandonment of all views. But how could anyone possibly abandon all views? And how could a philosopher of Nāgārjuna’s stature resort to using so self-contradictory a form of argumentation as the tetralemma, which openly negates a position, its contrary, both, and neither? Many scholars have attempted to parameterize Nāgārjuna’s paradoxes in an apologetic effort to justify him to mainstream Western philosophers as being irreproachably logical. This book, however, shows not only how Nāgārjuna’s truly radical teaching of no-view or “abelief” makes perfect sense within his Buddhist philosophy but also how it stands at the summit of his religious mission to care for all living beings. Rather than treating any one aspect of Nāgārjuna’s ideas in isolation, here his metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics emerge as forging a single coherent and convincing philosophical-religious system of thought and practice. Overall, this book takes a comprehensive approach to Nāgārjuna’s thought in its Buddhist context, integrating his views on views, belief, and conceptualization; language, mind, and intention; action, attachment, and selfhood; suffering, violence, and peace; and emptiness, nirvāṇa, and Buddhahood. By drawing on Buddhist sources in a way that resolutely strives to move beyond the Christianocentrism and Occidentocentrism still so dominant in scholarship today, this work challenges the very ways in which we think about religion and philosophy.
‘Abandoning All Views: A Buddhist Critique of Belief’,
Stepien, Rafal K.,
Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness (New York , 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 30 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197771303.003.0005, accessed 26 May 2024.
Chapter 4 brings preceding discussions of the tetralemma to bear on the central role that abandoning all views plays within Nāgārjuna’s thought as a whole. For Nāgārjuna’s masterwork opens and closes with salutations to the Buddha as one who taught the “cessation of conceptualization” and the “abandonment of all views.” In addition, this and Nāgārjuna’s other texts contain numerous analogous calls for the complete abandonment of views, which are surveyed and explained. Despite these copious, clear, and comprehensive disavowals of views, contemporary scholars almost unanimously interpret such statements as referring only to “false” views. This chapter argues instead that Nāgārjuna’s insistence on the abandonment of all views—including ultimately his own—constitutes his distinctive epistemological means to the metaphysical “exhaustion” characteristic of nirvāṇa, wherein all views are and must be abandoned as so many subtle affirmations of an only ever empty self.
‘Logical, Buddhological, Buddhist: A Critical Study of the Tetralemma’,
Stepien, Rafal K.,
Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness (New York , 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 30 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197771303.003.0003, accessed 26 May 2024.
Chapter 2 focuses on the tetralemma or catuṣkoṭi. This fourfold form of discourse typically negates a given position, its contrary, both, and neither, as when, for example, Nāgārjuna states at the very outset of his masterwork that “Not from itself nor from another / Not from both nor without cause // Does any entity whatsoever / Anywhere arise.” The logicalizing approach predominant in contemporary scholarship on the tetralemma is motivated by a desire to demonstrate that, contrary to appearances, Nāgārjuna cannot possibly be serious in denying all four positions. This chapter articulates and dismantles three major iterations of this approach, which are called the Mereological, Modal, and Qualitative Interpretations. An alternative reading is then proposed that is not only just as methodologically legitimate but also better equipped for the hermeneutical endeavor of describing Nāgārjuna’s religiosophical project taken in its entirety.
‘Nāgārjuna’s Tetralemma: Tetrāletheia and Tathāgata, Utterance and Anontology’,
Stepien, Rafal K.,
Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness (New York , 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 30 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197771303.003.0004, accessed 26 May 2024.
Chapter 3 turns from the critique of currently prevalent interpretive strategies to the construction of an alternative method. In contradistinction to analyses aimed at demonstrating the logicality of the tetralemma, an interpretation is proposed along what are called paralogical lines. An argument is made for the inadequacy of the dialetheic reading currently preferred, and therefore a new term is proposed—“tetrāletheia”—designed to better represent the four-folded nature of the tetralemma. Subsequent sections of the chapter are devoted to explication of this neologism, together with a reading of the tetralemma as embodied in the archetypal Buddhist figure of the Tathāgata. In the final section, “utterance” is proposed as an alternative descriptor for the totality of the tetralemma, one that is better suited to the paralogical and “anontological” tetralemma than are terms in standard use insofar as it dispenses with their substantialist value(s).
The Fifth Corner of Four: Catuskoti in Buddhist Logic
Key Terms
Logic
Classical Logic
Non Classical Logic
Many Valued Logic
Multi Valued Logic
Three Valued Logic
Four Valued Logic
Catuskoti
Buddhist Logic
Lukasiewicz Logic
Kleene Logic
Intuitionistic Logic
Five Valued Logic
Researchers
Graham Priest
Kreutz, Adrian
Kapsner, Andreas
Jan Westerhoff
Hans Rudolf Kantor
Gunaratne, R. D.
The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
Source: The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi. By Graham Priest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. / Matthew T. Kapstein
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Relation and Negation in Indian Philosophy
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Charles Sanders Peirce’s Visual Logic: Diagrams and Existential Graphs
The recent literature on Nāgārjuna’s catuṣkoṭi centres around Jay Garfield’s and Graham Priest’s interpretation. It is an open discussion to what extent their interpretation is an adequate model of the logic for the catuskoti, and the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā. Priest and Garfield try to make sense of the contradictions within the catuskoti by appeal to a series of lattices – orderings of truth-values, supposed to model the path to enlightenment. They use Anderson & Belnaps’s framework of First Degree Entailment. Cotnoir has argued that the lattices of Priest and Garfield cannot ground the logic of the catuskoti. The concern is simple: on the one hand, FDE brings with it the failure of classical principles such as modus ponens. On the other hand, we frequently encounter Nāgārjuna using classical principles in other arguments in the MMK. There is a problem of validity. If FDE is Nāgārjuna’s logic of choice, he is facing what is commonly called the classical recapture problem: how to make sense of cases where classical principles like modus pones are valid? One cannot just add principles like modus pones as assumptions, because in the background paraconsistent logic this does not rule out their negations. In this essay, I shall explore and critically evaluate Cotnoir’s proposal. In detail, I shall reveal that his framework suffers collapse of the kotis. Taking Cotnoir’s concerns seriously, I shall suggest a formulation of the catuskoti in classical Boolean Algebra, extended by the notion of an external negation as an illocutionary act. I will focus on purely formal considerations, leaving doctrinal matters to the scholarly discourse – as far as this is possible.
On the relationship of Advaita Vedānta and Mādhyamika Buddhism
Paradox and Negation in the Upanishads, Buddhism and the Advaita Vedanta of Sankaracarya (India)
Thompson, Heather. California Institute of Integral Studies
ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1982. 8400050.
This dissertation explores the uses of Paradox and Negation–in contrast and comparison–through the Upanishads and Buddhism to the Advaita Vedanta of Sankara. Paradox and Negation employed are not of ordinary parlance but are philosophic and dialectic tools indicating a state beyond the world of appearances–the Supreme.The Upanishads indicate the Supreme state by positing the Transcendent Atman–The Transcendent Subjectivity–and the Transcendent Brahman–the Transcendent Existentiality. In both aspects, the Supreme is seen as the antecedent state to the nest of appearances: Its existence supports all phenomena. By juxtaposing two apparently incongruous statements–thus producing a Paradox–the Upanishadic seers pushed the mind beyond its normal boundaries into a meditative insight. Similarly, through Negation, the seers denied the self-sustaining validity of phenomena.The Buddha, in contrast, forwarded a pragmatic’ philosophy, refusing to speculate about the existence or nature of the Supreme. Rather, he examined the conditions of daily life, their cause, their cessation and the route to their cessation. Passing through the nominalist teachers of the Hinayana school to the Mahayana school, a growing use of Paradox and Negation is seen and culminates in the dialectics of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna pushed Paradox and Negation to extremes in his Catuskoti, four-fold argument, which revealed the logical inadequacies of all concepts. They have only causal or relational validity within the boundaries of the intellect. Outside that boundary, they have no self-nature or existence.Sankara, in his Advaita Vedanta, rising to another level on the spiral of Indian philosophy, takes from the teachings of the previous two traditions and elaborates and develops both. He recognizes that the phenomenal world has reality–but a temporary one. It exists only so long as the mind is held in sway by illusion and ignorance. Once the mind has been restored to its true state–which is a meditatively disciplined one–the phenomenal world is seen as having relative existence only and as totally dependent on the Supreme Brahman.The uses of Paradox and Negation by the three schools will be examined as contrasts and complements to each other.
“Who Understands the Four Alternatives of the Buddhist Texts?”
This thesis is the attempt to find a logical model for, and trace the history of, the catuṣkoṭi as it developed in the Indo-Tibetan milieu and spread, via China, to Japan. After an introduction to the history and key-concepts of Buddhist philosophy, I will finish the first chapter with some methodological considerations about the general viability of comparative philosophy. Chapter §2 is devoted to a logical analysis of the catuṣkoṭi. Several attempts to model this fascinating piece of Buddhist philosophy with the tools of classical logic shall be debunked. A paraconsistent alternative will be discussed but eventually dismissed. As a rejoinder, I shall propose a model for the catuṣkoṭi with the help of speech-acts. The remainder of this chapter will look at Chinese and Japanese forms of the catuṣkoṭi which I shall model in a quasi-recursive system. The third and final chapter will look at the Kyoto School’s soku-hi dialectics which ties together the different threads of this essay. I will criticise an established, classical model of the soku-hi dialectics and offer an alternative with a second-order paraconsistent semantics.
An essential principal to Buddhism is non-dualism. However, the Catuskoti is clearly a system still immersed in dualism. This sort of dualism is more like that of the dual in Tao. Taken by themselves, the two relative states contain within themselves the nature of the absolutes. The only thing which differentiates are the notions both, neither. It is much like the yin and yang symbol. However, more accurately as we go on we see a fractal emerge. Hence, the ultimate truth, one in which we seem to conceptually call the more subtle truth is an illusion. The infinite recursion of this extension hints at an ultimate truth arising at ¥. The conception which takes within it this very fractal nature is truly enlightened. A truth which is free from dualism is either entirely immersed within dualism, or it lacks the distinction of truth all together. The use of the Catuskoti serves the purpose to hint ultimately at a non-truth. Speaking in terms of tautologies and ineffables, we will see the Catuskoti is a conceptual elaboration of traditional dualism, absolute true and false. While this itself is a conceptual elaboration of the union of true and false, Sunyata or 0. Sunyata is a conceptual elaboration of itself, which of course cannot be explained conceptually because then it emerges from non-conceptual Sunyata to conceptual Sunyata of 0. We can hint at it by saying, as a truth space, the non-conceptual Sunyata be U, then the set of ineffables of U and tautologies of U forms the conceptual elaboration of U. It should be clear that careful attention to our use of V4, the Klein 4 group, will be sufficient to realize a conceptual grasp of the non-conceptual Sunyata. See http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/420
We have not finished with the Neoplatonist tradition yet, but before we continue with it, let us look at Eastern Philosophy, starting in India. Since very early times, the Law of Non-Contradiction has been orthodox in the West. This is not at all the case in India. The standard view, going back to before the Buddha (a rough contemporary of Aristotle) was that on any claim of substance there are four possibilities: that the view is true (and true only), that it is false (and false only), that it is neither true nor false, and that it is both true and false. This is called the catuskoti (four corners), or tetralemma.48Hence, the possibility of a contradiction was explicitly acknowledged. The difference between this view and the orthodox Western view is the same as that between the semantics of classical logic and the four-valued semantics for the relevant logic of First Degree Entailment (as we shall see). In classical logic, sentences have exactly one of the truth values T (true) and F (false). In First Degree Entailment they may have any combination of these values, including both and neither. Just to add complexity to the picture, some Buddhist philosopers argued that, for some issues, all or none of these four possibilities might hold. Thus, the major 2nd century Mahayana Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna is sometimes interpreted in one or other of these ways. Arguments of this kind, just to confuse matters, are also sometimes called catuskoti. Interpreting Nāgārjuna is a very difficult task, but it is possible to interpret him, as some commentators did, as claiming that these matters are simply ineffable.49
The Law of Non-Contradiction has certainly had its defenders in the East, though. It was endorsed, for example, by logicians in the Nyaayaa tradition. This influenced Buddhist philosophers, such as Darmakārti, and, via him, some Buddhist schools, such as the Tibetan Gelug-pa. Even in Tibet, though, many Buddhist schools, such as the Nyngma-pa, rejected the law, at least for ultimate truths.
Turning to Chinese philosophy, and specifically Taoism, one certainly finds utterances that look as though they violate the Law of Non-Contradiction. For example, in the Chuang Tzu (the second most important part of the Taoist canon), we find:50
That which makes things has no boundaries with things, but for things to have boundaries is what we mean by saying ‘the boundaries between things’. The boundaryless boundary is the boundary without a boundary.
A cause of these contradictions is not unlike that in Neoplatonism. In Taoism, there is an ultimate reality, Tao, which is the source and generator of everything else. As the Tao Te Ching puts it:51
The Tao gives birth to the One.
The One gives birth to the two.
The Two give birth to the three —
The Three give birth to every living thing.
It follows, as in the Western tradition, that there is nothing that can be said about it. As the Tao Te Ching puts it (ch. 1):
The Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Everything in the universe comes out of Nothing.
Nothing — the nameless — is the beginning…
Yet in explaining this situation, we are forced to say things about it, as the above quotations demonstrate.
Chan (Zen) is a fusion of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. As might therefore be expected, the dialetheic aspects of the two metaphysics reinforce each other. Above all, then, Zen is a metaphysics where we find the writings of its exponents full of apparent contradictions. Thus, for example, the great Zen master Dōgen says:52
This having been confirmed as the Great Teacher’s saying, we should study immobile sitting and transmit it correctly: herein lies a thorough investigation of immobile sitting handed down in the Buddha-way. Although thoughts on the immobile state of sitting are not limited to a single person, Yüeh-shan’s saying is the very best. Namely: ‘thinking is not thinking’.
or:53
An ancient buddha said, ‘Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.’ These words do not mean that mountains are mountains; they mean that mountains are mountains. Therefore investigate mountains thoroughly…
Now interpreting all this, especially the Chinese and Japanese writings, is a hard and contentious matter. The writings are often epigrammatic and poetical. Certainly, the writings contain assertions of contradictions, but are we meant to take them literally? It might be thought not. One suggestion is that the contradictions are uttered for their perlocutionary effect: to shock the hearer into some reaction. Certainly, this sort of thing plays a role in Zen, but not in Mahayana Buddhism or Taoism. And even in Zen, contradictions occur in even the theoretical writings.
More plausibly, it may be suggested that the contradictions in question have to be interpreted in some non-literal way. For example, though ultimate reality is literally indescribable, what is said about it gives some metaphorical description of its nature. This won’t really work either, though. For the very reason that ultimate reality is indescribable is precisely because it is that which brings all beings into being; it can therefore be no being (and so to say anything about it is contradictory). At least this much of what is said about the Tao must be taken literally, or the whole picture falls apart.54
The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi
Graham Priest, The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi, Oxford University Press, 2018, 172pp., ISBN 9780198758716.
Reviewed by Mark Siderits, Seoul National University (Emeritus) 2019.05.18
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Mauricio Osorio1 and Claudia Zepeda2 1 Universidad de las Am ́ericas-Puebla, 2 Benem ́erita Universidad Ato ́noma de Puebla {osoriomauri,czepedac}@gmail.com
Many-valued logics are those logics that have more than the two classical truth values, to wit, true and false; in fact, they can have from three to infinitely many truth values. This property, together with truth-functionality, provides a powerful formalism to reason in settings where classical logic—as well as other non-classical logics—is of no avail. Indeed, originally motivated by philosophical concerns, these logics soon proved relevant for a plethora of applications ranging from switching theory to cognitive modeling, and they are today in more demand than ever, due to the realization that inconsistency and vagueness in knowledge bases and information processes are not only inevitable and acceptable, but also perhaps welcome. The main modern applications of (any) logic are to be found in the digital computer, and we thus require the practical knowledge how to computerize—which also means automate—decisions (i.e. reasoning) in many-valued logics. This, in turn, necessitates a mathematical foundation for these logics. This book provides both these mathematical foundation and practical knowledge in a rigorous, yet accessible, text, while at the same time situating these logics in the context of the satisfiability problem (SAT) and automated deduction. The main text is complemented with a large selection of exercises, a plus for the reader wishing to not only learn about, but also do something with, many-valued logics.
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In the West, the general tendency of philosophers has been to understand things as being either real or unreal and to view propositions as either true or false. It is assumed that that which is real or true is opposite and exclusive of that which is unreal or untrue and that there can be no mediating ground. Only rarely does one find a philosopher who attempts to qualify truth and reality, that is, to hold that one thing might be, to some degree, more or less real than another, or to hold that one proposition could be more true than a second, while remaining less true than a third. On the contrary, philosophy in the West has generally been a quest to determine more clearly what is real and true and to contrast it more sharply with what is held to be unreal and untrue.
Often in this quest, however, philosophers display a tendency to qualify truth and reality even while trying to deny or exclude the possibility of such qualification. In Descartes’ writings, this qualification is set forth through his method of radical doubt as exercised in the Meditations. In his search for the real and the true, Descartes proceeds to doubt all of his former, commonsense beliefs. In this process, starting with that which is most easily doubted, that which seems the least ontologically and epistemologically well-grounded, he proceeds to submit to radical doubt beliefs of firmer and firmer ontological and epistemological footing, in search of something indubitable upon which to rebuild the structure of truth and reality. In spite of the fact that this method of radical doubt results in a reassertion of that which Descartes had more naively believed all along, it is instructive to compare the mediating levels observed by Descartes in his method to those of a non-Western philosopher who admits to qualified levels of truth and reality. Thus, while Descartes’ conclusions follow the more general Western pattern of drawing strict lines of demarcation between reality and nonreality, truth and untruth, we will concentrate more on his method, which stratifies and qualifies reality and truth prior to the drawing of these lines. Qualified levels of truth and reality are less of a problem for Indian philosophers. While India, too, has its schools of philosophy which admit to only two ontological or epistemological possibilities, one also finds in other schools a very careful and deliberate grading of reality and truth from levels of varying qualification to a level of ultimacy. Samkara’s Advaita Vedanta is one such school, and it is Samkara that will be considered in a comparison with Descartes. There are, strictly speaking, only one level of full truth and reality and one level· of full untruth and nonreality for Samkara. These extremes, however, are mediated by at least two other levels which are sadasadvilaksana,” other than real and unreal.” The reality or nonreality of these middle levels can only be understood in relation to the highest and lowest levels of reality. This ambiguity in their nature renders them anirvacanTya,” that about which we cannot speak.” For Samkara, there are only two sorts of things which are fully unreal,(1) the
The Problem of Two Truths in Buddhism and Vedānta
Author G.M.C. Sprung Edition illustrated Publisher Springer Science & Business Media, 2012 ISBN 9401025827, 9789401025829 Length 132 pages
The Uses of the Four Positions of the “Catus-koti” and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahayana Buddhism
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The Deconstructionist Interpretation of Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti∗
Shi, Ruyuan (Chien-Yuan Hsu) PhD candidate, the Dep. of Religious Studies, the University of Calgary, Canada Sessional instructor, Mount Royal University, Canada
Review by: Douglas Dunsmore Daye Philosophy East and West Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1973), pp. 525-535 (11 pages) Published By: University of Hawai’i Press
What Can’t be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought
Authors Yasuo Deguchi, Jay L. Garfield, Graham Priest, Robert H. Sharf Publisher Oxford University Press, 2021 ISBN 0197526209, 9780197526200 Length 256 pages
To gain a deeper insight into the role that negation played in the Krishnamurti dialogue, I compare it to two well-researched negation-based philosophies. The first is Nāgārjuna’s Buddhist philosophy of the ‘middle way’ (madhyamaka), in particular his most prominent work The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā). The second is the eighth-century Śaṅkara’s Hindu system of Advaita Vedānta, mainly his commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad and his independent work A Thousand Teachings(Upadeśasāhasrī). I start by introducing the Buddha’s imponderables and the way that Nāgārjuna developed these segments of the Buddha’s Dharma into the system of the middle way (madhyamaka). In this section, I demonstrate the transformative nature of this system, based on the original text as well as scholarly sources. The next section is dedicated to the presentation of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta as a negative philosophy and to the ways in which his method corresponds to and stands in contrast to Nāgārjuna’s negation. Finally, I highlight the uniqueness of Krishnamurti’s dialectical negation: while the two classical paragons of the negative approach practised by Nāgārjuna and Śaṅkara are tools for the elimination of metaphysical views and epistemological approaches, Krishnamurti’s is a psychological and post-traditional negation whose aim is to do away with past, knowledge, and authority. More generally, I argue that, as a feature of the transformative dialogue, negation is a spiritual exercise that prepares for a particular experience and facilitates it: the discussant’s ability to perceive reality with naked eyes and a bare mind.
Notes
I shall return to Sañjaya’s form of negation in the following section.
It is worth mentioning that the scriptures that inspired Nāgārjuna’s and Śaṅkara’s practices of negation – the Buddha’s Dharma talks in the Pāli Canon and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, as well as a significant number of other Upaniṣads – had also been largely narrated in the explicit form of a dialogue.
This reading of the text is supported by Nāgārjuna scholars such as Jay L. Garfield (for example, 1995: 209; Garfield and Priest 2003: 11).
For a contrary view, see Raju (1954: 703), who perceives Nāgārjuna’s and Śaṅkara’s negation (particularly, their use of four-cornered negation) as ‘a principle expressive of ultimate reality’.
See, for instance, the debate between Stafford L. Betty (1983: 123–138, 1984: 447–450) and David Loy (1984: 437–445).
In Śaṅkara’s case, as I will show in the second section, all metaphysical claims but one.
However, the logical gulf separating Indian thought from Western logical traditions seems to be gradually being bridged as a result of efforts initially made by twentieth-century Western philosophers in response to logical paradoxes. Two important developments have been the emergence of paraconsistent logic, which accommodates inconsistency in a controlled way, viewing inconsistent information as potentially informative, and the subsequent modern form of dialetheism (“two-way truth”), which transcends the law of non-contradiction by maintaining that there are indeed true contradictions (Priest et al. 2022a, b).
We know of Sañjaya only through early Buddhist literature which refers to him critically (Jayatilleke 1963: 135).
Jayatilleke (ibid., 138) maintains that this formula was not only Sañjaya’s, but was shared by all classical Indian sceptical schools of thought.
The Brahmajāla Sutta contains a thorough negation of sixty-two views that prevailed among recluses in the time of the Buddha.
Or ‘eel-wrigglers’, a term which should be understood as either denoting verbal jugglery or as an analogy that likens sceptics to eels that constantly squirm about in the water and are difficult to get hold of (Jayatilleke 1963: 122).
.Jones (2016: 13) convincingly unveils the reasoning behind the Buddha’s strategy of negation in the Vacchagotta dialogue.
This brings us back to negation as a practice among mystics who tend to defend their experiences as ‘ineffable’. Blackwood (1963: 202–206) suggests that it is not that mystics argue that all descriptive statements are false, but rather that all descriptive statements are ‘inapplicable or inappropriate’ when it comes to their transcendent realizations. Thus, mystics simply disregard syntactic and logical rules, such as the law of non-contradiction, which are only relevant as long as one wishes to ‘make learning possible’ (ibid., 207–209).
See also Ganeri’s (2013a: 51–53) useful point that the Buddha’s negation in the Vacchagotta dialogue was not to keep secret knowledge in his fist but to ensure that he would not impart knowledge that is unnecessary and therefore ultimately harmful. Thus, using negation he could challenge the premise of the question itself (ibid. 53).
Nāgārjuna clearly deems the refutation of all views the centrepiece of the Buddha’s Dharma, since he concludes his work by praising Gautama Buddha for teaching the ‘true doctrine which leads to the relinquishing of all views’ (XXVII: 30).
In this sense, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is in line with the general tendency of some forms of Indian and Buddhist debate to value reasoning and argumentation not only for their truth-preserving and truth-validating properties, but also for their ability to promote truth (Ganeri 2013a: 125).
With the word ‘trans-logical’ I also indicate that contrary to Betty’s qualm (1984: 448), the ladder of logic is not a mere apparatus that one ought to kick out from beneath oneself after climbing up it, but a form of discriminating wisdom on which one builds.
This is stated cautiously, since certain forms of South Asian argumentation, including four-cornered negation and Nāgārjuna’s use of it, can help Western thought to accept other forms of logic and thus to arrive at broader logical formulas.
In the collective memory of mainstream Hinduism, Śaṅkara is honoured as a philosopher-saint whose efforts to give a coherent structure to disparate Hindu beliefs and practices have safeguarded Hinduism from the challenges posed by the rise of Buddhism (Shearer 2017: xiii). There are also substantial examples of criticism of Buddhist views in Śaṅkara’s works (e.g. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya II.2.18–32).
Shearer (2017: xxiii) considers Śaṅkara’s employment of relentless reasoning, logic, and dialectic a part of his methodological toolkit (upāya, or useful means), which is only utilized to either defend or advance the radical cognitive insight (jñāna) which lies at the core of the Advaitin perspective of non-dualism. Thus, Shearer concludes, Śaṅkara is not a philosopher since he does not maintain a consistent conceptual position and does not believe that truth can be proven or brought about by any of these methodological tools (ibid.). This brings us back to the concept of transformative philosophers.
Raju (1954: 704), who contrasts Śaṅkara’s negation with that of Nāgārjuna, mentions that while śūnya in Sanskrit means both the mathematical and metaphysical zero, another word employed by the Sanskrit writers to describe the mathematical zero is Pūrṇa, which means the full rather than the empty.
Raju (1954: 709–710) effectively classifies Nāgārjuna’s conception of fourfold negation as ‘metaphysical relativism’ and Śaṅkara’s negation as ‘metaphysical absolutism and phenomenal relativism’.
For a supportive view, see King (1957: 112–113), who concludes that Nāgārjuna’s outer scepticism is intended to serve his inner truth.
Since Krishnamurti is not as philosophically coherent as Nāgārjuna and Śaṅkara, this should be stated with reservation: while his dialogical negation generally avoids affirmative assertions about the ultimate truth, Krishnamurti’s diaries, biographies, and public discourses include numerous contradictory descriptions of the nature of the already existing reality (see Chap. 8).
This distinction will be elaborated on in the concluding chapter.
Nevertheless, Krishnamurti mainly abandoned this structure only in his close group discussions and one-on-one conversations. His public discourse generally retained the traditional guru–student dialogue.
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sthaneshwar.timalsina@ifrc.in’
The linguistic philosophy of Bhartrhari needs to be addressed in his milieu. His speculations about the nature of language and his analysis of Sanskrit both transcend the boundaries of language and relate to metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology. Indology | 14-12-2017
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NAGARJUNA’S REASONING WITH NON-IMPLICATIVE NEGATIONS
THREE ABSOLUTES AND FOUR TYPES OF NEGATION INTEGRATING KRISHNACHANDRA BHATTACHARYYA’S INSIGHTS?
By Stephen Kaplan Book The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Edition 1st Edition First Published 2023 Imprint Routledge Pages 14 eBook ISBN 9781003153320
STUDY ON FOUR LOGICAL ALTERNATIVES (CATUṢKOṬI AND CATUṢKOṬI-VINIRMUKTA) IN INDIAN MĀDHYAMIKA SCHOOL
Like their European counterparts, the philosophers of classical India were interested in the problem of negative facts. A negative fact may be thought of, at the outset at least, as a state of affairs that corresponds to a negative statement, such as ‘Mr Smith is not in this room.’ The question that perplexed the philosophers of India was: How does someone, say Ms Jones, know that Mr Smith is not in the room? There are essentially four possible metaphysical positions to account for what it is that Ms Jones knows when, after entering a room, she comes to know that her friend is not present there. Each of the positions has been adopted and defended by certain classical Indian philosophers. On the one hand, some take the absence of the friend from the room as a brute, negative fact. Of these, some hold knowledge of this fact to be perceptual, while others hold it to be inferential. On the other hand, some hold that the absence of the friend from the room has no real ontic status at all, and believe that what there really is in the situation is just the sum of all the things present in the office. These latter philosophers hold that knowledge of one’s friend’s absence is just knowledge of what is present, though some believe the knowledge results from perception, while others believe it to result from inference. These four positions were maintained by, respectively, the Nyāya philosopher Jayanta, the Mīmāṃsā philosophers Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara, and the Buddhist Dharmakīrti.
The Negation of Self in Indian Buddhist Philosophy
The logical analysis of Nāgārjuna’s (c. 200 CE) catuṣkoṭi (tetralemma or four-corners) has remained a heated topic for logicians in Western academia for nearly a century. At the heart of the catuṣkoṭi, the four corners’ formalization typically appears as: A, Not A (¬A), Both (A &¬A), and Neither (¬[A∨¬A]). The pulse of the controversy is the repetition of negations (¬) in the catuṣkoṭi. Westerhoff argues that Nāgārjuna in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā uses two different negations: paryudāsa (nominal or implicative negation) and prasajya-pratiṣedha (verbal or non-implicative negation). This paper builds off Westerhoff’s account and presents some subtleties of Nāgārjuna’s use of these negations regarding their scope. This is achieved through an analysis of the Sanskrit and Tibetan Madhyamaka commentarial tradition and through a grammatical analysis of Nāgārjuna’s use of na (not) and a(n)- (non-) within a diverse variety of the catuṣkoṭi within the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.
None of the above: The Catuṣkoṭi in Indian Buddhist logic.
Priest, G. (2015).
In M. C. Jean-Yves Beziau, and Some Dutta (Eds.), New direction in paraconsistent logic (pp. 517–527).London: Springer.
OBJECT CONTENT AND RELATION
Publication Category Philosophers of Modern India Publication Author Kalidas Bhattacharyya Publication Language English Publisher Name Das Gupta & Co.Ltd. Publication Place Calcutta No. of Pages 167
This book by Kalidas Bhattacharyya considers the relation between Consciousness and it’s Object. Once we ask the question “Is there anything intermediate between consciousness and object?”, we come up with the answer “Content”. Now, what is this Content and is there such an intermediate thing between Consciousness and Object? This is a question that needs to be answered. This book explores the relationship between Objectsand Consciousnessvia the idea of Content. The book is divided into two chapters. This first chapter is on “Object and Content”. The second is on “Relation”. The first chapter deals with:
Analysis of Thought and Memory
Analysis of Perception: Idealism and Realism
Analysis of Perception – Illusion as to Judgment
Some Theories of Illusion Examined
Content and Object as Alternatives
Criterion of Reality
Real and Non-Real Appearances
The second chapter deals with
The Notion of Relation
Classification of Relations
The So-called Puzzles of Relation
Relation – Is it Subjective, Objective or Dialectical?
External and Internal Relation
Some Theories of Relation
Two Indian dialectical logics: saptabhangi and catuskoti.
Schang, Fabien (2010).
Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 27 (1):45-75.
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Two Indian Dialectical Logics: saptabhangi and catuskoti
Fabien Schang 2011, Studies in Logic: Logic and Philosophy Today
The Deconstructionist Interpretation of Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti∗
Shi, Ruyuan (Chien-Yuan Hsu) PhD candidate, the Dep. of Religious Studies, the University of Calgary, Canada Sessional instructor, Mount Royal University, Canada
The central thesis of Buddhism is emptiness, a view saying that all entities have no essence Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE), the famous founder of the Madhyamika School, proposed the positive catuṣkoṭi in his seminal work, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: ‘All is real, or all is unreal, all is both real and unreal, all is neither unreal nor real; this is the graded teaching of the Buddha’. He also proposed the negative catuṣkoṭi: ‘“It is empty” is not to be said, nor “It is non-empty,” nor that it is both, nor that it is neither; [“empty”] is said only for the sake of instruction’ and the no-thesis view: ‘No dharma whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone’. In this essay, I adopt Gricean pragmatics to explain the positive and negative catuṣkoṭi and the no-thesis view proposed by Nāgārjuna in a way that does not violate classical logic. For Nāgārjuna, all statements are false as long as the hearer understands them within a reified conceptual scheme, according to which (a) substance is a basic categorical concept; (b) substances have svabhāva, and (c) names and sentences have svabhāva.
If Euthyphro and Agrippa secured places in the history of philosophy for the dilemma and trilemma, Nāgārjuna did so for the tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi in Sanskrit). Even though this second-century Indian thinker did not invent the argumentative pattern in which the four alternatives of a position, its negation, both, or neither are considered, it became inextricably linked up with his philosophical approach, and Nāgārjuna (and the philosophical school of Madhyamaka he founded) plays a central role in Graham Priest’s ‘essay on Buddhist metaphysics and the catuṣkoṭi’. The book might remind readers of his landmark 2002 Beyond the Limits of Thought; even though the historical and conceptual scope in the present volume is narrower, many of the key features are still there: a chronological exposition following along with the history of philosophy, a focus on dialetheism in different manifestations, and descriptions of various formal constructions (in the present case drawn primarily from non-classical logic and graph theory) to elucidate complex and often quite obscure ideas of past masters.
Abstract
The book charts the development of Buddhist metaphysics, drawing on texts which include those of Nagarjuna and Dogen. The development is viewed through the lens of the Catuṣkoṭi At its simplest, and as it appears in the earliest texts, this is a logical/metaphysical principle which says that every claim is true, false, both, or neither; but the principle itself evolves, assuming new forms as the metaphysics develops. An important step in the evolution incorporates ineffability. Such things make no sense from the perspective of a logic which endorses the principles of excluded middle and non-contradiction, which are standard fare in Western logic. However, the book shows how one can make sense of them by applying the techniques of contemporary non-classical logic, such as those of First Degree Entailment, and plurivalent logic. An important issue that emerges as the book develops is the notion of non-duality and its transcendence. This allows many of the threads of the book to be drawn together at its end. All matters are explained, as far as possible, in a way that is accessible to those with no knowledge of Buddhist philosophy or contemporary non-classical logic.
Volume 18 of Outstanding Contributions to Logic Editors Can Başkent, Thomas Macaulay Ferguson Publisher Springer Nature, 2020 ISBN 3030253651, 9783030253653 Length 704 pages
Chains of Being: Infinite Regress, Circularity, and Metaphysical Explanation
Author Ross P. Cameron Publisher Oxford University Press, 2022 ISBN 0192596195, 9780192596192 Length 256 pages
A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind
Author Roy Sorensen Publisher Oxford University Press, 2003 ISBN 0190289317, 9780190289317 Length 416 pages
What are Paradoxes?
CHRISTOPHER COWIE
Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2023
History of the Mediæval School of Indian Logic, Volume 6
History of the Mediæval School of Indian Logic, Satis Chandra Vidvabhusana Issue 1 of University studies, University of Calcutta Author Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana Publisher Calcutta University, 1909 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Feb 19, 2008 Length 100 pages
Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Series in Philosophy Series Author Sadajiro Sugiura Editor Edgar Singer Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015 ISBN 1514745216, 9781514745212 Length 114 pages
Buddhist logic reveals itself as the culminating point of a long course of Indian philosophic history. Its birth, its growth and its decline run parallel with the birth, the growth and the decline of Indian civilisation. The time has come to reconsider the subject of Buddhist logic in its historical connections. This is done in these two volumes. In the copious notes the literary renderings are given where needed. This will enable the reader to fully appreciate the sometimes enormous distance which lies between the words of the Sanskrit phrasing and their philosophic meaning rendered according to our habits of thought. The notes also contain a philosophic comment of the translated texts. The first volume contains a historical sketch as well as a synthetical reconstruction of the whole edifice of the final shape of Buddhist philosophy. The second volume contains the material as well as the justification for this reconstruction.
Content: Preface, Abbreviations, Introduction, Part I – Reality and Knowledge (pramanya-vada), Part II-The Sensible world, Ch. 1 The theory of Instantaneous being (ksanika-vada),Ch. II Causation (pratitya-samutpada), Ch. III. Sense-Perception (pratyaksam), Ch. IV – Ultimate reality (paramartha-sat), Part III-The constructed world, Ch. I-Judgment, Ch. II – Inference, Ch. III – Syllogism (pararthanumanam), Ch. IV. Logical Fallacies, Part IV – Negation, Ch. I-The negative judgment, Ch. II. – The Law of Contradiction, Ch. III-Universals, Ch. IV. Dialectic, Part V-Reality of the External World, Conclusion, Indices, Appendix, Addenda et corrigenda. Preface, Appendices, Indices, Errata
Introduction to the Non-dualism Approach in Hinduism and its Connection to Other Religions and Philosophies
Sriram Ganapathi Subramanian S2GANAPA@UWATERLOO.CA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada Benyamin Ghojogh BGHOJOGH@UWATERLOO.CA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
1. Vidyahhusana, Satis Chandra. A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Schools. Calcutta University, 1921. 2. S. S. Barlingay. A Modern Introduction to Indian Logic. Delhi: National Publishing House, 1965. 3. D. C. Guha. Navya Nyaya System of Logic. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979. 4. Nandita Bandyopadhyay. The Concept of Logical Fallacies. Delhi: Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1977. 5. B. K. Matilal. The Navya Nyaya Doctrine of Negation. Michigan: Harvard University Press, 1968. 6. S. R. Bhatt. Buddhist Epistemology. USA: Greenwood Press, 2000. 7. B. K. Matilal. Logic, Language and Reality. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008. 8. Sastri, Kuppuswami.S. A Primer of Indian Logic: According To Annambhatta’s Tarkasamgraha. Madras: Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, 1951.
How Do Theories of Cognition and Consciousness in Ancient Indian Thought Systems Relate to Current Western Theorizing and Research?
Peter Sedlmeier1 *and Kunchapudi Srinivas2
Institut für Psychologie, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany, 2 Department of Philosophy, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India
DOI:10.1007/s11841-016-0547-8 Anand Jayprakash Vaidya San Jose State University Purushottama Bilimoria University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University Jayshankar L. Shaw
Two of the most important contributions that Bimal Krishna Matilal made to comparative philosophy derive from his (1968) doctoral dissertation The Navya-Nyāya Doctrine of Negation: The Semantics and Ontology of Negative Statements in Navya-Nyāya Philosophy and his (1986) classic: Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowing. In this essay, we aim to carry forward the work of Bimal K. Matilal by showing how ideas in classical Indian philosophy concerning absence and perception are relevant to recent debates in analytic philosophy. In particular, we focus on the recent debate in the philosophy of perception centering on the perception of absence. In her Seeing Absence, Anya Farennikova (2013) argues for the thesis that we literally see absences. Her thesis is quite novel within the contexts of the traditions that she engages: analytical philosophy of perception, phenomenology, and cognitive neuroscience. In those traditions there is hardly any exploration of the epistemology of absence. By contrast, this is not the case in classical Indian philosophy where the debate over the ontological and epistemological status of absence (abhāva) is longstanding and quite engaging. In what follows, we engage Farennikova’s arguments, and those of John-Rémy Martin and Jérome Dokic in their (2013) response to her work, through the use of classical Indian philosophers and their twentieth century proponents. Using the work of Matilal (1968, 1986), Bilimoria (2015) and Shaw (2016) we show that there are several engaging ideas that can be taken from Indian philosophy into the terrain explored by Farennikova, and Martin & Dokic. Our aim is to provide an updated comparative engagement on absence and its perception for the purposes of enhancing future discussions within analytic philosophy. However, we do not aim to merely show this by focusing on the history of primary texts or on twentieth century commentary on primary texts. Instead, we hope to show that the living tradition of Indian philosophy that Matilal embodied carries forward in his students and colleagues as they revive and extend Indian philosophy.
Negation (Abha¯va), Non-existents, and a Distinctive pramana in the Nya¯ya-Mı¯ma¯ṃsa
January 2016 DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-17873-8_12 Authors: Purushottama Bilimoria University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University
Why Is There Nothing Rather Than Something? An Essay in the Comparative Metaphysic of Nonbeing
October 2019 DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-18148-2_13 In book: Considering Religions, Rights and Bioethics: For Max Charlesworth (pp.175-197) Authors: Purushottama Bilimoria University of California, Berkeley
This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral ‘zero’ (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they seem to have encountered (e.g., ‘In the beginning was neither non-being what nor being: what was there, bottomless deep?’ ṚgVeda X.129). The concept of non-being and its permutations of nothing, negation, nullity, etc., receive more sophisticated treatment in the works of grammarians, ritual hermeneuticians, logicians, and their dialectical adversaries variously across Jaina and Buddhist schools. The present analysis follows the function of negation/the negative copula, nãn, and dialetheia in grammar and logic, then moves onto ontologies of non-existence and extinction and further suggestive tropes that tend to arrest rather than affirm the inexorable being-there of something. (This chapter is to be read in tandem with two aligned papers that have appeared since the first publication of this chapter (see above), namely, ‘Thinking Negation in Early Hinduism and Classical Indian Philosophy’ (Bilimoria 2017); and ‘Negation (Abhāva), Non-existents, and a Distinctive Pramāṇa in the Nyāya-Mīmāṃsā’ (Bilimoria 2016)).
The Transformative Philosophical Dialogue: From Classical Dialogues to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Method
Volume 41 of Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures Author Shai Tubali Publisher Springer Nature, 2023 ISBN 3031400747, 9783031400742 Length 258 pages
Logic: A Short Introduction
Collection of 6 Youtube Videos on introduction to Logic.
Graham Priest
Professor at CUNY, NYC
History of Indian Philosophy
Routledge History of World Philosophies Editor Purushottama Bilimoria Edition illustrated, reprint Publisher Routledge, 2017 ISBN 1317356179, 9781317356172 Length 638 pages
Chapter 6 – Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of Relation
Reality of Relation Different types of Relation Saṃyoga (Conjunction) Samavāya Viśeṣaṇatā Sambandha (Attributive Relation) Vṛttyaniyāmaka-sambandha (Non-Occurrent-Exacting Relation)
Contributed research papers presented at the National Seminar on Relations in Indian Philosophy, held during 25th-27th March 1991 at the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit, University of Poona.
The present volume contains 17 articles presented and discussed at the National Seminar on Relations in Indian Philosophy which was held on 25th to 27th March, 1991, at the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit, University of Poona. The papers focusses on nature of a relation, the role played by a relation in generating a cognition, the role played by a relation in creating a precise language of philosophical and logical communication. and the philosophical implication of a relation. Any philosophical analysis requires clear idea about these aspects of a relation. The studies included here cover a very wide range of philosophical and logical literature in Sanskrit. Although the main source of information has been the literature on Pracina-Nyaya and Navya-Nyaya, some articles also have taken into account the position of relation and the problems of relation in other systems of Indian Philosophy. There are views on relation being Ontological facts and also there are views which deny the Ontological reality of a relation. The discussions in this volume in- corporate both the ranges.
Preface
The present volume contains 17 articles presented and discussed at the National Seminar on Relations in Indian Philosophy which was held on 25th to 27th March, 1991 at the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit, University of Poona.
It gives me pleasure to present these articles in the hands of scholars of Indology, Logic and Philosophy. Briefly speaking, focus has been put in these papers on the following aspects.
1. Nature of a relation.
2. The role played by a relation in generating a cognition.
3, The role played by a relation in creating a precise language of philosophical and logical communication.
4. The Philosophical implication of a relation.
Any Philosophical analysis requires clear idea about these aspects of a relation. The studies included here cover a very wide range of philosophical and logical literature in Sanskrit. Although the main source of information has been the literature on Pracina Nyaya and Navya-Nyaya, some articles also have taken into account the position of relation and the problems of relation in other systems of Indian Philosophy. As can be seen, there are views on relations being Ontological facts and also there are views which deny the Ontological reality of a relation. The discussions in this volume incorporate both the ranges.
The Navya-Nyaya system of Indian Logic started paying more attention to the problem of relation because it was the necessity of the time. There was a great need for evolving a precise language of communication for logical and philosophical discussions. The Indian logicians realised that this cannot be achieved without introducing the idea of delimitations through property and relations and this is why they had to pay more attention to the discussion on relations. I wish that the readers will read this volume with the perspective presented above.
I thank the Indian Books Centre, New Delhi for undertaking the publication of this volume. I am sure, the scholars in the field will highly appreciate this venture.
Causation was acknowledged as one of the central problems in Indian philosophy. The classical Indian philosophers’ concern with the problem basically arose from two sources: first, the cosmogonic speculations of the Vedas and the Upaniṣads, with their search for some simple unitary cause for the origin of this complex universe; and second, the Vedic concern with ritual action (karman) and the causal mechanisms by which such actions bring about their unseen, but purportedly cosmic, effects. Once the goal of liberation (mokṣa) came to be accepted as the highest value, these two strands of thought entwined to generate intense interest in the notion of causation. The systematic philosophers of the classical and medieval periods criticized and defended competing theories of causation. These theories were motivated partly by a desire to guarantee the efficacy of action and hence the possibility of attaining liberation, partly by a desire to understand the nature of the world and hence how to negotiate our way in it so as to attain liberation.
Indian philosophers extensively discussed a number of issues relating to causation, including the nature of the causal relation, the definitions of cause and effect, and classifications of kinds of causes. Typically they stressed the importance of the material cause, rather than (as in Western philosophy) the efficient cause. In India only the Cārvāka materialists denied causation or took it to be subjective. This is unsurprising given that a concern with demonstrating the possibility of liberation motivated the theories of causation, for only the Cārvākas denied this possibility. The orthodox Hindu philosophers and the heterodox Buddhists and Jainas all accepted both the possibility of liberation and the reality of causation, though they differed sharply (and polemically) about the details.
The Indian theories of causation are traditionally classified by reference to the question of whether the effect is a mode of the cause. According to this taxonomy there are two principal theories of causation. One is the identity theory (satkāryavāda), which holds that the effect is identical with the cause, a manifestation of what is potential in the cause. This is the Sāṅkhya-Yoga view, though that school’s particular version of it is sometimes called transformation theory (pariṇāmavāda). Advaita Vedānta holds an appearance theory (vivartavāda), which is often considered a variant of the identity theory. According to the appearance theory effects are mere appearances of the underlying reality, Brahman. Since only Brahman truly exists, this theory is also sometimes called satkāraṇavāda (the theory that the cause is real but the effect is not).
The other principal theory of causation is the nonidentity theory (asatkāryavāda), which denies that the effect pre-exists in its cause and claims instead that the effect is an altogether new entity. Both adherents of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and the Buddhists are usually classified as nonidentity theorists, but they differ on many important details. One of these is whether the cause continues to exist after the appearance of the effect: Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika claims it does, the Buddhists mostly claim it does not.
Finally, some philosophers try to take the middle ground and claim that an effect is both identical and nonidentical with its cause. This is the position of the Jainas and of some theistic schools of Vedānta.
“ANĀDITVA OR BEGINNINGLESSNESS IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.”
The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms
Key Terms
Absolute
Brahman
Maya
Truth, Value and Freedom
K. C. Bhattacharyya
Three Absolutes
Four Negations
Mobius Strip
Trefoil Knot
Researchers
Kalidas Bhattacharyya
Gopinath Bhattacharyya
Bina Gupta
Stephen Kaplan
George Burch
Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya (KC Bhattacharyya)
Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Abstract
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, one of the preeminent Indian philosophers of the 20th century, proposed that the absolute appears in three alternative forms – truth, freedom and value. Each of these forms are for Bhattacharyya absolute, ultimate, not penultimate. Each is different from the other, yet they cannot be said to be one or many. He contends that these absolutes are incompatible with each other and that an articulation of the relation between the three absolutes is not feasible. This paper will review Bhattacharyya’s presentation of the absolute in its alternative forms and will place these abstractions within the context of three specific religious traditions that he sees illustrating his point. Then, using a model based upon holography, I will illuminate with ‘concrete images’ that which Bhattacharyya could deductively formulate but could not logically integrate. Holography, the process by which three‐dimensional images are produced from an imageless film – a film in which each part can reproduce the whole – will be used as a heuristic device to illuminate the simultaneous and mutually interpenetrating existence of the absolute in three forms. This model will illumine how these three forms can be conceived of as not the same yet not other and how these forms can be incompatible as absolutes, but metaphysically inseparable.
Notes
Correspondence to: Stephen Kaplan, Department of Religious Studies, Manhattan College, Manhattan College Parkway, Riverdale, New York 10471, USA. Email: stephen.kaplan@manhattan.edu; Tel: +1‐718‐862‐7113.
There appears to be some discrepancy in the presentation of his last name. The two volumes edited by his son, Gopinath Bhattacharyya, use a double ‘y’ while other texts use a single ‘y’. In what follows, I will use the double ‘y’ but will also follow the format of authors who use a single ‘y’ when quoting from such texts.
In the foreword to Burch (Citation1972), Clarke makes the following point about the logic of Burch’s proposal, which is essentially indebted to and an expansion of Bhattacharyya’s proposal. About the proposal in general Clarke says: ‘The thesis proposed by the book is a truly radical one, so radical, in fact, that one experiences a kind of intellectual vertigo as he slowly awakens to what the author is really saying. The thesis … the Absolute is not one but many …’ (CitationClarke, 1972, p. 1). And Clarke adds: ‘This, of course, does not prove it is not true in some domain unreachable in my logic, but only that I cannot see any way of affirming it as intelligible, not because I see it as mystery but as contrary to intelligibility.’ (CitationClarke, 1972, p. 4). Kadankavil (Citation1972), pp. 181 ff. also finds difficulty with K.C.B.’s logic of alteration understood as a logic of exclusive disjunction.
This paper will draw primarily from two works – ‘The Concept of the Absolute and its Alternative Forms’ and ‘The Concept of Philosophy’, approximately written at the same time, 1934–1936. One should also see ‘The Concept of Value’ and ch. 7, ‘The Nature of Yoga’, in ‘Studies in Yoga Philosophy’, found in Vol. I of his collected works (Bhattacharyya, Citation1956). The nature of the absolute and its alternative form is also related to a number of other topics such as his theory of negation and the notion of the indefinite.
Before proceeding any further, I should note that the holographic model is drawn from my new book, Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism (CitationKaplan, 2002). First, I would like to express my appreciation to Rowman and Littlefield for the use of certain passages. Second, I must admit that when I wrote this book, I had not read Bhattacharyya’s articles on this topic. I had studied a number of other pieces by K.C.B. and had used his theory of fourfold negation in the formulation of my model. Likewise, I had not read the work of Burch who has written some of the clearest expositions on K.C.B. and who has also developed the notion of the absolute and its alternative forms in his own writings. These oversights in my research have ruined any claims that I might make to originality of thought, but, on the other hand, they have produced intellectual allies. Third, I must thank Professor Raimundo Panikkar whose personal correspondence about my book led me to reexamine Bhattacharyya’s writings and to discover his notion of the absolute and its alternative forms (April 2002). Finally, I would like to thank Richard Goldman (Ithaca, NY) for his assistance in wrestling with K.C.B. and the nuances of his thought.
It should be noted that here, as in the other two modes of consciousness, Bhattacharyya distinguishes a realistic view and an idealistic view. While a full discussion of this distinction is beyond the scope of this paper, it may be noted that in the case of willing, K.C.B. says: ‘That we objectively act to be subjectively free, that the good will and nothing but the good will is the value for which we will an act – the view, in fact, of Kant – may be called the idealistic view in this connexion. The realistic view here then would be that we act for an objective end and not for the subjective end of being free; and an extreme form of the view may be conceived that we objectively act in order that we objectively act for everymore’ (CitationBhattacharyya, 1958, p. 137).
‘Holographic film typically has a resolution of 2500 to 5000 lines per millimeter (10−3m), in contrast to standard photographic film, which has about 200 lines per millimeter. The higher resolution is achieved by using smaller grains of the photosensitive silver in the emulsion. The smaller grains are less sensitive to light and decrease the “speed” of the film substantially’ (CitationIovine, 1990, p. 1).
A laser is a single frequency light source that is in phase – in other words, the light waves are in step with each other. (Light from an ordinary light bulb is neither in phase nor single frequency.) The hologram records not only the varying intensities of the light as it reflects off the object, as does a photograph, but it also records the phase relations of the light reflecting off the object.
The use of these terms is indebted to David Bohm, the renowned physicist. Bohm developed a very different holographic model with a different understanding of the relation between the two domains. His model is a scientific model and it is also a model for the ultimacy of undivided wholeness. In spite of the significant debt that my project owes to Professor Bohm, my project aims at resolving problems in religious thought, not physics. This project also imagines a plurality of ultimate answers, corresponding to Bhattacharyya’s threefold formulation of the absolute, not just one absolute.
For an extended analysis of these three traditions, one is referred to Kaplan (Citation2002, ch. 5).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stephen Kaplan
Correspondence to: Stephen Kaplan, Department of Religious Studies, Manhattan College, Manhattan College Parkway, Riverdale, New York 10471, USA. Email: stephen.kaplan@manhattan.edu; Tel: +1‐718‐862‐7113.
References
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Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Source: Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination
“The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
Source: “The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”
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Revisiting K.C. Bhattacharyya’s concept of the Absolute and its alternative forms: A holographic model for simultaneous illumination
Authors: Stephen Kaplan
July 2004
Asian Philosophy 14(2):99-115 DOI:10.1080/0955236042000237354
“The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms”.
Bhattacharyya, K.C..
Search for the Absolute in Neo-Vedanta, edited by George Bosworth Burch, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976, pp. 175-196. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824887025-006
This book engages in a dialogue with Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (K.C. Bhattacharyya, KCB, 1875–1949) and opens a vista to contemporary Indian philosophy.
KCB is one of the founding fathers of contemporary Indian philosophy, a distinct genre of philosophy that draws both on classical Indian philosophical sources and on Western materials, old and new. His work offers both a new and different reading of classical Indian texts, and a unique commentary of Kant and Hegel. The book (re)introduces KCB’s philosophy, identifies the novelty of his thinking, and highlights different dimensions of his oeuvre, with special emphasis on freedom as a concept and striving, extending from the metaphysical to the political or the postcolonial. Our contributors aim to decipher KCB’s distinct vocabulary (demand, feeling, alternation). They revisit his discussion of Rasa aesthetics, spotlight the place of the body in his phenomenological inquiry toward “the subject as freedom”, situate him between classics (Abhinavagupta) and thinkers inspired by his thought (Daya Krishna), and discuss his lectures on Sāṃkhya and Yoga rather than projecting KCB as usual solely as a Vedānta scholar. Finally, the contributors seek to clarify if and how KCB’s philosophical work is relevant to the discourse today, from the problem of other minds to freedoms in the social and political spheres.
This book will be of interest to academics studying Indian and comparative philosophy, philosophy of language and mind, phenomenology without borders, and political and postcolonial philosophy.
An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Perspectives on Reality, Knowledge, and Freedom
By Bina Gupta
Thinkers of the Indian Renaissance
By S A Abbasi
The Fundamentals of K.C. Bhattacharyya’s Philosophy
PUBLISHER: INDIAN COUNCIL OF PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH (ICPR), D. K. PRINTWORLD PVT. LTD. AUTHOR: KALIDAS BHATTACHARYYA LANGUAGE: ENGLISH EDITION: 2016 ISBN: 9788124608418 PAGES: 220
Three Absolutes and Four Types of Negation Integrating Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s Insights?
By Stephen Kaplan Chapter in Book The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Edition 1st Edition First Published 2023 Imprint Routledge Pages 14 eBook ISBN 9781003153320
This title of this chapter ends with a question mark. Did Bhattacharyya elucidate the relationship between his theories of the absolute in three alternatives and his theory that all philosophical thinking is rooted in different types of negation, specifically four types of negation? This chapter examines the key points in Bhattacharyya’s exposition of the four different types of negation. Each type of negation, understood in terms of removing illusion, leads to a different type of philosophy; hence understanding the different forms of negation provides insight into the fundamental differences in philosophical schools. The next challenge is illuminating Bhattacharyya’s formulation of three absolutes – the absolutes related to knowing, willing, and feeling – namely, truth, freedom, and value. Bhattacharyya declares that these absolutes are incompatible with each other, and he does not hide their incompatibility behind a facade of penultimacy. One might assume that his fourfold schema of negations would map onto his three absolutes since he sees each as fundamental to philosophical thinking. But how? How does the three map onto the four and the four map onto the three? That is the challenge this chapter engages, and the answer will be multivalent.
“Contemporary Vedanta Philosophy, I.”
Burch, George.
The Review of Metaphysics 9, no. 3 (1956): 485–504.
Daya Krishna’s essay ‘K.C. Bhattacharyya: A Philosophical Overview’ is a compilation of a few paragraphs written by him on K.C. Bhattacharyya (KCB) in two chapters on contemporary Indian philosophy in his books Indian Philosophy: A New Approach (1997) and Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards (2002). Daya Krishna revisits KCB’s three absolutes and their alternation, and the subject–object relationship at the heart of KCB’s formulation. Original as ever, Daya Krishna depicts KCB’s philosophical project as based on an ‘inverted Hegelian dialectic’, which ‘moves through what may be called a process of identification and de-identification, where each step of de-identification reveals the earlier identification to have been both voluntary and mistaken’. This dialectic, he adds, is rooted in Sāṃkhya philosophy, ‘but it has been given a new turn by K.C. Bhattacharyya’. Daya Krishna does not merely explain this ‘new turn’, but moreover, takes issue with KCB. First, he reminds KCB that even according to his own premises, identification is as free an action as de-identification. Hence, just like KCB’s prescribed de-identification, it conveys a sense of freedom. Second, Daya Krishna appeals for re-identification after de-identification, as he puts it, revealing his own conviction that freedom is found in the back and forth of engagement and disengagement, namely both in engagement and in disengagement at one’s will.
K.C. Bhattacharyya and Spontaneous Liberation in Sāṃkhya *
ByDimitry Shevchenko Book The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Edition 1st Edition First Published 2023 Imprint Routledge Pages 16 eBook ISBN 9781003153320
‘Chapter Four Sri Aurobindo and Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya: Relation between Science and Spiritualism’,
These Studies in Phi1osoplr represents all the published and only a few unpublished writings of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. These published writings date back 1908, but his characteristic philosophical position assumes definite shape in the writings during the years 1928-36. The publications of the period outnumber and far our weigh those that fall during the previous twenty years Of the twenty- one tracts published first in two separate Volumes, which in this edition appear as bound together in one, fourteen belong to this period, the others covering the previous years.
Prof Bhattacharyya had a deep study of an dent Indian philosophy, particularly of Advaita Vedanta, Sankhya, Yoga and Jam Philosophies. Vol 1, contains Prof. Bhattacharyya’s constructive interpretation of these systems. He was also well-versed in classical German Philosophy, particularly that of Kant. Hi vast and deep study provided the intellectual background in the light of which his profoundly original mind could go on with the work of construction. He constructed a new system of his own which however is not easy to comprehend. VOL II contains all the basic writings in which Prof. Bhattacharyya’s philosophy has been formulated. In the Introduction to this Volume the Editor has usefully analysed the Author’s philosophical position in some detail.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya was born on 12th May, 1875. He graduated with triple Honours in 1896 and was awarded the P.R.S. of the Calcutta University in 1901. His academic record during the School and College periods was uniformly excellent.
Bhattacharyya joined the Education Department of Government of Bengal as a lecturer in Philosophy in 1898 and after serving with great distinction as a teacher of Philosophy in about all the Government Colleges of Bengal, he retired in 1930. He joined the Indian Institute of Philosophy at Amalner as its Director and remained there from 1933 to 1935. He was the George V Professor of Mental & Moral Philosophy at the Calcutta University from 1935 to 1937. He died on 11th December, 1940.
Prof. Bhattacharyya possessed a profoundly original mind and an acute analytical intellect. He will always be held in high esteem by the successive generations of thinkers for his significant contribution to Philosophy. Editor’s Preface to Vol. I
These ‘Studies in Philosophy’ represent all the published and only a few of the unpublished philosophical writings of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. There remains over an immense mass of manuscripts which will, perhaps, remain unpublished for all time to come.
The present volumes comprise the following tracts: –
Vol. I
1. Studies in Vedantism (Published in 1907) 2. 2. Sankara’s doctrine of Maya ( ,, 1925) 3. The Advaita and its spiritual significance ( ,, 1936) 4. Studies in Samkhya Philosophy (Unpublished) 5. Studies in Yoga Philosophy ( ,, ) 6. The Jaina theory of Anekanta (Published in 1925) 7. The Concept of Rasa (Unpublished)
Vol. II
1. The Subject as Freedom (Published in 1930) 2. The Concept of Philosophy ( ,, 1936) 3. The Concept of the Absolute and its alternative forms ( ,, 1934) 4. Studies in Kant (Unpublished) 5. Some aspects of negation (Published in 1914) 6. The place of the indefinite in Logic ( ,, 1916) 7. Definition of ‘Relation’ as a category of existence (Unpublished) 8. Fact and thought of fact (Published in 1931) 9. Knowledge and Truth ( ,, 1928) 10. Correction of error as a logical process ( ,, 1931) 11. The false and the subjective ( ,, 1932) 12. The objective interpretation of percept and image ( ,, 1936) 13. The Concept of Value ( ,, 1934) 14. The reality of the future (Unpublished)
Each of the above tracts is preceded by an Analysis. The first one was made by the author himself and the others have been done by the editor. Of the foot notes those marked in numerals are by the editor.
In presenting these studies the editor is happy to offer his most grateful thanks to the enterprising publisher. Sree Sushil Kumar Basu, the proprietor of Messrs. Progressive Publishers. It was he who very generously volunteered to undertake the publication of the book and see it through the press.
My warm thanks are also due to Professor G. R. Malkani. the Director of the Indian Institute of Philosophy, Amalner (Bombay) for his ready permission to reprint ‘The Subject as Freedom’ which was originally published by the Institute; to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and Messrs. George Allen & Unwin Ltd. for their kind permission to reprint from their- ‘Contemporary Indian Philosophy’ the essay ‘‘[he Concept of Philosophy’; and to the R. K. Mission for their permission to reprint ‘The Advaita and its spiritual significance’ which first appeared in their ‘Cultural Heritage of India’. The editor is also obliged to a pupil of his and to his daughter for their assistance in preparing the copy for the press.
It is very much regretted that a number of typographical errors have crept in spite of earnest endeavours to avoid them. In the ‘Errata’ at the end of the volume, only the major errors have been listed and corrected. Editor’s Preface to Vol. II
The second volume of Studies in Philosophy is now presented after about twenty months since the issue of the first volume. For this inordinate delay the Editor alone is responsible. The Publisher tried his level best to expedite the publication, but owing to a number of circumstances which were beyond the control of the Editor, it was not found possible to bring it out at an earlier date.
This volume contains the fourteen tracts mentioned in the Preface to Vol. I, but in a slightly varied order. As in the case of the other volume, the order is not a chronological one.
In (I) The Subject as Freedom, the author works out his conception of Spiritual Psychology and the theory of the subject as freedom, and attempts to trace out the progressive stages of cognitional freedom. In (2) The Concept of Philosophy we have an analysis of the nature of philosophy and the conception of Philosophy as symbolic thinking not amounting to knowledge. (3) The Concept of the A absolute and its Alternative Forms elaborates the doctrine of the trinal absolute. (4) In Knowledge and Truth, we have an analysis of the distinctive level of consciousness occupied by theory of knowledge and of the theory of the mutual implication of knowledge and truth. (5) Fact and Thought of Fact attempts to give a definition of fact without assuming any fact and seeks to establish the position that fact does not admit of an impersonal definition. (6) In Correction of Error as a Logical Process, the author develops the Advaita theory of illusion and emphasises that correction is an epistemic function without any unitary logical content and that falsity has no reference to the time- position of cognition. In (7) The False and the Subjective, the author elaborates the thesis that the false and the subjective imply one another. In (8) Some Aspects of Negation, the author presents a nonsubjectivistic interpretation of the position that ‘truth is manifold’ and tries to establish that there are radically different types of logic based on incommensurable views of negation. (9) Place of the bide finite in Logic lays down the thesis that the indefinite is not merely a subjective entity and that logic should find a place for the absolute indefinite.
(10) In Definition of Relation as a Category of Existence, an attempt has been made to formulate a definition of ‘relation’ in purely objective terms as against the subjectivistic interpretation of Green and others. In (II) Objective Interpretation of the Percept and Image, an attempt has been made to translate the subjective terms ‘perceived’ and ‘un-perceived’ into objective terms. (12) In Reality of the Future the author develops the thesis that the reality of the future expected on a known ground cannot be said to be an object of knowledge and that the future is real only to will and to faith. (13) The Concept of Value gives an analysis of the concept of value in its different forms, and establishes the position that value is absolute and that speak ability of value as information is a necessary illusion. (l4) The Studies in Kant gives us a speculative interpretation of a number of Kantian themes. As with the other constructive interpretations contained in Vol. I, we have here also quite a large number of improvisations.
In the Introduction to this volume, the Editor has made an attempt to analyse the major philosophical doctrines of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. The analysis has been done, as far as possible, in the author’s own words. This is for two reasons: first, the Editor was not sure that he had got at the exact logic of Krishnachandra’s writings in a large number of places; secondly, and this is to some extent connected with the first, he felt that his own language was far less effective and elegant than that of the author, even when the latter’s manner of presentation was quite thoroughly severe.
The Editor regrets that he has not been able to capture the inspiration or the insight that saturates almost all the writings of his father. It is because of this that he has all along felt that it was presumptuousness on his part to have undertaken this editorial work.
The Editor feels that he would be failing in gratitude if he did not emphasis that all the credit for this publication belongs to his friend, Sri Sushil Kumar Basu of Progressive Publishers. The under- taking would never have been completed but for his unfailing generosity, constant encouragement and spirit of dedication.
Contents
Volume I
Preface to the Second Edition
v
Abbreviations
xvi
Editor’s Introduction to vols. I & II
xvii
1. Studies in Vedantism
Introduction
1
Analysis
7
Text: Ch. I. An Approach Through Psychology
11
Ch. II. Vedantic Metaphysics
31
Ch. III. Vedantic Logic
69
2. Sankara’s Doctrine of Maya
Analysis
93
Text
95
3. The Advaita and Its Spiritual Significance
Analysis
109
Text
113
4. Studies in Sankhya Philosophy
Preface
127
Analysis
129
Text: Ch. I. Pain as Evil
135
Ch. II. Reflection as a Spiritual Function
143
Ch. III. The Body of the Self
151
Ch. IV. Causal and Non-Causal Manifestation
158
Ch. V. Time, Space and Causality
165
Ch. VI. The Objective Tattvas
173
Ch. VII. The Objective Tattvas (Contd.)
181
Ch. VIII. The Self or Purusa
190
Ch. IX. Prakrti
198
Ch. X. Relation of the Gunas
207
5. Studies in Yoga Philosophy
Analysis
215
Text: Ch. I. Sankhya and Yoga
221
Ch. II. ,, ,, (Contd.)
231
Ch. III. ,, ,, (Contd.)
240
Ch. IV. Buddhi-Vrtti
251
Ch. V. ,, ,, (Contd.)
262
Ch. VI. Five Levels of Buddhi
273
Ch. VII. The Nature of Yoga
283
Ch. III. The Kinds of Yoga
293
Ch. IX. The Procedure of Yoga
305
Ch. X. The Notion of Isvara
317
6. The Jaina Theory of Anekanta
Analysis
329
Text
331
7. The Concept of Rasa
Analysis
347
Text
349
Vol. II
1. The Subject as Freedom
Analysis
367
Text: Ch. I. The Notion of Subjectivity
381
Ch. II. Psychic Fact
396
Ch. III. Bodily Subjectivity (The Body as Perceived and Felt)
412
Ch. IV. Bodily Subjectivity (Contd.) (Knowledge of Absence as a Present Fat)
417
Ch. V. Psychic Subjectivity (The Image)
424
Ch. VI. Psychic Subjectivity (Contd.) (Thought)
431
Ch. VII. Spiritual Subjectivity (Contd.) (Feeling)
435
Ch. VIII. Spiritual Subjectivity (Contd.) (Introspection)
442
Ch. IX. Spiritual Subjectivity (Contd.) (Beyond Introspection)
446
Ch. X. The Subject as Freedom
450
2. The Concept of Philosophy
Analysis
457
Text
462
3. The Concept of the Absolute and its alternative forms
Analysis
483
Text
447
4. Knowledge and Truth
Analysis
509
Text
513
5. Fact and Thought of Fact
Analysis
529
Text
531
6. Correction of Error as a logical process
Analysis
543
Text
545
7. The false and the subjective
Analysis
55
Text
557
8. Some Aspects of Negation
Analysis
567
Text
569
9. Place of the Indefinite in Logic
Analysis
583
Text
587
10. The Definition of relation as a category of existence
Brahman: Absolute Consciousness in Advait (Non Dual) Vedanta Philosophy
Key Terms
Brahman
Maya
Witness Consciousness
Non-dual (Advait) Vedanta Philosophy
Philosophy
Vedic Philosophy
Subject Object
Subject Subject
Subject Meta-Subject
Absolute Consciousness
Phenomenal Consciousness
Turiya
Awareness
Adi Shankara
Sakshi
Akash and Prakash
Mayavad
Truth, Value and Freedom
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Bhattacharyya’s most remarkable idea is his notion of the Absolute as alternation. Instead of the Hegelian absolutization of the Absolute, he chose the dialectics of alternation both at transcendental and empirical levels of reality. The triple functions of consciousness in relation to its contents are: knowing, feeling, and willing. Each of them has its own formulation of the Absolute, namely truth, value, and freedom respectively. When cognition is given importance, the Absolute is viewed as truth; when emotion (devotion) is given importance, it is viewed as value; and when volition is given importance, it is viewed as freedom. These conceptions of the Absolute cannot be unified into one, because each is Absolute in turn.7 For Bhattacharyya, this alternation is not just our symbolic speakingabout the one Absolute in three distinct ways, but the very constitution (dynamics) of the Absolute.8
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
The idealist view of life and reality, which Radhakrishnan calls religion of the spirit, perceives the universe as ultimately spiritual. Brahman (Atman/ the Spirit) being the ultimate truth and the universe its self-manifestation, the spirit is our deepest self.
Radhakrishnan wanted all historical religions to transform themselves into the religion of the spirit, a spiritual vision that transforms the world and ensures human unity, universal moral order, and world peace.
Radhakrishnan tried to work out a positive account of the world by interfacing three concepts – Brahman (the Absolute), Ishvara (God), and the world. Brahman considered in its self-identity as pure consciousness is beyond all distinctions, qualifications, and descriptions. This one, absolute being, however, manifests itself as the world. The world is just one possibility of Brahman’s self-manifestation; other possibilities we may not know.
Brahman in its relation to the world is Ishvara (God). Ishvara is Brahman’s creative aspect, conceived as creator, redeemer, and judge. Immanent in the world, Ishvara guides and transforms it. Ishvara lasts as long as the world-process lasts. Although the transformation of the world is God’s action, it is essentially linked with human transformation. Despite limitations, human evolution and progress is teleological and moves toward a greater good.10 Human calling is to co-operate with the divine plan for the world’s transformation.
Typical of an Advaitin, Radhakrishnan held that our deepest self (atman) is identical to the transcendental Self (Atman) and is above transmigration. What is subject to transmigration is jiva, the empirical self. The world-process lasts until all jivas are liberated.11 When all jivas are liberated, the world will be transformed into Brahma-loka (the kingdom of God). The world and all jivas become one with God and God will be all in all. And finally the Brahma-loka, along with Ishvara, will lapse into Brahman. Thus Brahman remains the beginning and the end of the world. If and when another world-process begins is left to the freedom of Brahman.
“Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Source: “Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
Source: Advaita and the philosophy of consciousness without an object
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Key Sources of Research
“Mind/Consciousness Dualism in Sā̇ṅkhya-Yoga Philosophy.”
“Contemporary Interpretations of Shankara’s Advaita and the Affirmation of the World.”
Kaipayil, Joseph.
In Reason: Faithful and True (Essays in Honour of George Karuvelil), edited by Thomas Karimundackal and Dolichan Kollareth, 293-302. Pune: Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, 2020.
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA;
2Laboratory for Information Design and Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA †Vaibhav Tripathi, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7520-4188 *Correspondence address. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 64, Cummington Mall, Rm 149, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA. Tel: +1 857-253-8491; E-mail: vaibhavt@bu.edu
Subjects: Asian Religion And Philosophy Series: SUNY series in Religious Studies Paperback : 9780791412824, 285 pages, December 1992 Hardcover : 9780791412817, 285 pages, January 1993
Advaita posits three states of consciousness, namely waking (jagrat), dreaming (svapna), deep sleep (suṣupti), which are empirically experienced by human beings,[125][126] and correspond to the Three Bodies Doctrine:[127]
The first state is the waking state, in which we are aware of our daily world.[128] This is the gross body.
The second state is the dreaming mind. This is the subtle body.[128]
The third state is the state of deep sleep. This is the causal body.[128]
Advaita also posits “the fourth,” Turiya, which some describe as pure consciousness, the background that underlies and transcends these three common states of consciousness.[web 7][web 8] Turiya is the state of liberation, where states Advaita school, one experiences the infinite (ananta) and non-different (advaita/abheda), that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended.[129] According to Candradhara Sarma, Turiya state is where the foundational Self is realized, it is measureless, neither cause nor effect, all pervading, without suffering, blissful, changeless, self-luminous,[note 7] real, immanent in all things and transcendent.[130] Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with everyone and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the known becomes one, they are the Jivanmukta.[131][132][133][134][135]
Advaita traces the foundation of this ontological theory in more ancient Sanskrit texts.[136] For example, chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the “four states of consciousness” as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep.[136][137] One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.[note 25] The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads.[138]
Key Terms
Advait Vedanta
Sankara
Shankara
Immanuel Kant
Samkara
German Idealism
Transcendental Idealism
Phenomenology
Absolute Consciousness
Phenomenal Consciousness
Idealism vs Realism
Maya
Illusionism
Appearance
Reality
Four States of Consciousness
Turiya
Jivanmukta
Brahman Satyam, Jagat Mithya
Maha Vakyas of Vedas
Kant and Shankara
08 SAMKARA AND KANT (Apr 1960)
VISHWANATH PRASAD VARMA
1. INTRODUCTION
Both Samkara and Kant were supreme thinkers who have played an almost revolutionary role in the philosophical history of India and Europe respectively. Samkara (788-820) was a great poet, a prince among dialecticians, a peripatetic teacher of Vedanta and a great system-builder. He tried to establish the foundations of Vedanta on the bases of the Upanishadic metaphysics. His philosophical constructions are characterized by logical subtlety, speculative fearlessness and a deep and profound concern for spiritual reality. Kant (1724-1804) was a great mathematician, a conservative social and political philosopher and the founder of the matchless majestic idealistic philosophy of Germany.1 An acute and analytical thinker, a man of tremendous learning, Kant lived a very simple life. While Kant’s eminence is confined to the realms of philosophy and political thought, Samkara’s position is far greater in the religious history of India.2 Samkara is hailed not only as a philosopher but a great religious leader who appeared as the spokesman of the old social and religious traditions against the devastating challenges of the Buddhist subjectivists and nihilists.
The bases of Samkara’s system are derived from the old tradition of idealistic wisdom recorded chiefly in the principal Upanishads although like all creative thinkers Samkara does add to them the fund of his own intuitional experiences and reflections. He flourished at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century A.D. when there was slender development of the physical sciences in the country. Hence Samkara’s system is logical, poetic and metaphysical but it has no roots in the physical sciences. The foundations of the Vedantic ideas regarding the origin and nature of the five physical elements and human physiology are largely intuitional and speculative and have no concrete experimental data behind them.
Kant, on the other hand was a far greater expert in science. His researches in cosmogony embodied in the famous nebular hypothesis although refuted by a later body of scientific knowledge show the cast of his intellectual temper. Kant appreciated the keen significance of scientific advancements. He wanted to make philosophy follow the road of science. The secret of the success of science is its methodology. Science is based on the acceptance of synthetic a priori judgments and they impart to it universality. The scientific advancements of the seventeenth century impressed Kant. He believed that the knowledge of mathematics and physics has the element of necessity and universality which are the dominant characteristics of objectivity. Kant differentiated the synthetic constructive character of mathematical propositions from the formal and analytical character of logical propositions. But these judgments can be applied only in the realm of the phenomenal and sensuous. Hence there can be no dogmatic assertions about the transcendent reality if metaphysics is to follow the methodology of the natural sciences. Kant is emphatic in his statement that the categories of the understanding do not apply to the Unconditioned. The unconditioned or the totality of conditions is for Kant an Ideal of Reason.3On this point the mystical tradition of the Vedanta which posits a sharp separation between the province of conceptual reason and the super-sensuous mystical immediacy of intuition would agree with him. According to Kant, speculative metaphysics transcending the bounds of the phenomenal sensuous concrete realm of experience is liable to the fallacies of the transcendental dialectic.
Although in his later writings he made concessions to the religious tradition, the scientific spirit is far more present in Kant than in Samkara, though it must be acknowledged that the great difference in their times—almost nine hundred years, is responsible for it.
Both Samkara and Kant were idealists. But while Samkara was a spiritual monistic idealist, Kant was an ethical idealist. The supreme brahman, beyond all subjects and objects is the sole real. Hence Samkara has been regarded as a ‘rigorous monist’. Samkara cannot be called an absolute idealist because in his system there is no dialectical derivation of the realms of the subject and the object from the supreme idea. Instead, the utter absolute spiritual real or brahman is intuited in mystical experiences and from that standpoint there is nothing real besides the brahman. Samkara is a transcendental idealist because the supreme brahman transcends the categories of predication by human thought but remains the fundamental real.
Kant, on the other hand, is both a transcendental idealist as well as an ethical idealist. Kant’s transcendental or logical idealism consists in the view that the phenomenal world of objects which is the only realm which has the characteristic of cognisability is an ideal construction framed by the application of the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding to the sense-data. Sometimes the transcendental idealism of Kant is also called phenomenal idealism; Kant is also an idealist in the sense that he attributes primacy to moral values. He refutes, however, two types of idealism—the problematical idealism of Descartes and the dogmatical idealism of Berkeley.4 Kant recognizes the multiplicity of things-in-themselves although he denies the possibility of their knowledge. It is said by absolute idealists that the recognition of the things-in-themselves in the Kantian system is a relic of the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter. From the monistic standpoint while Samkara accepts the sole truth of the nirguna brahman, Kant recognizes, as if the perceived phenomenal multiplicity is the re-furnished garb of the multiple things-in-themselves. Thus theoretically speaking, the spiritual monistic idealism of Samkara is more satisfying than the objective idealism of Kant. Both Samkara and Kant remain critics of subjectivism. Samkara refutes the subjectivism of the Yogacara school of Buddhists. In refuting the standpoint of the Buddhist subjectivists, Samkara makes concessions to empirical inductive realism based on the universal concensus in fields of common perception of the same objects. He frankly states that the dominant activities in the mundane sphere would be impossible. Kant refutes the subjectivism of Berkeley.
2. METAPHYSICS
(a) Possibility and Nature of Knowledge
Samkara flourished at a time when the philosophical world was dominated by the Buddhists. The concept of Sunya as popularized by the Buddhist nihilists was a counterpoise to any fresh philosophic endeavour. In a way it amounted to the assertion of the futility of all epistemological constructions because nothing conclusive could be predicated either about the processes of knowledge or about the conclusions. Sunyavada implied the worthlessness of all categories of predication. Samkara took up this challenge. Following the traditions of Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka, Samkara once more asserted the possibility of knowledge. He recognized the limitations of the instruments of cognition but in spite of this awareness he gave, credence to the validity of a set of theoretical generalizations. Hume’s scepticism was an indirect challenge to all philosophical attempts at the construction of a cosmology and a philosophy of life. Kant recognized the necessity of using the process of self-scrutiny to the instruments of cognition. Kant is an exponent of the critical methodology which probes into a searching investigation of the potencies of reason. It gives transcendental knowledge ‘which does not relate so much to objects of knowledge, as to our mode of knowing them, in so far as knowledge is possible a priori’. If according to Samkara the inadequacies of empirical knowledge are to be traced to the blinding tantalizing potencies of maya or the indescribable (anirvachaniya) cosmic ignorance, Kant refers to the inadequate powers of the human instruments of knowledge in explaining these inadequacies. But in spite of the critical application of reason to the bases and limitations of reason, Kant rendered a great service to philosophy by stressing the necessity of a scientifically-oriented metaphysics, a task which, however, remains an aspiration rather than a realization. Kantian metaphysics, however, landed in phenomenalism and agnosticism because according to him the things-in-themselves remain permanently unknown and there can be no knowledge of the non-sensuous supersensible entities. Hence metaphysics as a science of the ultimate primordial reals is impossible. Metaphysics in the Kantian sense is mainly reduced to epistemological scrutiny. If the human reason attempts to overstep its province and aims to apply to regulative ideas of the reason—soul, world and God to experiential continuum the result is paralogism, antinomies and dogmatic assertions. The limitation of metaphysical enquiries to the realm of the sensuous is indicative of the influence of contemporary science on Kant.
One of the essential ingredients in the apercus of idealistic philosophy is the distinction between different levels of knowledge. This epistemological gradation is an analogue to the ontological gradation. If there is a distinction between the supreme supersensuous real being and the external surface phenomenal manifestations then the knowledge or apprehension of them must be obtained by different organs and instruments. Samkara accepts a fundamental distinction between the paramarthika truth—intuited by a transcendent supreme knowledge and the vyavaharika satta or the empirical layer of phenomena. The latter is comprehended by the commonplace media of sensuous apprehension. This distinction has its roots in the Upanishadic differentiation between tarka, vijnana or medha, that is, empirical understanding and prajnaor nidhidhyasana or supreme integral insight. In the Tripitakas we find Buddha making a similar distinction between the apprehension of the average man—the prithagjana and the transcendent vision of the sarnyak sambuddha. In the school of Nagarjuna there is a distinction between the samvriti satya and the paramartha satya. According to Samkara, the supreme transcendent indeterminate Brahman appears as a differentiated incongruous manifold under the clouding veil of the indescribable cosmic Maya. Kant did not accept the reality of a super-rational vision or intuition. He engages in a more thorough investigation of the nature of reason than Samkara. He makes a distinction between illusory knowledge and empirical knowledge. He accepts that the things-in-themselves are unknowable. Kant, however, holds that the things-in-themselves are somehow the significant factor in the generation of our experience although their own nature remains unrevealed in our experiences.
Samkara believed in the reality of a non-sensuous super-phenomenal immediate apprehension of the supreme real—anubhava-vasanatvat brahmavijnanasyat.5 He is a mystic and he accepts the possibility of a metaphysics based on the esoteric realizations of the old seers and sages. The critical philosophy of Kant, on the other hand, accepts that the regulative Ideas of Reason’ are methodological devices. There is no sense-experience corresponding to them. While Kant is emphatic in his assertion that sensibility is the sole giver of the content of experiences, Samkara in the perennial tradition of mystic spiritualism believes in the veracity of non-sensuous modes of immediate yogic realization. According to the Vedantic and Yogic tradition there is a direct luminous’ awareness of the supreme real if there is a regeneration of the human heart and if the necessary disciplines in the shape of intellectual purification have been undergone. The bodhi or the prajna is the culminating point of a sustained process of philosophical concentration and absorption. The mystical tradition is far stronger in the case of Samkara. Kant refuses to accept that there can be any non-sensuous intuitional immediacy.6 Thus while Samkara is a believer in mystical metaphysics, Kant is a metaphysical agnostic accepting the permanent non-cognisability of the things-in-themselves. Both Samkara and Kant are agreed that the postulational conceptual categories of human deliberation are non-applicable to the supreme real but while Kant does not point to any super-rational faculty, Samkara accepts the testimony of inspired mystical vision and revelation. While Kant keeps himself confined to the legitimate province of philosophy, Samkara makes a transition to the realms of theology and mysticism. While Kant defined philosophy as the criticism of cognition and thus was mainly preoccupied with the transcendental foundations of the possibility of knowledge, Samkara adhering to the long line of Indian spiritual tradition sang hymns in praise of the supernal self.
A familiar element in any idealistic theory is the notion of superposition or illusion. If the brahman is the sole spiritual real, there must be some intellectual device to explain the appearance of this phenomenal world. Samkara adopts the concept of adhyasa for it. Adhyasa implies the imposition of the categories of the non-ego upon the ego and vice versa. In other words adhyasa flourishes on a confusion between the attributes of the subject and the object. The appearance of the world is a case of adhyasa which is founded upon the peculiar conjunction of truth and error. This concept is similar to the Kantian theory of transcendental illusion according to which phenomenal predications are applied to the cognising subject which is supposed to be another to the realm of external objects. The illusion consists in the antithetical juxtaposition of the thinking subject and the external things outside of it. Kant, however, would ascribe greater reality to the phenomenal world than Samkara. He does not regard the phenomenal world as illusory or as a shadow. He only indicates that it implies something of a transcendent order to justify its existence. The mystic-ascetic Samkara harps on the non-being of the world in endless refrain.
(b) Theory of God
According to Samkara, from the human standpoint, God is the highest reality and is the subject of adoration. Though the conception of God is accounted for on a dualistic hypothesis, God, basically is the same as the supreme real, the Brahman or the Sachchidananda. The Saguna Brahman or the personal Lord or Isvara is the same fundamental reality as the Brahman or the absolute. But Kant does not acknowledge this distinction between the impersonal philosophical absolute and the personal God. Samkara was a theist from the practical standpoint although from the standpoint of abstract philosophical-mystical contemplation he recognized the sole reality of a superior absolute. He does recognize that the adoration of God is a necessity so long as the dualistic standpoint relevant to the phenomenal world is there. In establishing the reality of God Samkara took recourse to the cosmological argument. The Upanishads refer to the cosmological argument and thereby point to the reality of a creative supreme agency—tajjalaniti. The Yoga system and Leibnitz accept the teleological argument for theism. There is the implicit acceptance of the teleological argument also in the Vedanta philosophy. But the Vedanta as interpreted by Samkara puts the basic emphasis on the cosmological argument. Samkara refers to the statement of the Taittiriya Upanishad—Yato imani bhutani jayante and says that this refers to the Saguna Brahman. Kant pointed out the difficulties and insufficient character of the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological arguments.7 His famous ridicule of the Ontological or Cartesian argument for the existence of Supreme Being contained in his saying that there is a lot of difference between the idea of hundred dollars (or marks) in the mind and hundred dollars in your pocket shows his humourous mode of argumentation.8 Instead of these arguments, Kant sponsored the moral argument which accepts God as a regulative Idea of Reason and as a postulate of the moral life. Thus if the cosmological argument is sponsored by Samkara, Kant is an advocate of the moral argument. In Kant’s philosophy of theism there is a dual standpoint. Sometimes his rationalism and scientific training make him conceive of God, as in the Critique of Pure Reason as a methodological device or a regulative notion of reason that helps in conceiving objects of our thought as integral elements in a systematic whole. According to Kant the Ideal of Reason is the final presupposition of limited experiences. He stated that the three Ideas of Reason—World, Soul and God, do not constitute the entities corresponding to them. They are unobjectified regulative principles. Hegel is critical of the Kantian view regarding the supra-experiential character of the Ideal of Reason and he identifies it with philosophical conceptualization. In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant justified the existence of God on moral grounds. Although God’s existence cannot be logically demonstrated on the theoretical foundations of pure reason God is a necessity of the moral life. A second view of God is also quite implicit in the writings of Kant. Sometimes Kant gives indirect hints of his belief in the Christian conception of God as Saviour.9
I am more inspired by the Samkarite conception of God because I think that it attributes greater importance to the being of God. Kant’s conception of God as a regulative idea of reason or as a mere postulate of the moral consciousness reduces the exaltedness and sublimity that attach to God when he is conceived as a being or a spiritual ultimate real. The conception of God as a regulative Idea of Reason deprives him of all substantiality.
(c) The Atman and the Transcendental Ego
Samkara believed in the reality of the atman which is the inmost essence and real spiritual being of man. The reality of the atman is established on the evidence of immediate apprehension. No sentient being ever experiences as if he were “not”. Everyone feels and thinks that he is. This universally felt and cognized self-certainty, according to Samkara, is the basis of the belief in the reality of the self. Samkara accepts the identity of the innermost being of the individual with the brahman. Samkara teaches the identity of the cosmic brahman and the individual inmost self. Each individual self is the supreme brahman fully. But separate distinctions and multiple particularisations have been caused by maya which imposes the upadhi on the brahman. But the individualization brought about by maya is only a phenomenal feature. Essentially the jiva or the individual self is the same reality as the brahman. He refuses to believe in the eternal continuous monadic entities or personal distinct individual selves. There are no separate real selves. They are only apparent particularizations of the supreme real. Thus the atman represents for Samkara, the supreme subject which can never be objectified. The acceptance of the reality of the self was aimed as a counterpoise to the Buddhist concept of anatman.The atman cannot be sensuously perceived and intellectually cognized. According to Samkara ‘the witness self illumines consciousness, but never itself is in consciousness.’ It is a nonobjective non-experiential super-subject. It is the referent in all acts of experience though by itself it transcends the acts of experience.
Hume had, like the Buddhists, denied the substantialist conception of the Self. Kant took up this challenge. He accepted the distinction between perception and apperception made by Leibnitz and recognized the reality of a transcendental unity of apperception as the necessary organizing faculty behind all transformations of the sense-manifold into items of knowledge through the mediating agency of the categories of understanding. Kant says: ‘The I think must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity or manifold concept of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the I think, in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representation, Ithink, is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or primitive apperception, because it is a self-consciousness which, while it gives birth to the representation Ithink, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori cognition arising from it. For the manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even although I am not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist altogether in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me.’10 This transcendental unity of apperception is the synthetic power of self-consciousness. It accounts for the unity in experiences which are in themselves diverse and multisided. It provides the ‘affinity of phenomenal forms.’ The subjective and objective dichotomies in the empirical plane of consciousness are conceived on the basis of this fundamental self. This transcendental unity of apperception is never, however, the simple monadic immortal substance. This noumenal or transcendental ego, or the knowing subject, according to Kant, is the fundamental basis of empirical consciousness but is never itself a factor in or participant in empirical consciousness. It is the condition and the possibility of the awareness of multiple phenomena. But it cannot be objectified. Thus Kant made the transcendental unity purely formal and hence could not make it the supreme derivative principle for all experience. This cannot be known through the categories of the understanding which pertain to the field of scientific experience. The transcendental ego is the pre-condition of empirical knowledge and itself is never the subject of knowledge. Kant says: ‘What I must pre-suppose in order to know an object I cannot know as an object.’
Both Samkara and Kant accept an organizing foundational basis for the systematization of bits of experiences into knowledge. But while the atman, according to Samkara is a real entity and the subject of immediate non-sensuous apprehension, the Kantian transcendental unity of apperception is a synthesizing construction or even a non experienceable logical abstraction and is, at best, parallel to the Vedantic concept of the buddhi but never to that of the atman.11 While the atman is an unchangeable real, Kant demolished the Cartesian notion of the substantialist character of the soul-substance. In his Paralogism of Rational Psychology Kant maintained only the logical, non-substantialistic, dynamic unitive character of mental life and operations. On the other hand in the Samkarite conception the substantialistic independent character of the atman is of uppermost significance. While the atman is the highest being whose essence is bliss and consciousness and which is intuited in the highest stages of Samadhi, the transcendental unity of apperception is a mere logical coordinating possibility and a contentless pure form.
3. ETHICAL TRANSCENDENCE VERSUS ETHICAL ABSOLUTISM
Samkara does acknowledge the necessity of mental and moral purification or sadhana chatustaya for the preparation of a life of philosophical gnosis. But he does not care much for the social implications of his propositions. In his philosophic reveries over-anxious to establish the separate dimensions of ethics and philosophical gnosis—jnana, he relegates ethics to the subordinate realm of mundane phenomena and illusion.
The system of Kant ascribes a more exalted and dignified place to ethical experience. Moral commands are unconditioned, universal and imperative. They have a categorical binding character. According to Kant virtue consists in ceaseless moral endeavours towards perfection. The rationality of human nature demands the realization of the summum bonum whose attainment implies holiness or the perfect congruity between the psychic structure of man and the moral law. There is no point in time when the goal may be said to have been attained. The exaltedness of the moral man lies in the constancy of the moral exercise which imparts to him ever-growing realization. Kant makes the moral consciousness almost akin to religious consciousness.12 The voice of conscience becomes for him the command of God almost. The immense importance of ethical experience in Kantian philosophy proceeds from two sources, (a) It ascribes to man moral primacy and regards him as a citizen of the kingdom of ends. Thus the belief in the universality of the moral law ultimately leads to the conception of a spiritual commonwealth, (b) To register the validity of the belief in the commensurability of moral acts and their meritorious rewards Kant postulates the existence of a God whose reality is the guarantee of the final redemption of virtue. Like Plato and Aristotle, Kant accepted the supreme worth of virtue but to the classical conception of virtue he also added the utilitarian conception of happiness which in its origins is a secularized form of the Christian concept of felicity and beatitude. Kant accepted the reality of the universal instinct in man which seeks to apportion happiness as a reward of virtue. If virtue is to be fully realized and if the proportionate amount of happiness is to be attained, there must be the immortality of the soul. A cessation of life would imply the end of the virtuous life once begun. Hence Kant accepted the reality of a God who dispenses happiness in accordance with virtue.
In spite of the inner consistency of his system, from the standpoint of a democratic, social and political philosophy Samkara’s system is less satisfying than that of Kant. While Kant is all the time anxious to view moral laws with an attitude of dignity, awe and reverence, the ascetic Samkara sings hymns in praise only of knowledge and views moral piety with some kind of indifference. Samkara has thus rendered a positive disservice to the cause of ethical life.
4. CONCEPT OF FREEDOM
According to Samkara the universe is the vivarta or only the apparent transformation of brahman, hence there is no real scope for any genuine exercise of freedom by the human self which in its actions in the world is impelled by the force of maya. But in the spirit of the Upanishads Samkara agrees that whosoever knows the brahman and cognizes his inmost seif to be that same brahman, he attains freedom or yathakamachara.According to Samkara the brahman is supreme freedom and absolute non-difference and its creative abundance is unhindered by any competing eternal ideas. Kant also accepted that in the phenomenal realm of the universal operation of natural forces there could be no question of freedom. He however maintained that ‘man is free’ and thus in place of phenomenal determination stood for the creative autonomy of man. In place of phenomenal rigidity he stood for spontaneity. Kant bases the freedom of man on moral foundations. Freedom is the demand of a moral life. Kant pointed out that it is not possible for theoretical reason to emancipate itself from the limitations consequent upon the dualistic juxtaposition of the subject and the object. In the realm of the practical reason the self can transcend these barriers and enjoy the creative spontaneity of a free self-expressive life. The theoretical reason is chained to the sensuous objective phenomenal world which obeys the necessary laws, but the practical mind solely determined by the moral law which is its own prescription is emancipated from necessity and in its free autonomous orientation to an absolute teleology is a citizen of a superior kingdom. Thus if Samkara bases the freedom of man on spiritual knowledge, Kant bases human freedom on the concept of moral autonomy and spontaneity.
There is a tendency in the interpreters of the Vedantic thought to find the final roots of all modern values like freedom in the concept of the brahman.13 But I regard it as unfortunate. From the standpoint of the development of human personality and social growth it does not serve any purpose to compose poems of eulogy about the transcendence and supreme luminosity of the brahman. Kant has a far greater appreciation of the significance and ramifications of freedom. Samkara flourishing in an era of monarchical despotism and feudalism did not have as keen an appreciation of freedom as Kant who flourished at an epoch when Lutheranism had proclaimed the sanctity of individual conseience and capitalism was proclaiming the absence of restraint on competition in the economic field. While to Samkara everything attains its final salvation in getting sunk into a mighty indeterminate brahman, Kant’s modernism is revealed in his greater appreciation of the ethics and sociology of freedom.
5. CONCLUSION
The monistic trend is far stronger in Samkara than in Kant. At the epistemological level the latter points the duality between sense-data and the intuitional forms and categories of the understanding. At the ontological level there is the duality between the things-in-themselves and the phenomenal world. Kant posits three regulative ideas of reason and does not derive them from a higher or superior idea. It is true, however that the theme of unity was not absent from his mind. There are hints of the concept of unity in the Prolegomena. But the unitary implications of the Kantian system were only drawn out in the later phases of the German idealistic philosophy. Samskara’s conclusion is partly in consonance with the later developments of German idealism in Schelling and Hegel. The indeterminate featureless brahman, however, reminds me more of the One of Parmenides than of the identity in difference which is the cardinal element in Hegelian idealism. Modern Indian interpreters of Samkara try to bring out the superiority of the latter to Kant by stating that the former could independently arrive at the conclusions which became explicit only in the later post-Kantian idealism.14 But it should be pointed out that the concept of Samkara’s brahman has its foundation in the intuitional grasp of the poets and seers, although it is, later on, substantiated by a vast framework of logical arguments. On the other hand, the scientific positive background of the Kantian philosophy should be stressed. I do not consider the mere arrival at the concept of unity to be of great philosophical significance. The eminence of a philosophical system lies in its capacity to synthesize the knowledge derived from the natural sciences and the social sciences as well as from literature and other disciplines, Kant’s philosophy attempts to harmonize a far greater range of knowledge than Samkara’s.
There was a time when I had profound reverence for Samkara on nationalistic and emotional grounds. Now I believe in a synthetic comprehensive approach to problems of philosophy. It is not possible to revive the scholastic and dogmatic methodology of Samkara. Neither is there any basis to give credence to the theory of three disparate sectors of the mind—cognitional, practical and emotional-aesthetic. Both Samkara and Kant have failed to utilize thoroughly the possible contributions of the social and historical sciences for the elaboration of their metaphysical structure, though Kant should be given the credit for having written three books in the field of political philosophy. In modem Indian thought the influence of Samkara is in one sense marked because all idealistic scholars pay homage to him but almost all of them have bid good bye to the Samkarite concept of maya and even the faithful are too busy reading the ideas of phenomenalism in his thought. There had been a revival of Kantianism and Natrop, Cohen, Vorlander, Cassirer, Adler, Eduard Benstein and others tried to re-buttress some of the ideas of the German philosopher. But neo-Kantianism also is a passing phenomenon. On logical grounds there are vital difficulties in the acceptance of the systems of both Samkara and Kant. On rational grounds Samkara’s eschatology cannot be defended, neither is it possible to work out a defence of space and time as subjective forms of intuition. But nevertheless Samkara and Kant stand as vindications of the superiority of the quest into cosmology and axiology. They have permanent and epoch-making place in the history of philosophy. Even for a construction of metaphysical system in the present, their inconsistencies and contradictions can provide suggestions. Although ī find both Samkara and Kant unsatisfying, I have always been impressed by the Kantian concept of moral autonomy. In the days of blighting totalitarianism the Kantian theory of the autonomy, spontaneity and dignity of man is a great theme in the history of human civilization. It may not be possible to support the exact structure of concrete values for which Samkara stood but still he has taught the abnegation of the superficial concern with external glamour and sensual attractions. Hence although the epistemological and ontological bases of the Samkarite and Kantian philosophies be not palatable in our world, both of them are undaunted spokesmen of the superiority of a dignified free philosophic life.
References:
1 A modem German existentialist philosopher like Karl Jasper hails Kant as ‘the philosopher par excellence’ and ‘the prototype of a philosopher’ (den philosophen schlechthin). The Philosophy of Karl Jasper, Edited by P. A. Schilpp, (New York, Todor Publishing Company, 1957), pp. 381, 424.
2 C. N. Krishnaswami Aiyar, Life And Times of Samkara, pp. 8-9; D. N. Pal, Samkara The Sublime. See also the Samkara-Digvijaya.
3 Sometimes it is said that Kant upheld the view that the Unconditioned is amenable to the grasp of intellectual intuition.
4 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. E. T. by J. M. D. Mikeljohn (New York, 1900), p. 147.’
5 Experience is the culmination of divine gnosis.
6 There seems to be no corroboration for S. Radhakrishnan’s view: ‘Kant spoke of an intellectual intuition to indicate the mode of consciousness by which a knowledge of things in themselves might be obtained in a non-logical way.’ See S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, (Indian Edition), Vol. II. pp. 512-513. The Kantian term intuition, does however, comprehend both sensibility and intellectual intuition.
7 Fant, Critique of Pure Reason, op. cit., pp. 331-337, ‘Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God’; pp. 337-347, ‘Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God’; pp. 347-353, ‘Of the Impossibility of a Physics-Theological Proof’.
8 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, op. cit.,pp. 335-6.
9 Clement Weble, Kant’s Philosophy of Religion,p. 158 says that Kant criticized Judaism as misanthropic, Mohammedanism as proud, Hinduism as pusillanimous and the spurious Christianity of Pietism, hoping to acquire merit by self-contempt as servile. Kant, however, was influenced by the teachings of Protestantism. For Kant’s conception of the Christian conception of Grace, see Edward Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Kant,Vol. II, p. 545.
10 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reasoti, E. T. by ĩ. M. D. Mikelejohn, Renaissance Edition, (New York, The Colonial Press, 1900), pp. 76-77.
11 When the transcendental ego is compared to the atman, then the empirical ego is regarded as the analogue of the Vedantic concept of manas and buddhi. The Kantian concept of the synthetic unity of apperception in which there is the recognition of the centrality of consciousness was universalized by Hegel into a pan-logical self-conscious absolute.
12 In his Religion Within the Bounds of Pure Reason, (1793) Kant tries to reduce religion to morality. He states that there is a necessary transition from morality to religion because the highest good or summum bonum is a necessary ideal of the reason.
13 Mahendranath Sircar, Hindu Mysticism London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubuer & Co., 1934), p. 3, says: ‘He (Kant) did not see that the soul can be spontaneously creative and at the same time transcendent. Its creativeness is apparent, transcendence is its being’ I regard it as a confusion to identify creative freedom with an ocean of transcendence.
14 P. T. Raju, Thought emit Reality (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1937); Ibid., Idealistic Thought of India (London, George Allen & Unwin. 1953); H. JM. Bhattacharya, The Principles of Philosophy (University of Calcutta. 1948); P. T. Raiu ‘Kant’s Idea of Reason and the Brahman of Samkara’, Proceedings of the Eighth Indian Philosophical Congress (Calcutta. Town Art Press, 1933), pp. 290-291.
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The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part I
In this paper, my objective is to show how Sankarāchārya’s concept of reality is different from the Kantian notion of reality, despite many similarities between them. Cartesian skepticism of universal doubt is a challenge for the Kantian notion of reality; however, it can’t be applied to Sankarāchārya’s concept of reality because of the acceptance of different paradigm to explain the reality and his non-representationalistic approach towards the reality. The attack on representationalism can’t be applicable to Sankarāchārya’s philosophy.
Name of the Researcher Goswami, Geeta Name of the Guide Chakravarty, D K Completed Year 31/12/1995 Name of the Department Department of Philosophy Name of the University Gauhati University
The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms
26 October 2016
The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms
Abstract
Purpose
A significant volume of philosophical literature produced by Indian academic philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century can be placed under the rubric of ‘Śaṁkara and X’, where X is Hegel, or a German or a British philosopher who had commented on, elaborated or critiqued the Hegelian system. We will explore in this essay the philosophical significance of Hegel-influenced systems as an intellectual conduit for these Indo-European conceptual encounters, and highlight how for some Indian philosophers the British variations on Hegelian systems were both a point of entry into debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in contemporary European philosophy and an occasion for defending Advaita against the charge of propounding a doctrine of world illusionism.
Methodology
Our study of the philosophical enquiries of A.C. Mukerji, P.T. Raju, and S.N.L. Shrivastava indicates that they developed distinctive styles of engaging with Hegelian idealisms as they reconfigured certain aspects of the classical Advaita of Śaṁkara through contemporary vocabulary.
Result and Conclusion
These appropriations of Hegelian idioms can be placed under three overlapping styles: (a) Mukerji was partly involved in locating Advaita in an intermediate conceptual space between, on the one hand, Kantian agnosticism and, on the other hand, Hegelian absolutism; (b) Raju and Shrivastava presented Advaitic thought as the fulfilment of certain insights of Hegel and F.H. Bradley; and (c) the interrogations of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ provided several Indian academic philosophers with a hermeneutic opportunity to revisit the vexed question of whether the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara reduces the phenomenal world, structured by māyā, to a bundle of ideas.
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The theme of the emergence of certain forms of Hinduisms through various types of east–west dialogical interactions has been extensively studied in recent decades. From around 1900 onwards, some Hindu thinkers began to assimilate and critically interrogate a diverse range of European ‘imaginations’ of India, such as Christian missionary critiques of Hindu socio-religious universes, Orientalist projections of golden Vedic antiquities and enquiries into Indo-European linguistic morphologies, and utilitarian denunciations of the ‘primitivism’ of Hindu cultural systems. A topic that has been relatively underexplored in these intellectual transmissions and exchanges is the engagement of a range of Indian academic philosophers in the first half of the last century with a variety of Hegel-inspired philosophical systems. A significant volume of philosophical literature from this period can be placed under the rubric of ‘Śaṁkara and X’, where X is Hegel, or a German or a British philosopher who had commented on, elaborated or critiqued the Hegelian system. We will explore in this essay the philosophical significance of Hegel-influenced systems as an intellectual conduit for these Indo-European conceptual encounters, and highlight how for some Indian philosophers the British variations on Hegelian systems were both a point of entry into debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in contemporary European philosophy and an occasion for defending Advaita against the charge of propounding a doctrine of world illusionism.
The reception in Indian academic philosophical milieus of Hegelian thought, often mediated through British philosophers such as T.H. Green (1836–1882), E. Caird (1835–1908), and F.H. Bradley (1846–1924), was not uniform. While H. Haldar (University of Calcutta) was primarily a Hegelian thinker, who only occasionally employed Vedantic terminology to elucidate certain aspects of Hegel’s system, A.C. Mukerji (University of Allahabad), P.T. Raju (Andhra University and the University of Rajasthan), S.N.L. Shrivastava (Vikrama University, Ujjain), and others directly drew from the perspectives of Advaita to critique specific themes in Hegelian thought. For Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, Hegelian idealisms provided the common conceptual currency with which they could critically intervene in European philosophical disputes and also present Advaita Vedānta to European audiences. Consequently, the term ‘Absolute’ routinely appears in their texts, and, in fact, as S. Deshpande has noted, ‘the singular question that occupied these philosophers in the early part of the twentieth century was as follows: “What is the nature of the Absolute?”’ (Deshpande 2015: 19). As we will see, Mukerji, Raju, and Shrivastava developed distinctive styles of engaging with Hegelian idealisms as they reconfigured certain aspects of the classical Advaita of Śaṁkara through contemporary vocabulary. These appropriations of Hegelian idioms can be placed under three overlapping styles: (a) Mukerji was partly involved in locating Advaita in an intermediate conceptual space between, on the one hand, Kantian agnosticism and, on the other hand, Hegelian absolutism; (b) Raju and Shrivastava presented Advaitic thought as the fulfilment of certain insights of Hegel and Bradley; and (c) the interrogations of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ provided several Indian academic philosophers with a hermeneutic opportunity to revisit the vexed question of whether the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara reduces the phenomenal world, structured by māyā, to a bundle of ideas. Our exploration of three central texts, Mukerji’s The Nature of Self (1943), Raju’s Thought and reality: Hegelianism and Advaita(1937), and Shrivastava’s Śaṁkara and Bradley: A Comparative and Critical Study (1968), will indicate that these philosophical currents formed a dense network stretched across three vertices: Hegel himself; the receptions and the reconfigurations of Hegel in a wide range of British idealists, from Green to Caird to Bradley; and the Indian philosophical interrogations, from the perspectives of modernized Advaita, of both Hegel himself and the British idealists who incorporated aspects of Hegelianism into their own metaphysical systems. While ‘British Idealism’, which emerged from around 1870, was not a singular movement but a group of somewhat divergent philosophical standpoints, D. Boucher and A. Vincent highlight a few shared themes. First, according to British idealism, there are no isolated entities or processes, and everything has to be understood in terms of their relationships within an internally differentiated whole. Second, the world is dependent on mind, not in the sense that it owes its very existence to mind but that it derives its intelligibility from mind. The claim is not that, for instance, a table ceases to exist once it is taken away from an observer, but that carpenters, scientists, and artists could see three different types of tables, where these differences are dependent on mind (Boucher and Vincent 2012: 39). These themes were critically received by the British idealists from the philosophical projects of German idealists who sought to respond to the critical idealism of Kant, variously by searching for an unconditional first principle of knowledge (Fichte), a philosophy of identity (Schelling), the absolute knowing which overcomes all subject–object dualisms (Hegel), and so on (Dudley 2007). Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, as we will see, critically appropriated specific aspects of the ‘holism’ of the Hegelian Absolute, and also the post-Kantian critique of Berkeleyean idealism, as they reformulated, for the purpose of their philosophical conversations with Hegelianisms, some of the metaphysical themes of Advaita Vedānta. The Absolute of Advaita, it turns out, is not to be understood as the ‘subjective idealism’ of Berkeley, but not quite as the ‘absolute idealism’ of Hegel either, though it is conceptually much nearer the latter standpoint than the former.
Advaita Between Kant and Hegel
Mukerji’s The Nature of Self (henceforth, NS) is a careful and systematic exploration of certain philosophical positions in British idealisms regarding the self. He sketches three broad patterns of British philosophical responses to Kant. First, though Kant had critiqued the basic assumption of Hume’s empiricism, namely, that the epistemic subject first begins with a bundle of atomic sensations and then proceeds to unite them through psychological bonds of association, his transcendental idealism has not been properly appreciated in some strands of British philosophy. Various forms of contemporary realisms, pragmatisms, and pluralisms operate with the pre-Kantian view that things are self-existing distinct entities before they enter into relations with one another. While some philosophers have indeed rejected the basic thesis of British empiricists such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume—that the world is composed of self-existing, metaphysically independent and isolated entities which are only subsequently related to one another through conceptual abstractions—they have arrived at two somewhat divergent conclusions. First, some have moved towards Kant’s agnosticism regarding the noumenon, and view the self as a bare that which remains completely unknowable. Second, others have elaborated Hegelian understandings of self-consciousness in terms of the self’s developing awareness of itself through its awareness of objects, thereby reducing the self, according to Mukerji, to the status of an empirical entity. At this critical stage of the argument, Mukerji presents Śaṁkara’s Advaita as a via media between these extremes in post-Kantian idealisms: on the other hand, the Absolute of Advaita (unlike the Kantian noumenon) is not utterly unknowable, for it is the self-revealing consciousness which is the ever-present background illumination in all empirical knowledge, but, on the other hand, the Absolute of Advaita (unlike the Hegelian organic whole) is a pure undifferentiated unity and not the self-consciousness structured by identity-in-difference of various British ‘neo-Hegelian’ idealisms. Mukerji’s philosophical project, then, is not a nativist-styled return to Śaṁkara, but a creative intervention, from modernized Advaita perspectives, in post-Kantian metaphysical and epistemological debates about the nature of consciousness.
Mukerji begins by noting that the problem of the self is structured by a paradox: while every object implies a self that knows that object, this statement would suggest that there must also be a knower that knows the self (NS, 5). According to Mukerji, the question ‘Who knows the knower?’ signals a key debate across a range of contemporary British philosophers, who have, however, missed the point that the self is not only not an empirical object but also not a psychological subject. The notion that the self is essentially unknowable through empirical modes is found in various Upaniṣadic texts and subsequently in Śaṁkara’s understanding of the self. This doctrine has recently emerged in Kant’s critical philosophy, where his critique of rational psychology for mistakenly extending the categories of thought to the transcendental ego is, according to Mukerji, reminiscent of the teachings of the Upaniṣads and Śaṁkara (NS, 24). Philosophers should avoid the confusion, labelled transcendental illusion by Kant and adhyāsa by Śaṁkara, of mistaking the pure ego with the objects of knowledge, for by overlooking the distinctions between the innermost subject and the empirical objects, there arises various mistaken theories such as epiphenomenalism and behaviourism (NS, 26).
Mukerji notes that two methods have been developed in recent British philosophy to resolve the egocentric paradox, namely, the experimental or inductive method, and the logical or transcendental method. The former is employed by psychologists such as J.B. Watson who seek to replace the vocabulary of consciousness with that of physiological processes. These attempts to remove the pure ego from an analysis of knowledge commit the fallacy of the ‘decentralization of the self’, which involves the misidentification of the real self with objective entities and states, which are in fact spurious egos. The fundamental problem that theories produced through this method have to face is that of an infinite regress: when a subject S knows objects O, each with specific properties, S itself cannot have these properties, for it would then become another object and would require S* by which it can be known (NS, 9–12). The basic error lies in the forgetfulness on part of the subject S that S itself stands in a unique relation to the objects which cannot be excavated through an empirical analysis. For instance, when knowledge is reduced to a set of physiological and mental processes, it is forgotten that these processes are intelligible to S only if the transcendental conditions of S’s relation to them are not reducible to the relations between objects. One such transcendental condition for the conceivability of an object is that it is a self-consistent unity. Therefore, when S knows an object A and another object B, the interobjective relations that obtain between A and B are completely distinct from the ‘relation’ of A and B individually with S. The inductive method is not capable of uncovering these transcendental conditions of possible experience, because it is precisely these conditions, discoverable only through a reflective analysis of the nature of knowledge, that make the application of the method possible (NS, 15). On the other hand, the Kantian transcendental method correctly emphasizes that the ‘logical implicates of experience’ such as space, time, and causality cannot be known in the same way that specific empirical objects are known. The post-Kantian developers of this method argue that all objective entities, such as tables and trees, as well as the universal conditions of objects of experience, such as space and time, exist for the self which is in this sense ‘the centre of the universe’. Mukerji notes that this method has ‘staunch advocates not only in England where Hegelianism has come to establish itself as a permanent philosophical tendency, but it is accepted as final also by many accomplished thinkers of contemporary Italy and India …’ (NS, 17).
However, while British idealists such as Green and Caird have correctly accepted the transcendental approach to the ego, they are engaged in a ‘logical see-saw’ in which they have alternately emphasized one of the following points, both of which they have inherited from Kant: the self as the transcendental presupposition of empirical objects, and the self as unknowable. Green has highlighted the distinction between the pure ego and empirical objects and denied that the pure ego is knowable, while Caird has emphasized the knowability of the pure ego and almost removed its distinction from empirical objects (NS, 70). Mukerji has in mind statements of Green such as the following: ‘That there is such a consciousness is implied in the existence of the world; but what it is we only know through its so far acting in us as to enable us, however partially and interruptedly, to have knowledge of a world or an intelligent experience’ (NS, 74). According to Mukerji’s reading, if Green veers, in this manner, towards a deep agnosticism about the self, Caird, on the other hand, mistakenly introduces empirical categories into the self. Caird argues that the self constitutes itself by opposing itself as its object, and by overcoming this very opposition, such that the self is a concrete unity of identity-in-difference. Unity and difference should be seen as inseparably connected in self-consciousness, through which the self knows itself and all its objects: ‘the self exists as one self only as it opposes itself, as object, to itself, as subject, and immediately denies and transcends that opposition. Only because it is such a concrete unity, which has in itself a resolved contradiction, can the intelligence cope with all the manifoldness and division of the mighty universe …’ (Caird 2002[1883]: 116). Responding to Caird’s notion of the self as an ‘organic unity’, Mukerji allows that unity-in-difference may be the most universal form to which every object of experience conforms; however, this universality does not show that the true subject itself is a unity-in-difference, for the subject is the logical presupposition of all categories, including the category of ‘unity’ which cannot be applied to the subject (NS, 18–19). Therefore, he criticizes Caird for viewing the self as the correlative of the not-self, arguing that on this account the self is another empirical object, and not the real self which is the presupposition of all objects (NS, 21). Mukerji’s Kantian point is that since a ‘category’ is a principle of interpretation that is employed to objects of experience, the self cannot itself be a category, even the highest category, since every category implies an ultimate unity (NS, 98–99).
The point of this subtle discussion of the complexities of British idealisms emerges gradually: Mukerji seeks to situate Advaita in a conceptual space somewhere between the systems of Caird and Green. On the one hand, because Caird views self-consciousness as a unity that is mediated through its consciousness of objects, he effectively views the self as an empirical object (NS, 90). Noting Caird’s view that only with the ‘return’ of the self to itself or the reduplication of the self in the judgment ‘I am I’, that the ‘ego, strictly speaking, comes into existence’ (Caird 1889: 403), Mukerji argues that this developmental account of the self, which progresses from consciousness to self-consciousness, presupposes the categories of space and time which are the transcendental conditions of any entity that undergoes a processive change. Therefore, Caird’s developmental self cannot be the true subject, which is the very source of the categories and cannot be an object which is comprehended by the categories (NS, 88). Mukerji is more sympathetic to Green’s engagements with Kant, noting that both Green and Śaṁkara view consciousness as a reality which has none of the characteristics that belong to knowable objects (viṣaya) (NS, 144). He argues that Śaṁkara’s argument that every perceptual judgement involves two principles, namely an unchanging spiritual unity (cit) and a stream of transient cognitions (vṛtti–pravāha) of the mind (antaḥkaraṇa), is analogous to Kant’s distinction, later elaborated by Green, between the transcendental unity of apperception and the successive states of knowledge. Mukerji comments: ‘And what must be eminently interesting for a modern philosopher is the similarity of Green’s analysis with that of Sankara’ (NS, 175). However, while both Śaṁkara and Green highlight the point that the self is the logical presupposition of experience and hence cannot be placed under the categories, there is a fundamental divergence in their conceptual systems regarding the question of knowledge of the self. While Green, following Kant, exhibits a ‘drift to agnosticism’ and regards the noumenal self as completely unknowable, the Advaita standpoint is that self-revealing consciousness (svayaṃprakāśa), which is both eminently real and yet not an object, is present in all empirical consciousness (NS, 129–130). According to Mukerji, the basic error of Kant, and of Green in his Kantian moments, is to view reality, on the one hand, and the phenomenal world, on the other hand, as congruent, and to conclude from this equivalence that the noumenal self, because it is unknowable, is merely an imaginary point. According to Advaita, however, reality is more expansive than Kant’s phenomenal world, so that the pure consciousness of Advaita, though indescribable, is not a completely inconceivable x, but rather ‘the indispensable support of all objects and of all relations among the objects’ (NS, 342). Therefore, the Advaita of Śaṁkara gives us, according to Mukerji, a conceptual pathway that avoids the errors of Caird and Green: on the one hand, the Absolute of Advaita cannot be characterized in terms of any empirical categories which are relational, but, on the other hand, it is not a Kantian thing-in-itself which is entirely unknown. Sankara avoids the ‘opposite fallacies’ of viewing the self as an empirical object (which, according to Mukerji, is effectively Caird’s response to Kant) and as a pure nothing (which is the ‘drift’ of Green), for while Sankara emphasizes that the conditions under which objects are known cannot be applied to the knower, he also asserts that ‘what is thus beyond the conditions of the knowable objects is our very self. The self in this sense is said to be beyond the known and above the unknown’ (NS, 270). Thus, the Advaitic self is not unknown and unknowable in the same sense as the Kantian noumenon. The self is said to be self-revealing, for everyday experience presupposes a ‘self-experience’ which is the condition of empirical knowledge. However, this ‘self-experience’ is not the experience of the self as an object, rather it is a non-objectifying immediate experience which, in an Advaita analogy, is like light which does not stand in need of an external light for is own illumination. The ‘entire tenor and drift’ of the Upaniṣads is that Brahman, far from being a transcendental principle that is unknown or otherwise accessible only to mystics, is ever present in the ‘self-experience’ of everyday life (NS, 378). The self of Advaita should not be viewed as a transcendental Principle, along the lines of a Platonic archetype, but rather as the immanent presupposition of all experience. Therefore, the unity of consciousness, for Śaṁkara, is not an abstract unknown but is ‘real in a certain sense’ (NS, 341).
The crucial phrase here is ‘in a certain sense’, for if Mukerji seeks to situate Śaṁkara between Green and Caird, this is also because he presents Advaita as an intermediate path through the systems of Kant and Hegel. While the Absolute of Advaita is the most foundational reality, and not a mere conceptual limitation such as the Kantian noumenon, it is not a relational whole such as the Hegelian Absolute. On the one hand, Mukerji draws extensive parallels between Śaṁkara’s views on the self and Kantian statements about the noumenal self. Mukerji argues that Kant’s affirmation of the transcendental unity of apperception can be put in Śaṁkara’s terms as follows: the conscious self is the presupposition (grāhikā) of the fleeting events of knowledge (NS, 218). Pointing out that Śaṁkara restricted categories such as generic unity, specific difference, action, quality, and relation to empirical objects, Mukerji comments that it may be ‘remarked without running the risk of being accused of overzeal that Sankara was essentially expressing the same truth that inspired Kant’s doctrine at a later age’ (NS, 157). The most significant of Śaṁkara’s conclusions, namely, that the ‘foundational character’ of unvarying consciousness is the presupposition of our experience of objects is also a theme that is shared by the contemporary ‘idealistic school’ which states that the self provides the a priori conditions of the determination of the objects of experience. Mukerji states that the ‘development of post-Kantian idealism bears eloquent testimony to the vitality of the Advaita position and the former may in this respect be regarded as an elaborate exposition and ramification of the latter’ (NS, 119). However, as we have noted, Mukerji’s basic objection to the Kantian system is the postulation of the noumenon, and he argues that this thing-in-itself has been ‘rightly rejected’ by idealists such as Fichte and Bradley. While Kant concludes with an agnosticism about the self, for Śaṁkara the Absolute is the pre-established ground (svayaṃsiddha) of all relational thought (NS, 308–309). Śaṁkara does claim that the Absolute is beyond all speech and thought, but he also affirms that Brahman is not a mere nothing (abhāva) (Brahma–sūtra–bhāṣya III.2.22; NS, 311). On the other hand, Mukerji’s rejection of the Kantian noumenon does not amount to a full-fledged acceptance of the Hegelian system. He argues that while the Advaita tradition agrees with Hegel that distinctions presuppose an underlying unity, it rejects Hegel’s understanding of the infinite. Whereas for Hegel, true infinity is not opposed to its other but includes it, so that the highest category of reality is that of unity-in-difference, Advaita responds that unity-in-difference itself is a category that applies to objects but not to the Absolute which is the very presupposition of these objects (NS, 350). Mukerji therefore offers a critique of post-Kantian idealisms for transforming Kant’s transcendental subject into a universal Spirit by viewing the Kantian logical unity as a determinate object, which is a unity manifested in differences. The error lies, according to Mukerji, in viewing the noumenal subject not simply as a limiting concept but as a positive, though trans-phenomenal, thing or object of thought (NS, 104–105). These post-Kantian idealists view subject and object as correlative terms, so that an object of thought should be properly understood in terms neither of identity nor of difference, but of identity-in-difference, which is a unity of differents. At the same time, the subject is regarded as a higher-order reality, because this correlativity of subject and object is a correlativity for the subject. This line of argument ‘gradually leads to the conclusion that the world is the self-manifestation of a spiritual principle which is a universal that differentiates itself and yet is one with itself in its particularity’ (Mukerji 1936: 448). Mukerji rejects the basic premise of this argument, namely, that subject and object are correlative, noting that the true subject cannot be placed under any empirical categories that apply to objects, since it is the logical presupposition of empirical experience. However, because of the influence of Hegelianism, thinkers from different countries mistakenly continue to reject the notion of the self as pure consciousness. They wrongly assume that the self comes into existence through the I-consciousness which contrasts itself with consciousness of objects; rather, it is because the self exists as a synthetic principle that the I-consciousness can emerge with pure consciousness as its transcendental presupposition (NS, 333). Therefore, while there is a ‘strong tendency’ on the part of some Indian philosophers such as Haldar to minimize the distinctions between Advaita and Hegelian absolutism, there is in fact a ‘deep chasm’ between the two: Hegelian idealism is based on the mediated unity of the concrete universal, whereas Advaita is grounded in a pure immediacy which is not an organic unity of distinct individuals (NS, 277–79).
Advaita as the Fulfilment of Hegel and Bradley
Mukerji’s basic theme that Advaita rejects the Hegelian Absolute as a spiritual unity-in-difference which expresses itself in parts also appears in Raju and Shrivastava, who expressly present the Absolute of Advaita as the most consistent resolution of the conceptual puzzles involved in ‘relating’ the one and the many. By drawing on various classical Advaitins such as Śrī Harṣa, they argue that the Hegelian Absolute, which they read as a relational whole of the eternal and the temporal, is logically contradictory—the Advaita of Śaṁkara, in contrast, cannot be placed under any categories of thought, including identity-in-difference which is a relational category. They highlight the point that Bradley places his Absolute above the operations of categorical thought: according to Bradley, relational experience is riddled with inner contradictions which can be resolved only in the ‘immediate experience’ of the supra-rational Absolute. Bradley’s Appearance and Reality contains various turns of phrase which, for his Indian Vedantic interlocutors, are reminiscent of the Advaita theme of māyā as the principle of the phenomenal world’s inexplicability, for instance, Bradley’s statement that ‘[t]he fact of appearance, and of the diversity of its particular spheres, we found was inexplicable. Why there are appearances, and why appearances of such various kinds, are questions not to be answered’ (Bradley 1893: 511). However, while Bradley’s Absolute approximates to the Absolute of Advaita in some respects, his Vedantic readers ultimately reject his system on the grounds that he retains the Hegelian error of regarding the Absolute as an organic whole of interrelated elements.
Raju argues in his Thought and reality: Hegelianism and Advaita (henceforth, TR) that while Hegelians struggle to explain the relation between the infinite and the finite, the proper response to this problem is that, strictly speaking, no such relation can be logically elaborated. If this relation is viewed as an identity-in-difference, this category is simply a restatement of the problem in different terms, for one would have to explain the relation itself between identity and difference (TR, 44). He discusses various Hegelian attempts to relate individuals to the organic whole of the Absolute and argues that they are unsuccessful in logically spelling out the relation between distinct substantial selves and the eternally perfect Absolute (TR, 58). The ‘relation’ of the finite and the infinite, the ‘crux of all monism’, has been most successfully addressed by Śaṁkara: while all finite selves are, sub specie aeternitatis, identical with Brahman, they are, sub specie temporis, characterized by multiplicity. If one self is liberated, māyā, which structures the phenomenal world, disappears only for it and not for others, so that in this sense each self has a distinct individuality. However, noumenally the self does not exist as a substantial identity, for it is one with Brahman, which is without a second. Therefore, we can move from Bradley to Śaṁkara with only a ‘few steps’: Bradley correctly notes that appearances, such as the finite self, are riddled with internal contradictions, and these must undergo a complete transmutation into the Absolute. However, Bradley continues to retain the appearances somehow in the Absolute, because he is not entirely willing to view the Absolute as totally beyond thought. Raju claims that ‘[h]ad Bradley given up his Hegelian bias, rejected the appearance as such as in no way forming part of reality, and thus saved the eternal perfection of the Absolute, he would have joined hands with Sankara’ (TR, 61).
Raju’s claim that Bradley was inconsistent in holding on to the appearances in the Absolute is a recurring theme in Shrivastava’s Śaṁkara and Bradley: A Comparative and Critical Study (henceforth, SB), which both provides detailed analogues between Bradley’s thought and the Advaita of Śaṁkara, and argues that the former remains contains some contradictions that can be resolved by the latter. On the one hand, Shrivastava argues that various aspects of Bradley’s thought resonate with the basic themes of Śaṁkara’s Advaita. For Bradley, relational modes of thinking, which apply to concepts such as space, time, and self, are riddled with contradictions, so that reason yields only appearances and not truth. The contradictions in the appearances which structure everyday life can be resolved only in the Absolute which, like the Absolute of Śaṁkara, transcends all discursive reasoning. On the other hand, however, Śaṁkara and Bradley disagree over the nature of this supra-relational Absolute: for Śaṁkara, the Absolute is indivisible, undifferentiated, and one, such that differences are superimposed on it only through ignorance (avidyā), whereas for Bradley the Absolute is a ‘concrete individual’ which is a unity of sameness and difference. Shrivastava argues that Bradley’s position is similar to the bhedābheda Vedantic doctrine, according to which identity-in-difference is the proper characterization of the relation between the substantially real world and the Absolute, so that the critiques of Advaitins such as Śrī Harṣa against the bhedābheda also apply to Bradley’s understanding of the Absolute (SB, 7). As the reference to bhedābhedasuggests, Shrivastava’s engagement with Bradley proceeds through a critical examination of Bradley’s attempt to affirm, on the one hand, that every appearance is real, although to different degrees, and, on the other hand, that every appearance has to be ‘transmuted’, through mutual supplementation and rearrangement, into the Absolute (Bradley 1893: 489). Thus, Bradley argues: ‘[I]n the Absolute no appearance can be lost. Each one contributes and is essential to the unity of the whole … Every element however subordinate, is preserved in that relative whole in which its character is taken up and merged’ (Bradley 1893: 456–457). Therefore, while it is a half-truth that no individual appearance is the perfection of the Absolute, it is also a half-truth that ‘[t]he Absolute is its appearances, it really is all and every one of them’ (Bradley 1893: 431). Seeking to preserve the reality of the appearances in the Absolute, Bradley argues in this manner: ‘The Absolute … has no assets beyond appearance; and again, with appearances alone to its credit, the Absolute would be bankrupt’ (Bradley 1893: 489). Shrivastava seizes on these statements and argues that Bradley’s position involves the contradiction of stating that ‘an appearance retains its individuality’ in the Absolute and ‘an appearance is transmuted’ in the Absolute (SB, 85). When Bradley claims that ‘[e]verything in the Absolute is still that which it is for itself. Its private character remains, and is but neutralized by complement and addition’ (Bradley 1893: 511), Shrivastava responds that a finite appearance cannot undergo such a transformation while simultaneously maintaining its specificity. However, Bradley’s position can be rendered consistent through Śaṁkara’s understanding of reality in terms of the supra-relational one which appears, through avidyā, in the diversities of a phenomenal word (SB, 7). That is, while the inconsistences of Bradley’s system are a result of his understanding of the Absolute as a harmonious blend of eternally existing appearances, for Śaṁkara it is illogical to speak in this manner of integrating the phenomenal world into the timeless Brahman (SB, 47). Bradley’s view that the Real is qualified by diversity, when translated into Vedantic categories, approximates to the cosmological notion of saprapañca–brahmavāda, according to which a substantially real world (prapañca) is grounded in the ultimate reality, Brahman. If Bradley had simply asserted that the Absolute is an organic unity of diverse components or even that it is not an undifferentiated unity, this view, Shrivastava claims, would at least have been comprehensible; however, Bradley contradicts his own statement that the Absolute is utterly non-relational by speaking of the many as ‘qualifying’ the one (SB, 56). Echoing Raju’s claim that we noted earlier, about Bradley ‘joining hands’ with Śaṁkara, Shrivastava too states: ‘The super-relational Absolute cannot … possess internal diversity or distinctions … If only Bradley had realized what his own premises pushed to their logical conclusions lead to, he would have come to this very conclusion and joined hand with Śaṁkara’ (SB, 246).
Advaita as the Synthesis of ‘Idealism’ and ‘Realism’
The emergence of post-Hegelian debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in British philosophical circles was roughly concurrent with British Orientalist representations of Advaita Vedānta as a system of world negation and cosmic illusionism. Therefore, the interrogation of the multiple significances of ‘idealism’ in British philosophical thought was also an occasion for reclaiming, or foregrounding, some of the empirically realist strands in Śaṁkara’s Advaita. Figures such as Mukerji emphasized that the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara should not be confused, any more than the idealisms of Hegel, Bradley, and others, with a sort of Berkeleyanism that analyses the phenomenal world in terms of ideas. While the foundational nature of consciousness is often interpreted as a denial of the extra-mental reality of the world, Mukerji argues that it is important to clearly distinguish between this metaphysical idealism and the assertion of the logical priority of consciousness. The notion of consciousness as the logical presupposition of all experience is compatible with both metaphysical realism and metaphysical idealism: ‘Even if it be granted that knowledge does not create but only reveals a pre-existent reality, yet it would remain unchallengeable that the external reality could not be revealed to us apart from consciousness which is the principle of revelation’ (NS, 122). That is, even if we accept the metaphysically realist thesis that there is a mind-independent world, for an object to be known by a self, it must be apprehended by the self through the transcendental conditions of experience (NS, 8–9). Mukerji concedes that a metaphysical realist might argue that this epistemological priority of consciousness should not be conflated with its chronological priority, so that although consciousness is presupposed in every act of knowing, the emergence of consciousness has a developmental history. Mukerji notes, however, that this response ignores ‘the plain fact that the quid anterior to consciousness has no meaning for us, and so cannot be appealed to in explanation of anything …’ That is, the non-conceptualized quid that materialist theories of consciousness appeal to is a quid that is intelligible only insofar as it is presented to a self. This is how he reads Śaṁkara’s argument that while cognitions have specific temporal determinations, ‘that for which these temporal relations have a meaning cannot be itself in time; it is in this sense an eternal presence’ (NS, 144–45). Mukerji, in fact, suggests that Śaṁkara was an empirical realist about the phenomenal world. The statement that all empirical reality is rooted in the Absolute does not imply that everyday objects are dissolved into the Absolute, or that human moral and religious aspirations are demoted to the status of mere illusions: ‘To urge that my world would not exist if I had not existed is not to prove that the world I know is my ideas only’ (NS, 323). We should therefore understand the difference between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’ in this manner: while the realist accepts as unproblematic the ‘fact’ that we inhabit an external world, the idealist asks for an analysis of the conditions under which this ‘fact’ is established. Therefore, while the realist ‘takes the facts “at their face-value”, the idealist asks for the conditions involved in the factual nature of the so-called facts’ (Mukerji 2011: 475). Provided the terms are understood in this manner, we can see that in his response to Hume Kant not only ‘undermined the basis of realism’ but also developed a form of idealism which is opposed to subjective idealism. Mukerji argues that a Kantian can agree with a realist that the world is not composed merely of bundles of fleeting ideas, even while pointing out to the realist that the nature which is the subject of scientific investigation is not given to us in any way other than through our scientific theories, and it is therefore not possible to check whether these theories correspond to an extra-theoretical nature. As N. Bhushan and J. Garfield point out, Mukerji’s idealism is not subjectivist and it does not reject an extra-mental world; rather, ‘Mukerji defends a robust realism about the natural world and an intersubjective account of the constitution of our ontology’ (Bhushan and Garfield 2011: 461).
While Hiralal Haldar did not directly draw on Śaṁkara, his synthesis of idealism and realism resembles Mukerji’s rejection of Berkeleyan subjectivism and the affirmation of the self’s categorical presuppositions in empirical experience. Haldar describes his intellectual debt to Hegel in these terms: ‘I have seen myself described as a Hegelian. The basis of my thought is undoubtedly Hegelian, but in the course of years … I have been led to modify in many ways what I have learned from Hegel’ (Haldar 1936: 316). Haldar argues that the subjective idealist conflates the subjective mental ideas with their objective referents in the external world whose existence is not dependent on the mind. However, while the error of Berkeleyean idealism is to minimize the opposition between subject and object, realism makes the opposite error of setting them apart completely. Both ‘undifferentiated unity’ and ‘pure difference’ are abstractions, and in the concrete world unity and difference are interrelated as aspects of the Absolute which does not obliterate the distinctions between self and not-self, but maintains and transcends them (Haldar 1936: 322–323). Haldar argues that mind and matter should not be seen as mutually opposed for they are correlated aspects of the universal Spirit. Therefore, idealism, properly understood, does not deny the reality of the external world, but goes farther than realism by ‘maintaining that the world is indeed real … but that in order to know that it is real it has got to have mind’ (Haldar 1936: 323). This Hegelian thesis of the identity of thought and being can be understood, according to Haldar, as the logical culmination of Kant’s critical philosophy. While Kant demonstrated in his transcendental deduction that our knowledge of the objective world and the synthetic unity of self-consciousness are relative to each other, Hegel developed this Kantian theme to the conclusion that there is a higher unity which both comprehends and transcends the self and the world, and makes possible their correlativity (Haldar 1896: 265). Thus, as T. Biswas (2015: 116) notes: ‘Unlike realism, Haldar’s Realistic-Idealism does not consider the division between mind and matter as Absolute, nor like subjective idealism does it reduce matter to mental states’.
Advaita and the Project of Comparative Philosophy
Mukerji, Raju, and Shrivastava, in their somewhat distinctive ways, intervened in post-Kantian debates, sometimes mediated by British philosophers, about the nature of the self and the Absolute. Their hermeneutic projects were also pioneering exercises in ‘comparative philosophy’, and they often reflected on the methodologies of their readings, from within the contexts of Advaita, of various British idealists. Raju notes that comparative philosophy has been criticized for focusing primarily on similarities and not engaging critically with differences across conceptual systems. For example, when Śaṁkara’s Brahman is compared with Spinoza’s eternal substance, it is forgotten that Śaṁkara applies a dialectic in indicating the self-established Brahman and would have disagreed with Spinoza’s attempt, through his geometrical method, to deduce the phenomenal world from the eternal. Therefore, Raju argues that comparisons should be attempted between entire systems of concepts with their detailed interrelations, and not between individual concepts (TR, 25). The emphasis on the methodical exploration of conceptual systems is reiterated by Shrivastava more specifically in the case of comparative studies of Śaṁkara and Bradley, which, he notes, ‘have usually contented themselves with merely pointing out superficial similarities and have therefore failed to probe deeper into their fundamental differences; or else they have overemphasized differences and consequently failed to appreciate the underlying unity in the thinking …’ (SB, 5).
A cursory reading of Mukerji’s Nature of Self would seem to suggest that he is engaged in merely cataloguing resemblances between European philosophical standpoints and Advaitic themes. For instance, Mukerji notes that Śaṁkara, in his commentary on the Praśnopaniṣad VI.2, had discussed four competing theories of consciousness and argues that ‘almost every theory of consciousness that is still in the forefront of philosophical discussion today’ can be placed under one of Śaṁkara’s headings (NS, 117). Again, he argues that Śaṁkara’s arguments against the Buddhist understanding of causality in terms of dependent arising ‘embody essentially Green’s criticism of Hume’s attempt to combine the theory of flux with causal connection’ (NS, 195). After quoting Green’s remark, ‘yet, just so far as they [Hume’s impressions] are qualified by likeness or unlikeness to each other, they must be taken out of that succession by something which is not itself in it, but is individually present to every moment of it’ (Nettleship 1888, vol. I: 176), Mukerji argues that this statement indicates that Śaṁkara had anticipated Green’s critique of the Humean reduction in the self to bundles of perceptions (NS, 200). However, Mukerji highlights these parallels, in the course of offering detailed readings of the metaphysical and epistemological projects of certain post-Kantian idealisms, only to engage his British interlocutors in philosophical conversations whose themes are partly shaped by Advaitic vocabularies. He too criticizes attempts to compile lists of conceptual parallels across European and Indic systems, without highlighting their locations in distinctive philosophical contexts. While anyone with an ‘unprejudiced insight into Indian philosophy’ will know that the classical traditions possessed numerous dialectical weapons which are as effective in the dialectical engagements of contemporary philosophy as they were in ancient India, one should be aware that post-Kantian epistemology is structured by highly specific problems which were not the concerns of the ancient Indian thinkers. Therefore, if we wish to gain ‘by thinking modern problems of European philosophy in Indian terms without misrepresentation of either and yet with a considerable clarification of both methods of thought, we must give up the practice of finding Kant and Hegel, for instance, in the Upanishads; these are misrepresentations which do not clarify but compound problems’ (Mukerji 1928: 379). For instance, the Kantian distinction between precept and concept, or between sense and thought, emerges from within a European intellectual atmosphere and is not found, Mukerji argues, in classical Indian philosophical texts. Therefore, he criticizes attempts to align the Kantian view of sensations conforming to a priori structures with Upaniṣadic vocabularies by offering ‘extremely far-fetched interpretations’ of the terms manas and vijñāna as perception and understanding, respectively (Mukerji 1928: 401–402). The ‘most deep-lying contrast’ between Vedantic thought and post-Kantian European philosophy is that while the supra-rational experience of unity with the cosmic consciousness is the very foundation of Vedantic metaphysics, the latter exalts reason as the ultimate court of appeal in epistemology (Mukerji 1928: 393). Whereas for Śaṁkara intuitive experience is the ultimate criterion of truth, and reason is viewed as an auxiliary to the revelation of reality, Hegelians do not accept the possibility of such an experience and speak of the revelation of reality through the mediating activity of thought.
Therefore, the interrogation of a variety of Hegelianisms through the prisms of Advaita Vedanta was also a crucial moment in the constructions of Hindu thought as spiritual, intuitive, or experiential. Wilhelm Halbfass pointed out that various European figures, starting from the early nineteenth century down to Edmund Husserl in the last, associated ‘philosophy’ with ‘pure theory’, ‘rejection of mythos’ and ‘autonomous thinking’ which were believed to be distinctively Greek and lacking in the Indian and Oriental traditions (Halbfass 1990: 145–159). Opposing this exclusion of ‘philosophy’ from India, pivotal figures such as Swami Vivekananda and S. Radhakrishnan presented Indian ‘philosophy’ in oppositional terms to European ‘philosophy’, such that while the latter was merely rational, analytic and restricted to the empirical plane, the former was essentially spiritual, based on ‘intuitive experience’, and provided an overarching framework which synthesized the European manifold of ‘economics’, ‘sociopolitical existence’, and ‘religion’ (Halbfass 1990: 287–309). These ‘synthetic’ visions of modernized Advaita are deeply resonant with the metaphysical systems of the British idealists who, R. Sinnerbrink argues, ‘shared a critical attitude towards reductive empiricism, a commitment to metaphysical holism and a valorization of moral freedom’ (Sinnerbrink 2007: 33). British Idealism, which emerged in late Victorian England against the backdrop of various sociocultural upheavals that had followed rapid industrialization and expansion of global trade, was both a philosophical movement which opposed the strains of empiricism, naturalism, and utilitarianism in British thought, and a social reformist force which emphasized social justice and social responsibility in conditions of exploitation, poor working conditions, and widespread disease. Boucher and Vincent argue that ‘British Idealism was a social philosophy that exuded optimism at a time of extreme social dislocation and pessimism. In summary, it acted as a profound interrogation, critique and metaphysical counterbalance to the individualism of the variants of an instinctive British utilitarianism and naturalistic evolutionism’ (Boucher and Vincent 2012: 4).
Diverse aspects of these British Hegelian visions were appropriated, in the sociopolitical contexts of late colonial India, through the lenses of reconfigured versions of classical Advaita. While we cannot discuss the momentous question of what Hegel himself meant by the Spirit (Geist), Hegel’s view that in the Absolute idea there is the reconciliation of subject and object has been understood in at least two ways. On one reading, Hegel is extending Kant’s transcendental idealism by rejecting the thing-in-itself and emphasizing the social nature of the categories of thought. For Hegel, the world is the work of reason in the sense that the objects of experience are constituted through the categories of rational thought. However, on another reading, especially of late texts such as the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel is suggesting that the world is the product of divine reason, and human beings can understand this world because their reason is identical with divine reason (Norman 1976: 110–115). Of the philosophers we have discussed, Haldar occasionally tends towards the second reading of Hegel: he views Hegel’s Absolute as an organic unity which is subject–object, where the subject is a community of selves and the objects are a system of interrelated things (Haldar 1917: 390–393). The Absolute is one not because it is beyond all differences but precisely because it is expressed in and through differences. Therefore, on the one hand, the Absolute does not dissolve into itself the plurality of the selves, and on the other hand, it does not stand beyond them as an independent and abstract unity. The Absolute is a ‘complex unity’, and not a mere aggregate, of finite individuals, and it invests them with a new significance by encompassing them (Haldar 1918: 377). While finite minds seek the Absolute that they are in potentia, the Absolute urges them on to their perfection, through ever-deepening bonds of interrelationality and mutuality. This Absolute is the universal Spirit which is manifested in, and is the ground of, the community of human beings (Haldar 1936: 330–331). However, as we have seen, Mukerji rejected the Hegelian equivalence between reality and rationality and argued that reason should be seen as subordinate to intuition, for reasoning applies only to empirical ways of knowledge, while ultimate reality is apprehended only through intuitive experience (Mukerji 1928: 428). The pure being of Advaita is not a bare abstraction, as Hegelians claim, for while it is ‘equal to nothing from the standpoint of conceptual thought’ it can also be ‘the content of an intuitional experience’ (Mukerji 1928: 411). Shrivastava develops this critique of Hegelianism in his study of Bradley and Śaṁkara—while they both speak of ultimate reality as an immediate experience which is beyond all relations, they disagree over the possibility of attaining such an experience. For Śaṁkara, the Absolute is not completely inaccessible, since it is present as the true self in everyday experiences, whereas for Bradley it is a ‘mere focus imaginarius’ which is conceivable but not actually attainable (SB, 36). Bradley’s view is, in fact, representative of the agnosticism that Western philosophy culminates into, since it relies solely on reason without the supplementation of an intuitive vision of reality. Bradley arrives at his Absolute through speculative reasoning, and his Absolute is at best an idea of reason in the Kantian sense and not an indubitable fact of everyday experience (SB, 40).
In other words, while Hegelian absolutisms provided the common philosophical vocabularies with which one could speak of the Absolute of Advaita, a fundamental assumption of these absolutisms had to be rejected, namely, the view that the deep structures of reality were amenable to discursive reasoning. For instance, N.G. Damle argues for an ‘integral idealism’ which rejects any ‘abstract or exclusive form of monism, whether materialistic or spiritualistic …’ Damle rejects the subjectivist view that one can ‘destroy the world by going to sleep’, such that one can dissolve into an impersonal Absolute which consumes everything, and also a spiritual pluralism which views the world as composed of metaphysically real finite selves alongside the Absolute. However, the Absolute, which is a ‘concrete, spiritual whole in which all differences are reconciled’, can be apprehended not through conceptual means but through an intuition in which the duality between the subject and the object is dissolved (Damle 1936: 188–189). He presents his idealism in these terms: ‘According to our theory, reason criticizes itself, and recognizing its own limitations it points beyond itself to intuition. It implies disagreement with the view that identifies Thought and Being, Real and Rational, and thus is opposed to Pan-logism’ (Damle 1936: 192).
Conclusion
Our study has highlighted some distinctive ways in which Advaitic themes were reconfigured by Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, through a critical interrogation of a variety of Hegelian idealisms. Given the declining fortunes of Hegel in many Anglophone philosophical circles during the second half of the last century, these figures are rarely studied today because of their association with Hegelian idioms. However, several reassessments of post-Kantian idealisms have pointed to the continuing significance of Hegelian themes in both the ‘analytic’ and the ‘continental’ traditions (Dunham, Grant, and Watson 2011). The term ‘idealism’ itself, it is pointed out, is not equivalent to some form of Berkeleyeanism, for the trajectories of post-Kantian thought, involving figures such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, were shaped by a wide range of idealisms such as material idealism, empirical idealism, critical idealism, transcendental idealism, and absolute idealism (Altman 2014: 4). The precise characterization of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ too has been an intensely debated topic in Hegel scholarship, with some interpreters arguing that it is a misreading of Hegel to understand him as propounding a metaphysical-religious view in which reality is constituted of Spirit which is actualized in the world (Wartenberg 1993: 102–129). In the light of these recent evaluations, we can view the philosophers we have discussed as engaged in diverse modes of interrogating and appropriating elements of post-Kantian idealisms mediated through Green, Caird, and Bradley. By positioning Śaṁkara vis-a-vis Hegelianisms, they became participants in contemporary Indo-European philosophical conversations and added a significant chapter to the ongoing receptions of the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara in modern Advaita.
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Akasa, the essence of space itself, is a concept that has fascinated humans for centuries. It is a term that has deep-rooted connections in various cultural and spiritual traditions across the globe. The word “Akasa” is derived from the Sanskrit language, and it encompasses a profound and multifaceted understanding of space, encompassing both the physical and metaphysical realms. Akasa, as a notion, has captivated the human imagination and has been explored, interpreted, and revered in numerous ways.
Akasa, often referred to as “the Akasa” or simply “Akasa,” is a term that carries diverse meanings and interpretations in different cultural and philosophical contexts. While it is prominently featured in Indian and Hindu philosophy, it also finds its place in various other spiritual and metaphysical traditions worldwide. Akasa can be broadly understood as the fifth element, beyond the conventional four elements of earth (Prithvi), water (Jala), fire (Agni), and air (Vayu), as proposed in ancient Indian thought.
Akasa in Ancient Indian Philosophy:
In the rich tapestry of Indian philosophy and spirituality, Akasa occupies a significant position. It is often associated with the concept of the “Pancha Mahabhutas,” or the five great elements, which constitute the fundamental building blocks of the material world. Akasa, being the fifth element, transcends the physical realm and represents the ethereal, subtle, and all-pervading aspect of existence.
Within the framework of Indian philosophical schools, especially in Vedanta and Samkhya, Akasa is considered the substratum or background against which all other elements and phenomena manifest. It is often described as the space that accommodates all other elements and provides the canvas upon which the universe unfolds. Akasa is formless, infinite, and eternal, serving as the canvas upon which the cosmic drama of creation, preservation, and dissolution unfolds.
In Indian cosmology, Akasa is intimately connected to the concept of “Akasha Tattva,” which translates to the “essence of space.” This essence of space is not merely a physical void but is laden with metaphysical significance. It is believed to be the dwelling place of the Divine and the repository of cosmic knowledge. The Upanishads, ancient Indian texts that explore the nature of reality and spirituality, often allude to Akasa as the bridge between the physical and metaphysical realms, a conduit through which the individual soul can connect with the universal consciousness.
Akasa in Hindu Mythology and Cosmology:
In Hindu mythology and cosmology, Akasa is deeply intertwined with the narrative of creation and the divine hierarchy. It is often associated with Lord Shiva, one of the principal deities in Hinduism. Lord Shiva is sometimes depicted as “Akasha Swarupa,” which means the form of Akasa itself. This representation signifies Shiva’s transcendental nature and his role as the source and culmination of all elements, including Akasa.
The Hindu cosmology envisions the universe as a dynamic and cyclical process of creation and destruction. Akasa plays a pivotal role in this cosmic drama. It is the medium through which the Creator, often symbolized as Lord Brahma, manifests the universe. In the process of creation, Akasa represents the subtlest element from which the other four gross elements emerge. This concept is beautifully encapsulated in the following verse from the Chandogya Upanishad:
“From Akasa alone, indeed, are born both heat and the rest, names and forms, the superior and the inferior. Akasa is the ultimate end.”
This verse highlights the primacy of Akasa in the creative process and emphasizes its role as the source of all differentiation and diversity in the material world.
Akasa in Yoga and Meditation:
Akasa also has a significant presence in yogic and meditative practices. In yoga, Akasa is associated with the fifth chakra, known as the “Vishuddha Chakra” or “Throat Chakra.” This chakra is situated at the throat region and is considered the center of communication, self-expression, and spiritual purification. It is often depicted as a sixteen-petaled lotus representing the purity and clarity of speech.
Practices aimed at balancing and activating the Vishuddha Chakra often involve meditation on Akasa. Meditators may visualize a radiant, blue, or violet Akasa at the throat center, which helps enhance their communication skills, self-expression, and ability to connect with higher realms of consciousness.
Furthermore, the concept of Akasa is closely linked to the practice of “Akasha Dharana,” a form of meditation that involves focusing one’s attention on the subtlest form of Akasa as a means to transcend the limitations of the physical body and mind. This practice aims to access higher states of consciousness and ultimately attain spiritual liberation.
Akasa in Ayurveda and Healing:
Akasa also finds its place in Ayurveda, the traditional system of medicine in India. In Ayurveda, the five elements—earth, water, fire, air, and Akasa—are fundamental to understanding the constitution of individuals and the causes of diseases. Each person is believed to have a unique combination of these elements, which influences their physical and mental characteristics.
Akasa, as the element of space, is associated with the qualities of expansiveness, emptiness, and openness. When the Akasa element is balanced within the body, it contributes to a sense of spaciousness in one’s mind and emotions. However, imbalances in Akasa can manifest as mental and emotional disturbances, such as feelings of emptiness, isolation, or confusion.
Ayurvedic therapies and practices aim to restore balance to the Akasa element through diet, lifestyle, and specific healing treatments. These therapies seek to harmonize the individual with the natural world and the cosmos, recognizing that an imbalance in any of the elements can lead to physical and mental dis-ease.
Akasa in Other Cultural and Philosophical Traditions:
While Akasa holds a central place in Indian philosophy and spirituality, similar concepts can be found in various other cultural and philosophical traditions around the world. In ancient Greece, for example, the philosopher Aristotle proposed the concept of “aether” or “quintessence,” which was considered the fifth element beyond earth, water, fire, and air. Aether was believed to be a celestial substance that filled the universe, and it was associated with the stars and planets.
In Western esoteric traditions and modern metaphysical thought, Akasa is often equated with the concept of the “ether” or “cosmic ether.” This etheric substance is seen as a subtle, all-pervading energy that connects all things and serves as the medium for psychic and spiritual phenomena.
In Native American spirituality, the concept of “Great Spirit” or “Great Mystery” can be likened to Akasa in its role as the transcendent and all-encompassing reality that underlies the physical world.
Across various traditions, the idea of an all-encompassing, subtle, and spiritual dimension of existence akin to Akasa persists, albeit with different names and interpretations.
The Scientific Perspective:
While Akasa has profound spiritual and metaphysical connotations, the scientific understanding of space is quite different. In modern physics, space is conceptualized as a vacuum, a region devoid of matter and energy.
THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Source: THE CONCEPT OF ĀKĀŚA IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Anthropic Web of the Universe: Atom and Ātman
Source: Anthropic Web of the Universe: Atom and Ātman
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Source: Anthropic Web of the Universe: Atom and Ātman
Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
Source: Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
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Pancha Bhuta Sthalam
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Four of these are in Tamilnadu, and one is in Andhra Pradesh. In addition to the Tillai Naṭarāja Temple in Chidambaram, the other four pancabhūtasthalas are Ekāmbareswara Temple (earth) in Kanchipuram, Jambukeswara Temple (water) in Thiruvanaikaval, Arunāchaleswara Temple (fire) in Thiruvaṇṇāmalai, and Sri Kalahasthīswara Temple (air) in Kalahasthi, Andhra Pradesh.
Varanasi is located in such a way that the river flows from south to north.
Baizhang
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