namaste everyone.
Ramanuja's Refutation of Advaita and its Validity
Here is a compilation (for our records here at TB) of how the renowned Hindu scholar Prabhu Dutt Shastri refutes Ramanuja's arguments against Advaita, taken from the author's book The Doctrine of Maya (published in 1911). This is a rather long compilation but is worth reading as it covers all the points of objections raised by Ramanuja.
Ramanuja's criticism of the theory of Maya is embodied in his greatest work, The SribhAShya, a commentary on BAdarAyaNa's brahmasUtras. His exposition of the first sUtra occupies the largest space in his treatise, and this criticism appears under the same division. Ramanuja brings seven charges against the doctrine of Maya. We reproduce the gist of each, in order, with a criticism of our own.
i. The charge of Ashray-Anupapatti
What is the Ashraya (seat) of Maya (or avidyA)? Residing in what does it produce illusion? Surely not in the individual self, because the selfhood of the individual self is itself projected by avidyA; neither could it reside in Brahman, since He has the essential nature of self-luminous intelligence, and is thus opposed to avidyA (ignorance).
Criticism--This objection rests upon a two-fold misinterpretation. In the first place, Ramanuja starts with the idea that Maya (or avidyA) is something real, and consequently demands a seat for this 'illusion' or 'ignorance'. avidyA is decidedly not a reality: it is only the negation of vidyA, or the obscuration of it. As the fire is latent in the wood, so is our godly nature, our spiritual principle, hidden by the upAdhis.
In the second place, Ramanuja makes an unwarranted differentiation between Brahman and the individual soul. In stating the position of the Advaitin he has no right to colour it with his own conceptions. We, after Sankara, do not admit such a difference between the two. Brahman becomes the individual soul only by upAdhis, i.e., self-imposed limitations of manas, ten senses, subtle body, Karma, etc. These upAdhis may figuratively be spoken of as limiting the Atman and resolving it into the two aspects of the Highest Atman (Brahman) and the individual Atman. If, therefore, we are pressed by Ramanuja to state the residence of avidyA, we may meet him by saying that it must, if at all conceived as such, reside in the upAdhis--the mind (manas), the senses, etc. As a matter of fact, this demand of Ramanuja seems to be unjustifiable and inadmissible. It wholly rests upon his supposition of the reality of avidyA.
2. The Charge of tirodhAn-Anupapatti
The supposed 'ignorance' cannot, as maintained by its upholders, conceal Brahman, whose essential nature is self-luminosity. The concealment of luminosity means either (a) the obstruction of the origination of luminosity, or (b) the destruction of existing luminosity. But as it is held that the luminosity of Brahman is incapable of being a produced thing, the concealment of luminosity must mean the destruction of luminosity, which, in other words, amounts to the destruction of the essential nature of Brahman.
Criticism--This objection is based upon Ramanuja's losing hold of the real position of the upholders of Maya. Our 'ignorance' is merely negative. It has no positive existence to be able to conceal anything else in the strict sense. Brahman is ever the same in its splendour and luminosity, but we fail to see it only through our own avidyA, which can, therefore, in no way be said to be able to conceal Brahman in the sense of destroying its luminosity. In the same way, if a follower of Ramanuja were to ask Kant, "Why do we not see the thing-in-itself (das Ding-an-sich)?" he would at once reply, "Because between that and ourselves are the intellectual forms (upAdhis] of Time, Space, and Causality." Thus we are not explaining away the difficulty pointed out by Ramanuja when we say that we deny the concealment (tirodhAna) of Brahman by ignorance (avidyA).
3. The Charge of svarUp-Anupapatti
What is the essential nature of avidyA? As long as it is a thing at all, it must either have the nature of reality or of unreality. But it is not admitted to be a reality;* and it cannot be an unreality, for, as long as a real misguiding error, different from Brahman Himself, is not admitted, so long it is not possible to explain the theory of illusion. If Brahman Himself have the character of the misguiding error, then, owing to his eternity, there would be no final release to the individual self.
[*Note: Here Ramanuja rightly understands the standpoint, but at once again makes a great confusion and becomes inconsistent when criticizing the theory on the basis of the assumed reality of Maya.]
Criticism--The whole difficulty is purely factitious. Certainly we do not admit the reality of Maya, but at the same time we do not hold that it is unreal from the empirical standpoint as well. Empirically it is sat (existing): the world is, but it is Maya. Ramanuja is too anxious and tactful to corner us by his dilemmas. But as a rule these dilemmas have one of the two horns already broken, since he generally starts with self-assumed premises, and draws his own inferences from them, most logically, of course.
The question as to what is the cause of Maya is, in the sense in which it is asked, an illegitimate one. Causality is the general law in the world (in Maya), but it has no warrant to transcend itself and ask, "What is the cause of Maya?" The category only applies within the phenomenal world, and at once breaks down when stretched out of it. Everything within Maya has a cause, but Maya has no cause. The same fact would be stated by Kant in the words "Causality is the universal law of the empirical world". Hence the question as to causality being meaningless in the present context, we are not obliged to answer it.
Again, when Ramanuja suggests that "as long as a real misguiding error, different from Brahman, is not admitted, so long it is not possible to explain the theory," the suggestion seems to us to convey hardly any meaning, since the moment we grant a real existence to Maya, our whole theory falls with it; a real dualism between the two realities (facing each other) will be at once created, and this will in no way afford even the slightest explanation of the theory. We wonder how Ramanuja himself would try to explain the theory even on these dualistic premises. The whole of this charge, therefore, is imaginary and futile.
4. The Charge of AnirvachanIyatv-Anupapatti
The Advaitins says that Maya is anirvachanIyA, i.e., incapable of definition, because it is neither an entity (sat) nor a non-entity (asat). To hold such a view is impossible. All cognitions relate to entities or non-entities; and if it be held that the object of a cognition has neither the positive characteristics of an entity nor the negative characteristics of a non-entity, then all things may become the objects of all cognitions.
Criticism--This difficulty is couched in a very clever and catchy way. Yet the whole rests on a misconception, viz., the want or perceiving clearly what the "tertium comparationis" is in each case. sat and asat sound two contradictory conceptions, and to say that a thing ("an object of cognition") is neither sat nor asat is not to say anything about it at all. But the thing is thought of in two wholly different aspects, and the tertium comparationis is not common to both.
Maya, we say, is neither sat nor asat, neither an 'entity' nor a 'non-entity.' It is not sat, since the Atman alone is real, and it is not asat, since it appears at least, or in other words, maintains itself as an iva ('as it were'). Where is the contradiction now? Does not this very fact allow us to speak of Maya as something mysterious, incapable of a strict definition ?
5. The charge of pramAn-Anupapatti
Is there any means by which this curious avidyA is brought within the range of our cognition? It can neither be proved by perception nor by inference. Neither can it be established by revelation, as the scriptural passages can be explained otherwise.
Criticism--In the light of what we have said above this objection stands self-condemned. When we do not believe in the real existence of Maya, what logic is there in requiring us to prove the existence of it? If we had granted its reality, then indeed we could be called upon to name the source of its knowledge perception, inference, revelation, etc. However, to prove the validity of our conception we do not require any marshalled arguments or formal syllogisms. It is as clear as anything, when we recall to our mind the nature of avidyA, which, as we have shown after Sankara, is an erroneous transfer of the things and relations of the objective world to the Self in the strictest sense of the word.
Further, Ramanuja examines a few scriptural passages, and giving them another interpretation, infers that all such passages can be so explained as not to corroborate the theory of avidyA. He might draw any meaning out of the few passages he has gone into, so long as he is bent upon showing the untenableness of Maya, but there still remains a large number of passages, among which the metaphysics of Yajnavalkya occupies a prominent place, that defy all such attempts at a forced, far-fetched and perverted interpretation.
When we know that we are in reality no other than the Absolute Spirit, and that the Atman is the only reality; and yet we feel that we are different from the Absolute and that the world in which we live, move and have our being, is real, to what shall we attribute this clash between our knowledge and feelings? Is it not a mystery? And what else could we say but that this is due to our ignorance, the 'erroneous transference' spoken of above?
6. The Charge of nivartak-Anupapatti
This difficulty is in relation to the idea that the cessation of avidyA takes place solely by means of the knowledge which has the attributeless Brahman for its object. Brahman is not without attributes and qualities, since there are many passages which prove that He is possessed of these. Moreover, the grammatical equations, such as "tattvam asi" ("That art Thou"), do not denote the oneness of any attributeless thing, they are not intended to give rise to the stultification of any illusion due to avidyA; but they simply show that Brahman is capable of existing in two different modes or forms. The universe is the body of which Brahman is the soul. He is Himself all the three entities God, soul and matter. Consequently, the knowledge which has an attributeless Brahman for its object is impossible and cannot be the complete knowledge of truth; and obviously such an impossible knowledge of the oneness of the attributeless Brahman cannot be the remover of the avidyA postulated by the Advaitins.
Criticism--The force of this objection lies mainly in the supposition that "Brahman is not without attributes," and it is further pointed out by Ramanuja that many passages of the Shruti prove this thesis. In the light of Sankara's Advaita, as briefly described in Chapter II, we fail to see the force of this argument. To say that there are some scriptural passages bearing out the assertion may equally be met by the counter-proposition that there are also passages countenancing the attributelessness of Brahman. If, then, both these assertions neutralize each other from the scriptural point of view, one may well ask, 'What then is the real trend and purport of the Vaidic thought?' It seems to us that this question could not be better answered than by repeating the doctrine of Sankara when he attempted to synthesize the whole of the Shruti by taking a wide conspectus of its purport. All passages which speak of the qualified Brahman may be placed under aparA vidyA, while parA will include only those that expound the metaphysical truth as it is. Brahman may, from a lower standpoint, be conceived as "with attributes," but the ultimate truth remains that He is really "without attributes." Besides, the conception of the Absolute in the strict sense leaves hardly any room for "attributes." Impose any attributes and you at once make the Absolute "non-absolute," i.e., destroy his very nature by making parichchinna (limited) that which is aparichchinna (without limits).
Again, Ramanuja denies that the text, 'tat tvam asi,' denotes the oneness of the individual with the attributeless Universal, and holds that it simply brings out Brahman's capability of existing in two forms or modes. Now, this seems to us to be an ambiguous use of language. That Brahman exists in two opposite forms will be meaningless if one of the forms were not supposed to be due to avidyA. How can a being exist in two contradictory forms? chit and achit are two opposite notions in the system of Ramanuja, but he has not succeeded in reconciling their existence by merely saying that they are two modes of the Absolute. To picture the universe as the body of Brahman is after all a mere analogy, which hardly makes the matter even a jot clearer. Even by investing God with all auspicious attributes, how will Ramanuja account for the existence of evil (moral) or error (psychological)? Simply to say, as did Plato, that God is good, hence the universe must be good, is no explanation, but a mere shirking of the question. Like Plato, Ramanuja uses many analogies and metaphors while speaking of Brahman, but the Advaitist cannot but take all these as mere mythical representations.
Hence, with our denial of the qualified aspect of Brahman as a metaphysical truth is linked the denial of "the impossibility of the knowledge which has an attributeless Brahman for its object."
avidyA being like darkness is itself expelled when light comes in. jnAna is the remover of ajnAna. As we have already pointed out above, the expression 'knowledge of Brahman' is strictly inadmissible, since Brahman is itself knowledge (jnAna) of course the term being used in the higher sense of 'pure consciousness.'
7. The Charge of Nivrtty-anupapatti
The removal of the Advaitin's hypothetical 'ignorance' is quite impossible. The individual soul's bondage of 'ignorance' is determined by Karma and is a concrete reality. It cannot therefore be removed by any abstract knowledge but only by divine worship and grace. Moreover, according to the Advaitins the differentiation between the knower, knowledge, and the known is unreal; and even that knowledge, which is capable of removing avidyA has to be unreal and has to stand in need of another real removing knowledge.
Criticism--Our struggle with Karma is undoubtedly real so long as our consciousness of the true nature of Brahman has not arisen. Karma, its determinations, and with it everything else, is supposed to be real, but only so far. We have already quoted passages from Sankara where he clearly and unequivocally makes this concession, 'vyAvahArically' (i.e., from the practical or empiric point of view), as he calls it. It may therefore be called 'a concrete reality,' but with the explicit understanding that such a reality is after all 'phenomenal.' We do not hold the efficacy of Karma in the case of one who has attained the knowledge of Brahman; such a man, being free from all desires and motives, all springs of action, is pari passu beyond the control of Karma insofar as he is not creating any fresh and new Karma for himself. The laws of Karma are valid within the phenomenal, but in no way do they produce any real knowledge to the Atman, whose very nature forbids all such bondages.
The idea of divine worship and grace may be supported for the sake of the ordinary minds unable to go round the higher path of pure knowledge. But surely the idea of grace, etc., is not an exalted conception. Truly speaking, grace is only possible when there is a direct and perfect communion--in other words, an 'identity'--between the two forms of consciousness. This fact, too, shows that the ultimate nature of man and God is 'Consciousness.' So long as our ignorance is not cast away by the acquirement of 'knowledge'--which alone is capable of ousting its opponent--liberation is impossible. Without such a knowledge, mere devotion or deeds will never lead one to the same goal.
As to the differentiation between the knower (jnAtA), knowledge (jnAna),and the known (jneya), we have to repeat that the distinction is certainly fictitious in the absolute sense. It is made by us and it is real for all our practical purposes. The metaphysical truth does not attempt to devour the world in its practical aspect. The knowledge removing avidyA--if we are at all to say 'removal' of avidyA--is not unreal. Unreal knowledge cannot destroy unreality. Knowledge in the lower sense of a relation between 'subject' and 'object' is of course unreal, but such knowledge is unable to give a deathblow to avidyA. On the dawning of true knowledge the artificial distinction between 'subject' and 'object' vanishes. "By what shall we know the knower (the subject of all knowledge)?" as was so forcibly asked by Yajnavalkya.
Conclusion
These are in brief the seven difficulties which Ramanuja perceived in the doctrine of Maya. As will appear from what we have said above, Ramanuja's criticism rests on the whole on a misunderstanding of the genuine Advaita standpoint. All through he has been treating Maya as if it were a concrete reality, even perhaps existing in space, etc. We do not accuse him even because he attempted to reject Sankara's premises. But we fail to see his consistency, when even on his own premises he falls short of furnishing a really adequate explanation of the relation between God and the Universe. His doctrine of divine grace, devotion, etc., is apt to appeal strongly to many Christian theologians, who will therefore naturally prefer his philosophy to that of Sankara. Be as it may, to us it seems evident that Sankara's analysis of Reality went much further than Ramanuja's. The impersonal conception of the Absolute, we hold, is truly personal, if there is any real meaning in 'personality.' This is how we will meet those who cannot hold any such doctrine to be the ultimate if it destroys the idea of the divine personality.
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