Part 7
In the same celebrated Upanishad appears a woman, named Gârgî, and moved by thirst of knowledge she inquires of the wise Yâjnavalkya: “That which is beyond the sky and beneath the earth, and between sky and earth, that which is, was, and shall be, in what and with what is it interwoven (that is: in what does it live and move)?” Yâjnavalkya, in order to try the intellectual power of the woman, gives an evasive answer: “In the ether.” But Gârgî, perceiving that this answer did not contain the final truth, asks: “In what is the ether woven?” And Yâjnavalkya replied: “O Gârgî, that is what the Brahman calls the Eternal; it is neither big, nor small, nor large, nor short, without connection, without contact; by the Eternal are ruled heaven and earth, sun and moon, days and nights; the power of the Eternal directs the rivers south or west or to any other point of the compass. Whoever parts from this world without having understood the Eternal, is miserable.”
In the Chândogya Upanishad, a book of no less importance, the same wisdom is taught by a man named Uddâlaka to his son Shvetaketu in the form of several parables. We see them standing in front of a Nyagrodha tree, that kind of fig-tree that everywhere sends roots from the branches down to the ground, thus producing new trunks, until in the course of time _one_ tree resembles a green pillared hall. And in front of such a tree, the most beautiful symbol of ever-youthful nature, the following conversation takes place between father and son: “Get me a fruit of this tree.”—“Here it is.”—“Break it.”—“It is broken.”—“What do you see in it?”—“I see quite small kernels.”—“Break one of them.”—“It is broken.”—“What do you see in it?”—“Nothing.”—Then the father said: “The fine matter that you cannot see has produced this big tree, and believe me, my dear son, this same matter, of which the earth is composed, is the Absolute, the Universal Soul,—it is you.”
The eternal ground of all existence which every one carries in himself, Being as it is in itself, and as it is immediately perceived in thinking, was, accordingly recognised as the sole reality, and all the manifold changes of the phenomenal world were called Maya, a sham, a delusion, a mockery of the senses. We see, it is a consistent monism which is taught in the Upanishads.
I do not intend here either to criticise the Brahman conception of monism or to contrast it with modern forms of monism. All monisms have at least one thing in common, viz. they all recognise the paramount importance of consistency of thought as a basic principle in philosophy. And to have propounded a monism for the first time is a feat which cannot be overestimated. What remains of this essay will be devoted to the investigation of the question, whether this feat is duly or unduly credited to the Brahmans.
It may first be mentioned, that a few scholars like Weber, Max Müller, Regnaud, Deussen, and Bhandarkar, pointed out, a long time ago, certain facts which show that another class of the Hindu nation founded the monistic doctrine of the old Upanishads. But the attention of the great public has never been called to this subject, which deserves to be known by all interested in Indian history.
In the second book of the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, of which I have already cited two passages, is found the following story, of which also the fourth book of Kaushîtaki Upanishad gives a slightly different version.
The proud and learned Brahman Bâlâki Gârgya comes on his journey to Ajâtashatru, prince of Benares, and says to him: “I will announce you the Brahma.” The king, highly pleased, promises him a great reward, a thousand cows. The Brahman begins to expound his wisdom: “The Spirit (that is the power) in the sun I venerate as the Brahma.” But the king interrupted him, saying that he knew that already. Then the Brahman speaks about the Spirit in the moon, in lightning, ether, wind, fire, water, but the king knows all that. And whatsoever the Gârgya might say, is not new to the king. The Brahman became silent. But Ajâtashatru asked him: “Is that all?” and Gârgya answered: “Yes, that is all.” Then the king said: “Your little knowledge is not the Brahma;” whereupon Gârgya declared that he should like to be one of the king’s pupils. Ajâtashatru replied: “It is against nature, that a Brahman should learn from a warrior and depend on him for the understanding of the Brahma, but I will show it you nevertheless.” The king took him to a sleeping man and spoke to the latter; but he did not get up. When the king touched him with his hand, he arose. The king then asked the Brahman: “While this man was sleeping where was his mind, and whence did it return now?” Gârgya could not give an answer. Then the king explained to him, that the mind or the Self of the sleeping man was wandering around in dream, that all places were open to him, that he could be a great king or a great Brahman; but that there was still a higher condition of felicity, that is, absorption in dreamless sleep, without consciousness. In this condition the Self of man, not affected by the outside world, reposes in his true essence and knows no difference between Atman and Brahma.
Another story, reported in the fifth book of Chândogya Upanishad and in the sixth book of Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, is perhaps of still greater importance.
The young Brahman Shvetaketu comes to a convention, where the King Pravâhana Jaivâli asks him: “Has your father instructed you?”—“Yes, sir.”—“Do you know to what place the dead go?” And three more questions he put to the young Brahman, who was compelled to admit that he knew nothing about them. Discouraged, he returned to his father and reproached him: “Although you have not imparted any knowledge to me, you claim that you have instructed me. A _simple king_ has asked me three questions and I could not answer a single one.” The father replied: “You have known me sufficiently to understand that I taught you all I knew. Come, let us go to the king and learn from him.” The king received the Brahman with great honors and requested him to select a present. But Gautama refuses all earthly gifts, gold, cows, horses, female slaves, and asks the king to answer the questions he had put to his son. At first the king was unwilling, but after a while he agreed to it and said, that no one on earth could give information on those subjects, except a warrior. And the following words of the king’s are very significant: “Would that neither you nor your ancestors had trespassed on us, that this truth might never have set up her residence among Brahmans. But to you, since you are so inquiring, I will communicate our wisdom.”
Substantially the same story is found at the beginning of the Kaushîtaki Upanishad, except that the king appears under the name Chitra.
Omitting points of less importance, I shall only give in a brief form the contents of the eleventh and the following chapters of the fifth book of the Chândogya Upanishad, where again a man of the warrior caste, Ashvapati, prince of the Kekaya, is shown in possession of the highest wisdom. A number of highly learned Brahmans were speculating on the following problems: “What is our Self? What is the Brahma?” and they decided to go to Uddâlaka Aruni, who, as they knew, was investigating the “Omnipresent Self.” But Aruni said to himself: “Now, they will ask me and I am not able to answer all their questions”; consequently he requested his visitors to go with him to Ashvapati. The latter receives them with great honors, invites them to stay with him, promising them presents as high as their fees for sacrifices. But they replied: “A man must communicate what he knows. You are just now seeking the ‘Omnipresent Self’; disclose to us what it is?” The king, said: “I will answer you to-morrow.” The following day, without having received them among his pupils, that is, without a ceremonial reception as was usual, he asked them: “What do you venerate as the Self?” They replied: “Heaven, sun, wind, ether, water, earth.” The king reminded them that they were all mistaken in considering the Omnipresent Self as a finite and limited being; it was the infinite, the infinitely small and the infinitely great.
The weight of these stories is very plain. Whether they refer to real facts or merely reflect the views of those times in the form of legends, cannot be decided. However, the question of the historical truth of these stories has no bearing whatever. The fact that they are to be found in genuine Brahmanic writings, in books which are considered in India as the basis of the Brahman caste, speaks a plain language. It shows, that the thought of claiming the monistic doctrine of the Brahma-Atman as the inheritance of their caste, did not occur to the authors of the old Upanishads, or that they dared not claim it; it may be that they did not yet realise the great importance of the same. Of course in the following ages this science became the exclusive property of the Brahmans and was cultivated and developed by them during twenty centuries—but this does not do away with the fact that it originated among the warrior caste. The men of this caste recognised at once the hollowness of the sacrificial system and its absurd symbolical character; and to them is due the credit of having disclosed a new world of thought and of having accomplished a revolution in the intellectual life of Ancient India. When we learn that the Brahmans continued the sacrificial system, even after having adopted the new creed, and by representing religious ceremonials as the first step to knowledge, thus combined two wholly heterogeneous elements; we may justly conclude that things have taken the same course in Ancient India as in other countries. Progressive ideas are first opposed by the priesthood, their born enemy, until they have become so powerful that they cannot be opposed any longer, whereupon the priest adopts them and tries to harmonise them with his superstitions.
But the ideas mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, the substance of what is commonly called “Hindu wisdom,” are not all that the warriors have done for the religion and philosophy of the people. The noble Gautama of Kapilavastu, the best known of all Hindus, who established Buddhism about 500 years before Christ, was also a Kshattriya, and according to the more recent tradition, which alone was formerly known, the son of a king; but according to the earlier sources, disclosed by Oldenberg, he was the son of a landed proprietor. Buddha, “the Enlightened,” under which name he is known all over the world, most strenuously opposed the sacrificial system and the superstitions of the Brahmans. The ceremonies and the science of the priesthood seemed to him a perfect fraud, and the caste system an absurd institution; he taught that the final beatitude is within the reach of the lowest man, as well as of the Brahman and the king; that every one, without distinction of birth, can attain to “salvation” by contempt of the world, self-denial, and devotion to the welfare of his fellow beings.
Oldenberg’s excellent book on Buddha, the newest standard work on this subject, makes it unnecessary for me to dwell at length on the doctrine of the greatest of all Hindus; only in regard to one important point, which has a direct bearing on the subject under consideration, do I differ from his opinion. According to the oldest sources, Buddha’s method of teaching is, to a great extent, beyond the understanding of the bulk of the people; not a popular, but an abstract philosophical one. For intrinsic reasons, I believe that the old sources do not give a correct report of this matter, and we must not forget that centuries separate them from Buddha. Oldenberg himself raises the point, whether the dry and tedious ecclesiastical style, in which Buddha’s thoughts are clothed by those sources, truly reflects the spoken word. He says on page 181: “Whoever reads the words which the sacred books attribute to Buddha will doubt that the form in which Buddha taught his precepts is to be identified with that abstract and sometimes abstruse metaphysical language. A youthful, invigorating spirit, pervading alike teacher and disciples, is the true picture of those times, admitting of no unnatural or artificial features.”
In spite of this, he comes to the conclusion that “the solemn and stern way of speaking, peculiar to Buddha, has been better expressed by tradition than by what we would feel tempted to substitute.” I am not of this opinion. In India a great success could not have been obtained but by overpowering eloquence and a popular method, intelligible to all, and proceeding by parables and metaphors.
If Buddha had only appealed to the intellect of his nearest surroundings, consisting merely of aristocratic elements, if he had not found his way to the heart of the people, his monastery would very likely have shared the destiny of the other religious congregations of his age, which have all disappeared, except one. As the doctrines of these monasteries or their founders do not substantially differ from each other, and as it cannot be ascribed to mere chance that Buddha’s doctrine has developed into a universal religion, having the greatest number of adherents, there remains but one hypothesis to account for this fact, and that is the superiority of Buddha’s way of teaching. The erroneousness of the generally prevailing opinion that Buddha was in his time the only founder of a new religion, and that he suddenly revolutionised the social organisation of the Indian people, has been clearly established by recent investigations. In fact, he was a “primus inter pares,” one of those numerous ascetics who were striving for and preaching “liberation” from the eternal transmigration.
Besides Buddha’s, only one congregation has survived: the Jaina, having numerous members in the western part of India. The principles of the Jaina are very similar to those of Buddha; so much so that until recently it was considered merely as a sect of Buddhism, while it is really a religion of its own, founded by a contemporary or a predecessor of Buddha, named Vardhamâna Jnâtaputra—in the language of the people, Vaddhamâna Nâtaputta—in the same part of the country where Buddha rose. The only difference between the two religions is this: Vardhamâna lays great stress on castigation; while the more progressive Buddha declares it useless—nay, pernicious. The important point in regard to the object of our essay is this: that the founder of Jaina, which occupies a high place in the history of Hindu culture, was also a member of the Warrior Caste.
We shall now have to consider another production of the Indian mind, the very name of which is unknown to most of our readers, although it offers the most interesting religious problems. I refer to the doctrine of the Bhâgavatas or Pâncharâtras. These names, of which the former is the earlier and original one, designate a religious sect in North India, whose existence in the fourth century B. C. is authentically proved, but which can be placed with great probability in the time before Buddha. They professed a common-sense monotheism, independent of the traditions of the old Brahmans, and venerated God under different names: Bhagavant, “The Sublime,” whence their name is derived; Nârâyana, “Son of Man;” Purashottamma, “The Supreme Being”; but generally under the name Krishna Vâsudeva, “Son of Vâsudeva”. The character of their worship produced feelings identical with the Christian love and devotion to God. The Hindu word for this feeling is Chakti, and for him who was penetrated by the same, Chakta. As the word Chakti cannot be found or has not been found in the Hindu literature earlier than the era of Christ, several scholars are inclined to attribute the Chakti to the influence of Christianity, especially Professor Weber, who deserves the highest praise for his researches concerning Krishna worship. Weber has proved in several of his books, especially in a highly interesting treatise on Krishna’s birth, that numerous Christian notions have entered into the later Krishna legends (the similarity of the names, Krishna and Christ, accounts for it): for instance, the birth of Christ among the shepherds, the story about the stable, and others of the same kind. In spite of this, I cannot embrace the opinion that the Chakti has been brought from a foreign country, because its first appearance belongs to a period in which Christian influences cannot be found. As I cannot go into details without discussing very difficult points, requiring a great deal of erudition, I will only say that whoever is familiar with the old Hindu civilisation will easily understand that the Chakti is of genuine Hindu origin. Monotheistic notions can be traced to the oldest periods of Hindu antiquity, and the Hindu mind has always been animated by a high aspiration towards God; so that it should not surprise us that this feature of the Hindu character has produced a religion popular and independent of philosophical speculation, consisting in love and devotion to God. The founder of this religion was Krishna Vâsudeva, afterwards raised to divine dignity, or rather identified with the deity; from his name and from the legends attached to his name, he was a member of the Warrior Caste. As early as the epoch of the Mahâbhârata, the great Indian epic poem, the Brahmans appropriated to themselves the name and work of Krishna, and transformed the venerated hero into the God Vishnu; thus increasing their strength by adopting a doctrine not of Brahmanic origin.
We have thus found that the profound philosophical monism of the Upanishads, the highly moral religions of Buddha and Jaina, and last, not least, the creed of the Bhâgavatas, based on pure devotion to God, did not originate among the Brahmans.
However favorably we may judge of the achievements of the Brahmans in all branches of science, and I am far from vilifying their merits, still it is certain that the greatest intellectual performances of India, nay, all such in India that have been beneficial to mankind, were accomplished by men of the Warrior Caste.
RICHARD GARBE.
THE IDEA OF NECESSITY, ITS BASIS AND ITS SCOPE.
The idea of necessity, although a fundamental concept in philosophy and science, has not as yet been so clearly defined that all thinkers would agree as to its meaning and significance. Necessity is frequently identified with compulsion, and thus it is supposed to be incompatible with freedom of will. It is also identified with fate, as if it were a destiny that existed above the will of man and the powers of nature, similar to the Moira of the ancients. It is said to exclude chance in every possible conception of the term and to cause the evolution of the world to proceed by a predetermined arrangement, like the mechanism of a clock.
We cannot endorse Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s objection to the doctrine of necessity, but we side with him when he denounces the mechanical philosophy for considering minds as “part of the physical world in such a sense that the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens.” Mr. Peirce is right when he rebukes the mechanical philosopher for “entering consciousness under the head of sundries as a forgotten trifle.” In some sense minds are parts of the physical, i. e. the natural, world, but they are not parts of that province of nature which constitutes the special domain of physics and mechanics. Ideas are not motions and cannot be explained by mechanical laws.
Having criticised in a former article of ours Mr. Peirce’s position, and having rejected the indeterminism proposed by him, we shall discuss in the following pages the basis and scope of the idea of necessity.
The idea of necessity is based upon the conception of sameness, and we find that the existence of samenesses is a feature of the world in which we live. The existence of samenesses is a fact of experience, and upon the presence of this fact depends the possibility of the origin, the being, and the development of the thinking mind itself.
Necessity, as we understand it, must be carefully distinguished from the idea of fate. Although we accept without reserve the doctrine of determinism, we do not mean to deny the important part that chance plays in the world—not absolute chance, which according to Mr. Peirce is exempt from law, but that same chance of which the throw of a die is a typical instance. And bearing in mind that necessity is not a power outside of nature and above the will of man, but that it resides in them as the quality of sameness, we abandon the view that identifies necessity with compulsion; recognising thus, that freedom of the will is not incompatible with our view of necessitarianism.
I. THE BASIS OF NECESSITY.
The standpoint from which we shall treat this subject is that of monistic positivism,—the method which accepts no doctrine, theory, or law unless it be a formulation of facts. Facts are the bottom-rock to which we can and must dig down. At the same time, wherever facts appear contradictory to one another, we should not be satisfied, but continue to investigate until they are systematised so as to form a unitary entirety.
Before we begin our inquiry into the existence or non-existence of necessity, it is advisable to define the meaning of the term.
The Latin word _necesse_ is most probably a compound of the negative _ne_ and the supine _cessum_ from _cedere_ to yield, to move. “Necessary,” according to this etymology, would mean that which does not yield but abides. Thus it is the inevitable; it is that which is or will be.
It is in this sense that the word is still used, or at least ought to be used, and in this sense we shall also use it.
Every word naturally acquires by a more or less appropriate application a series of meanings. So “necessary” means also that which is needful, that which is essential, that which is indispensable and requisite; it also means that which is done under compulsion. It is understood that we exclude all the other meanings of necessary except the original one, which is its properly philosophical meaning.
The idea of necessity is closely allied to the idea of sameness. In order to understand the former we must be clear concerning the meaning of the latter.
THE IDEA OF SAMENESS.
There exist a number of synonyms often used indiscriminately; they are: identity, sameness, equality, congruity, similarity, and likeness. By “identity” we generally understand a sameness in every respect, absolute sameness; by “equality”, a sameness that can be expressed in figures. Equality is always a measurable sameness, and refers to quantity, mass, size, length, height, age, etc. Likeness and similitude are samenesses of form or of proportion, albeit not of size. It is often used as a partial sameness of impressions, not so much as they are in themselves, but as they appear to the mind. Congruity is a synonym of sameness in the province of geometry, denoting the coincidence of figures when laid upon one another.[10]
The logical principle of identity, so-called, it appears to me, ought to be named the principle of sameness, for it has not reference to the absolute sameness of a thing with itself.[11] The statement _A_ = _A_ does not mean that this particular thing _A_ is itself and that therefore the one _A_ is one and the same thing. It is a general statement and means that all _A_, in so far as they are _A_, are the same. The statement _A_ = _A_, as I take it, presupposes the existence of a number of _A’s_; otherwise it would have no sense, and it would not only be empty, (as we know from Kant that all formal statements are,) but meaningless and useless. It would be of no avail either in logic or in science.