Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha by Madhavacharya (Vidyaranya Swami) - tr by E.B.Cowell

Preface

I WELL remember the interest excited among the learned Hindus of Calcutta by the publication of the Sarva-dar- 6ana-samgraha of Madhava Acharya in the Bibliotheca Indica in 1858. It was originally edited by Pandit f Svarachandra Vidyasagara, but a subsequent edition, with no important alterations, was published in 1872 by Pandit Tdrandtha Tarkavachaspati. The work had been used by Wilson in his " Sketch of the Eeligious Sects of the Hindus " (first published in the Asiatic Eesearches, vol. xvi., Calcutta, 1828) ; but it does not appear to have been ever much known in India. MS. copies of it are very scarce ; and those found in the North of India, as far as I have had an opportunity of examining them, seem to be all derived from one copy, brought originally from the South, and therefore written in the Telugu character. Certain mistakes are found in all aliL and probably arose from some illegible readings in the old Telugu original. I have noticed the same thing in the Nagarf copies of Mddhava's Commentary on the Black Yajur Veda, which are current in the North of India. ^

As I was at that time the Oriental Secretary of the Ben-

b vi PREFACE.

gal Asiatic Society, I was naturally attracted to the book ; and I subsequently read it with my friend Pandit Mahefochandra Nyayaratna, the present Principal of the Sanskrit College at Calcutta. I always hoped to translate it into English; but I was continually prevented by other engagements while I remained in India. Soon after my return to England, I tried to carry out my intention ; but I found that several chapters, to which I had not paid the same attention as to the rest, were too difficult to be translated in England, where I could no longer enjoy the advantage of reference to my old friends the Pandits of the Sanskrit College. In despair I laid my translation aside for years, until I happened to learn that my friend, Mr. A. E. Gough, at that time a Professor in the Sanskrit College at Benares, was thinking of translating the book. I at once proposed to him that we should do it together, and he kindly consented to my proposal ; and we accordingly each undertook certain chapters of the work. He had the advantage of the help of some of the Pandits of Benares, especially of Pandit Kama Mi6ra, the assistant Professor of Saftkhya, who was himself a Eainanuja; and I trust that, though we have doubtless left some things unexplained or explained wrongly, we may have .been able to throw light on many of the dark sayings with which the original abounds. Our translations were originally published at intervals in the Benares Pandit between 1874 and 1878; but they have been carefully revised for their present republication.

The work itself is an interesting specimen of Hindu critical ability. The author successively passes in review

PREFACE. Yii

the sixteen philosophical systems current in the fourteenth century in the South of India, and gives what appeared to him to be their most important tenets, and the principal arguments by which their followers endeavoured to main- 'tain them ; and he often displays some quaint humour as h,e throws himself for the time into the position of their advocate, and holds, as it were, a temporary brief in behalf of opinions entirely at variance with his own. 1 We may sometimes differ from him in his judgment of the relative importance of their doctrines, but it is always interesting to see the point of view of an acute native critic. In the course of his sketches he frequently explains at some length obscure details in the different systems ; and I can hardly imagine a better guide for the Europe^ reader who wishes to study any one of these Dar^anas in its native authorities. In one or two cases (as notably in the Bauddha, and perhaps in the Jaina system) he could only draw his materials second-hand from the discussions in the works of Brahmanical controversialists; but in the great majority he quotes directly from the works of their founders or leading exponents, and he is continually following in their track even where he does not quote their exact words. 2

The systems are arranged from the Vedanta point of view, our author having been elected, in A.D. 1331, the head

1 The most remarkable instance * An index of the names of author*

of this philosophical equanimity is and works quoted is given in Dr.

that of Vdchaspati Misra, who wrote Hall's Bibliographical Catalogue,

standard treatises on each of the six pp. 162-164, and also in Professor

system B except the Vaiseshika, adopt- Aufrecht's Bodleian Catalogue, p.

ing, of course, the peculiar point of 247.

view of each, and excluding for the f time every alien tenet via PREFACE.

of the Smarta order in the Math of ^ringeri in the Mysore territory, founded by $amkara Acharya, the great Veddntist teacher of the eighth century, through whose efforts the Vedanta became what it is at present the acknowledged view of Hindu orthodoxy. The systems form a gradually ascending scale, the first, the Charvaka and Bauddha, being the lowest as the furthest removed from the Vedanta, and the last, the Safrkhya and Yoga, being the highest as approaching most nearly to it.

The sixteen systems here discussed attracted to their study the noblest minds in India throughout the mediaeval period of its history. Hiouen Thsang says of the schools in his day : " Les ^coles philosophiques sont constamment en luttoi et le bruit de leurs discussions passionn^es s'&feve comme les flots de la mer. Les hrtiques des diverses sectes s'attachent a des maltres particuliers, et, par des voies diflterentes, marchent tous au mme but." We can still catch some faint echo of the din as we read the mediaeval literature. Thus, for instance, when King Harsha wanders among the Vindhya forests, he finds " seated on the rocks and reclining under the trees Arhata begging monks, ^vetapadas, Mahapa^upatas, Pandarabhikshus, Bhagavatas, Varnins, Ke^alufichanas, Lokayatikas, Kapilas, Kanadas, Aupanishadas, fsvarakdrins, Dharma- ^astrins, Paurdnikas, Saptatantavas, ^abdas, Pancharatiikas, &c., all listening to their own accepted tenets and zealously defending them." l Many of these sects will occupy us in the ensuing pages ; many of them also are found in Madhava's poem on the controversial triumphs

1 6riharsha-charita, p. 204 (Calcutta ed.)

PREFACE. ix

of 6amkara Acharya, and in the spurious prose work on the same subject, ascribed to Anantanandagiri. Well may some old poet have put into the mouth of Yudhishthira the lines which one so often hears from the lips of modern pandits

And may we not also say with Clement of Alexandria, i? rolvvv oi/crT;? TT}? aXrjdelas, TO yap ^reuSo? /Jivplas Kaddirep al ^aic^ai ra rov UevBeo)? $ia<f>oal r^5 <f>i\ocro<l>la$ rrj$ re ftapftdpov n ^9 re

Trvra a

E. B. C.

1 Found in the Mahabh. iii. 1 7402, with some variations. I give them as I have heard them from Pandit Ra'mana'ra'yana Vidyaratna.

Contents

VAUB

I. The Charvaka System (E. B. C.) 2

II. The Bauddha System (A. E. G.) 12

Chapter II. The Bauddha System

AT this point the Buddhists remark: As for what you (Charvakas) laid down as to the difficulty of ascertaining invariable concomitance, your position is unacceptable, inasmuch as invariable concomitance is easily cognisable by means of identity and causality. It has accordingly been said

" From the relation of cause and effect, or from identity as & determinant, results a law of invariable concomitance not through the mere observation of the desired result-in similar cases, nor through the non-observation of it in dissimilar cases." x On the hypothesis (of the Naiyayikas) that it is concomitance and non-concomitance (e.g., A is where B*is, A is not where B is not) that determine an invariable connection, the unconditional attendance of the major or the middle term would be unascertainable, it being impossible to exclude all doubt with regard to instances past and future, and present but unperceived. If one (a Naiyayika) rejoin that uncertainty in regard to such instances is equally inevitable on our system, we reply : Say not so, for such a supposition as that an effect may be produced without any cause would destroy itself by putting a stop to activity of any kind ; for such doubts

* This Aoka is quoted in the the second line is there read more " Benares Pandit," vol. i p. 89, with correctly, 'dariandn na na darfandt* A commentary, and the latter part of alone are to be entertained, the entertainment of which does not implicate us in practical absurdity and the like, as it has been said, " Doubt terminates where there is a practical absurdity." l

} I. By ascertainment of an effectuation, then, of that (viz., of the designate of the middle) is ascertained the invariable concomitance (of the major) ; and the ascertainment of such effectuation may arise from the well-known series of five causes, in the perceptive cognition or non-cognition of cause and effect. That fire and smoke, for instance, stand in the relation of cause and effect is ascertained by five indications, viz., (i.) That an effect is not cognised prior to its effectuation, that (2.) the cause being perceived (3.) the effect is perceived, and that after the effect is cognised (4.) there is its non-cognition, (5.) when the (material) cause is no longer cognised. '

2. In like manner an invariable concomitance is ascertained by the ascertainment of identity (e.g., a sisu-tree is a tree, or wherever we observe the attributes of a sisu we observe also the attribute arboreity), an absurdity attaching to the contrary opinion, inasmuch as if a sisu-tree should lose its arboreity it would lose its own self. But, on the other hand, where there exists no absurdity, and where a (mere) concomitance is again and again observed, who can exclude all doubt of failure in the concomitance ? An ascertainment of the identity of sisu and tree is competent in virtue of the reference to the same object (i.e., predication), This tree is a sisu. For reference to the same object (predication) is not competent where there is no difference whatever (e.g., to say, " A jar is a jar," is no combination of diverse attributes in a common subject), because the two terms cannot, as being synonymous, be simultaneously employed ; nor can reference to the same object take place where there is a reciprocal exclusion (of the two terms), inasmuch as we never find, for instance, horse and cow predicated the one of the ojher. 1 Kusumdnjaft iii 7.

It has thus been evinced that an effect or a self-same supposes a cause or a self-same (as invariable copcomitants).'

If a man does not allow that inference is a form of evidence, pramdi^a t one may reply : You merely assert thus much, that inference is not a form of evidence : do you allege no proof of this, or do you allege any ? The former alternative is not allowable according to the maxim that bare assertion is no proof of the matter asserted Nor is the latter alternative any better, for if while you assert that inference is no form of evidence, you produce some truncated argument (to prove, i.e., infer, that it is none), you will be involved in an absurdity, just as if you asserted your own mother to be barren. Besides, when you affirm that the establishment of a form of evidence and of the corresponding fallacious evidence results from their homogeneity, you yourself admit induction by identity. Again, when you affirm that the dissentiency of others is known by the symbolism of words, you yourself allow induction by causality. When you deny the existence of any object on the ground of its not being perceived, you yourself admit an inference of which non-perception is the middle term. Conformably it has been said by Tathagata

" The admission of a form of evidence in general results from its being present to the understanding of others*

" The existence of a form of evidence also follows from its negation by a certain person."

All this has been fully handled by great authorities; and we desist for fear of an undue enlargement of our treatise.

These same Bauddhas discuss the highest end of man from four standpoints. Celebrated under the designations of Madhyamika, Yogdchdra, Sautrantika, and Vaibhashika, these Buddhists adopt respectively the doctrines of a universal void (nihilism), an external void (subjective idealism), the inferribility of external objects (representationism), and the perceptibility of external objects (presentationism). 1 Though the venerated Buddha be the only one teacher (his disciples) are fourfold in consequence of this diversity of views; just as when one has said, "The sun has set," the adulterer, the thief, the divinity student, and others understand that it is time to set about their assignations, their theft, their religious duties, and so forth, ^according to their several inclinations.

It is to be borne in mind that four points of view have been laid out, viz., (i.) All is momentary, momentary; (2.) all is pain, pain; (3.) all is like itself alone; (4.) all is void, void.

Of these points of view, the momentariness of fleeting things, blue and so forth (i.e., whatever be their quality), is to be inferred from their existence ; thus, whatever is is momentary (or fluxional) like a bank of clouds, and all these things are. 2 Nor may any one object that the middle term (existence) is unestablished ; for an existence consisting of practical efficiency is established by perception to belong to the blue and other momentary things ; and the exclusion of existence from that which is not momentary is established, provided that we exclude from

1 The Bauddhas are thus divided is that ? That conclusion is that

into you never, even for the shortest time

(I.) Maclhyamikas or Nihilists. that can be named or conceived, see

(2.) Yogacharas or Subjective any abiding colour, any colour which

Idealists. truly t& Within the millionth part

^ (3.) Sautrdntikas or Representa- of a second the whole glory of the

(4.) Vaibhdshikas or Presenta- incalculable series of mutations. One

tionists. shade is supplanted by another with

* Of. Fender's Lectures and Re- a rapidity which sets all measuremains, vol. i. p. 119. ment at defiance, but because the

" Suppose yourself gazing on a process is one to which no measuregorgeous sunset. The whole western ment applies, . . . reason refuses heavens are glowing with roseate to lay an arrestment on any period hues, but you are aware that with- of the passing scene, or to declare in half an hour all these glorious that it is, because in the very act of tints will have faded away into a being it is not ; it has given place to dull ashen grey. You see them even something else. It is a series of now melting away before your eyes, fleeting colours, no one of which w, although your eyes cannot place be- because each of them continually fore you the conclusion which your vanishes in anot^sr." reason draws. And what conclusion it the non-momentary succession and simultaneity, according to the rule that exclusion of the continent is exclusion of the contained. Now this practical efficiency (here identified with existence) is contained under succession and simultaneity, and no medium is possible between succession and non-succession (or simultaneity); there being a manifest absurdity in thinking otherwise, accord* ing to the rule

" In a reciprocal contradiction there exists no ulterior alternative ;

"Nor is their unity in contradictories, there being a repugnance in the very statement." 1

And this succession and simultaneity being excluded from the permanent, and also excluding from the permanent all practical efficiency, determine existence of the alternative of momentariness. Q.E.D.

Perhaps some one may ask: Why may not practical efficiency reside in the non-fluxional (or permanent) ? If so, this is wrong, as obnoxious to the following dilemma. Has your "permanent" a power of past and future practical efficiency during its exertion of present practical efficiency or no ? On the former alternative (if it has such power), it cannot evacuate such past and future efficiency, because we cannot deny that it has power, and because we infer the consequence, that which can at any time do anything does not fail to do that at that time, as, for instance, a complement of causes, and this entity is thus powerful. On the latter 'alternative (if the permanent has no such power of past and future agency), it will never do anything, because practical efficiency results from power only; what at any time does not do anything, that at that time is unable to do it, as, for instance, a piece of stone does not produce a germ ; and this entity while exerting its present practical efficiency, does not exert its past and future practical efficiency. Such is the contradiction.

You will perhaps rejoin : By assuming successive sub-

sidiaries, there is competent to the permanent entity a successive exertion of past and future practical efficiency. If so, we would ask you to explain : Do the subsidiaries assist the entity or not? If they do not, they are not ^required ; for if they do nothing, they can have nothing to do with the successive exertion. If they do assist the thing, is this assistance (or supplementation) other than the thing or not ? If it is other than the thing, then this adscititious (assistance) is the cause, and the non-momentary entity is not the cause : for the effect will then follow, by concomitance and non-concomitance, the adventitious supplementation. Thus it has been said :

" What have rain and shine to do with the soul ? Their

effect is on the skin of man ;

" If the soul were like the skin, it would be non-permanent ; and if the skin were like the soul, there could be no effect produced upon it."

Perhaps you will say: The entity produces its effect, together with its subsidiaries. Well, then (we reply), let the entity not give up its subsidiaries, but rather tie them lest they fly with a rope round their neck, and so produce the effect which it has to produce, and without forfeiting its own proper nature. Besides (we continue), does the additament (or supplementation) constituted by the subsidiaries give rise to another additament or not? In either case the afore-mentioned objections will come down upon you like a shower of stones. On the alternative that the additament takes on another additament, you will be embarrassed by a many-sided regress in infinitum. If when the additament is to be generated another auxiliary (or additament) be required, there will ensue an endless series of such additaments : this must be confessed to be one infinite regress. For example, let a seed be granted to be productive when an additament is given, consisting of a complement of objects such as water, wind, and the like, as subsidiaries; otherwise ancadditament would be manifested without subsidiaries. ISow the seed in taking on the additament takes it on with the need of (ulterior) subsidiaries; otherwise, as there would always be subsidiaries, it would follow that a germ would always be arising from the seed. We shall now have to add to the seed another supplementation by subsidiaries themselves requiring an additament. If when this additament is given, the seed be productive only on condition of subsidiaries as before, there will be established an infinite regression of additaments to (or supplementations of) the seed, to be afforded by the subsidiaries.

Again, we ask, does the supplementation required for the production of the effect produce its effect independently of the seed and the like, or does it require the seed and the like ? On the first alternative (if the supplementation works independently), it would ensue that the seed is in no way a cause. On the second (if the supplementation require the seed), the seed, or whatever it may be that is thus required, must take on a supplementation or additament, and thus there will be over and over again an endless series of additaments added to the additament constituted by the seed ; and thus a second infinite regression is firmly set up.

In like manner the subsidiary which is required will add another subsidiary to the seed, or whatever it may be that is the subject of the additions, and thus there will be an endless succession of additaments added to the additaments to the seed which is supplemented by the subsidiaries; and so a third infinite regression will add to your embarrassment.

Now (or the other grand alternative), let it be granted that a supplementation identical with the entity (the seed, or whatever it may be) is taken on. If so, the former entity, that minus the supplementation, is no more, and a new entity identical with the supplementation, and designated (in the techrfology of Buddhism) kurvad rtipa (or effect-producing object), comes into being : and thus the

THE BAUDDHA SYSTEM., i 9

tree of my desires (ray doctrine of a universal flux) has borne its fruit.

Practical efficiency, therefore, in the non-momentary is inadmissible. Nor is practical efficiency possible apart from succession in time ; for such a possibility is redargued by the following dilemma. Is this (permanent) entity (which you contend for) able to produce all its effects simultaneously, or does it continue to exist after production of effects ? On the former alternative, it will result that the entity will produce its effects just as much at one time as at another ; on the second alternative, the expectation of its permanency is as reasonable as expecting seed eaten by a mouse to germinate.

That to which contrary determinations are attributed is diverse, as heat and cold ; but this thing is determined by contrary attributions. Such is the argumentation applied to the cloud (to prove that it has not a permanent but a fluxional existence). Nor is the middle term disallowable, for possession and privation of power and impotence are allowed in regard to the permanent (which you assert) at different times. The concomitance and non-concomitance already described (viz., That which can at any time do anything does not fail to do that at that time, and What at any time does not do anything, that at that time is unable to do it) are affirmed (by us) to prove the existence of such power. The negative rule is : What at any time is unable* to produce anything, that at that time does not produce it, as a piece of stone, for example, does not produce a germ; and this entity (the seed, or whatever it may be), while exerting a present practical efficiency, is incapable of past and future practical efficiencies. The contradiction violating this rule is : What at any time does anything, that at that time is able to do that thing, as a complement of causes is able to produce its effect; and this (permanent) entity exerts at tirrle past and time future the practical efficiencies proper to those times.

(To recapitulate.) Existence is restricted to the momentary ; there being observed in regard to existence a negative rule, that in regard to permanent succession and simultaneity being excluded, existence which contains succession and simultaneity is not cognisable ; and there r being observed in regard to existence a positive rule, in virtue of a concomitance observed (viz., that the existent is accompanied or "pervaded" by the momentary), and in virtue of a non-concomitance observed (viz., that the non-momentary is accompanied or "pervaded" by the non-existent). Therefore it has been said by Jnana-lri

" What is is momentary, as a cloud, and as these existent things ;

" The power of existence is relative to practical efficiency, and belongs to the ideal ; but this power exists not as eternal in things eternal (ether, &c.) ;

" Nor is there only one form, otherwise one thing could do the work of another ;

" For two reasons, therefore (viz., succession and simultaneity), a momentary flux is congruous and remains true in regard to that which we have to prove."

Nor is it to be held, in acceptance of the hypothesis of the Vaieshikas and Naiyayikas, that existence is a participation in the universal form existence; for were this the case, universality, particularity, and co-inhesion (which do not participate in the universal) could have no existence.

Nor is the ascription of existence to universality, particularity, and co-inhesion dependent on any sui generis existence of their own ; for such an hypothesis is operose, requiring too many sui generis existences. Moreover, the existence of any universal is disproved by a dilemma regarding the presence or non-presence (of the one in the many) ; and there is not presented to us any one form running through all the diverse momentary things, mustardseeds, mountains, and so forth, like the string running through the gems strung upon it. Moreover (we would ask), is the universal omnipresent or present everywhere in its subjicible subjects ? If it is everywhere, all things in the universe will be confounded together (chaos will be ^eternal), and you will be involved in a tenet you reject, since PraSasta-pada has said, " Present in all its subjects." Again (if the universal is present only in its proper subjects), does the universal (the nature of a jar) residing in an already existing jar, on being attached to another jar now in making, come from the one to attach itself to the other, or not come from it ? On the first alternative (if it comes), the universal must be a substance (for substances alone underlie qualities and motions) ; whereas, if it does not come, it cannot attach itself to the new jar. Again (we ask), when the jar ceases to exist, does the universal outlast it, or cease to exist, or go to another place ? On the first supposition it will exist without a subject to inhere in; on the second, it will be improper to call it eternal (as you do) ; on the third, it will follow that it is a substance (or base of qualities and motions). Destroyed as it is by the malign influence of these and the like objections, the universal is unauthenticated.

Conformably it has been said

" Great is the dexterity of that which, existing in one place, engages without moving from that place in producing itself in another place.

" This entity (universality) is not connected with that wherein it resides, and yet pervades that which occupies that place : great is this miracle.

"It goes not away, nor was it there, nor is it subsequently divided, it quits not its former repository : what a series of difficulties ! "

If you ask : On what does the assurance that the one exists in the many rest ? You must be satisfied with the reply that we concede it to repose on difference from that which is different (or exclusion ot heterogeneity). We dismiss further prolixity.

That all transmigratory existence is identical with pain is the common verdict of all the founders of institutes, else they would not be found desirous to put a stop to it and engaging in the method for bringing it to an end. We must, therefore, bear in mind that all is pain, and pain* alone.

If you object : When it is asked, like what ? you must quote an instance, we reply: Not so, for momentary objects self-characterised being momentary, have no common characters, and therefore it is impossible to say that this is like that. We must therefore .hold that all is like itself alone, like itself alone.

In like manner we must hold that all is void, and void alone. For we are conscious of a determinate negation. This silver or the like has not been seen by me in sleeping or waking. If what is seen were (really) existent, then reality would pertain to the corresponding act of vision, to the (nacre, &c.), which is the basis of its particular nature (or hocceity), to the silver, &c., illusorily superposed upon that basis, to the connection between them, to the co-inherence, and so forth : a supposition not entertained by any disputant. Nor is a semi-effete existence admissible. No one imagines that one-half of a fowl may be set apart for cooking, and the other half for laying eggs. The venerated Buddha, then, having taught that of the illusorily superposed (silver, &c.), the basis (nacre, &c.), the connection between them, the act of vision, and the widens, if one or more be unreal it will perforce ensue that all are unreal, all being equally objects of the negation ; the Madhyamikas excellently wise explain as follows, viz., that the doctrine of Buddha terminates in that of a total void (universal baselessness or nihilism) by a slow progression like the intrusive steps of a mendicant, through the position of a momentary flux, and through the (gradual) negation of the illusory assurances of pleasurable sensibility, of universality, and of reality.

The ultimate principle, then, is a void emancipated from four alternatives, viz., from reality, from unreality, from both (reality and unreality), and from neither (reality nor unreality). To exemplify this : If real existence were the nature of a water-pot and the like, the activity of its unaker (the potter) would be superfluous.

If non-existence be its nature the same objection will accrue ; as it is said

" Necessity of a cause befits not the existent, ether and

the like, for instance ; <f No cause is efficacious of a non-existent effect, flowers

of the sky and the like, for instance." The two remaining alternatives, as self-contradictory, are inadmissible. It has accordingly been laid down by the venerated Buddha in the Alaftkaravatara 1 "Of things discriminated by intellect, no nature is