DEIVATHIN KURAL # 112 (Vol # 5) Dated 14 Jan 2012

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 112 (Vol # 5) Dated 14 Jan 2012

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavaaL of Kanchi Kaamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from page No 698 of Vol 5 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
604. Upaadaana & Nimitta KaaraNa. We should clearly understand the meaning of these two words in Sanskrit, before we proceed further in the discussion about the difference between the view points of those who believe in the Existence of God and those who do not! Actually I should have explained this even before I talked about the differences between Adwaitam and some of these Vedic as well as Non-Vedic Siddhaantams, contrary to Adwaitam!
605. For a thing to be created or manufactured or made, it has to be from some basic material. For a jewel to be made there has to be either gold or silver or platinum as the basic material. For a house to be built you need bricks / hollow blocks / chiselled stones or some such thing. They make houses of bamboos in Mizoram. The basic material used is the Upaadaana KaaraNam. So the phrase Upaadaana KaaraNam can be understood as ‘Material Cause’. How did the brick become the house? The mason did so. How did the gold become the jewel? The gold smith did that. Here the mason or gold smith is the Nimitta KaaraNam or ‘Motive Cause’! Pot is the example used in our books on philosophy in explaining these two causes, in the coming into being of anything. For a pot to be made clay is the Upaadaana KaaraNam and the potter is the Nimitta KaaraNam! Using the material cause the one who makes the thing is the Nimitta KaaraNam.
606. For a thing like the world to exist, God is both the Upaadaana as well as the Nimitta KaaraNam, says Adwaitam. As per Adwaitam Jagat is a Mithya, which is defined as something that temporarily seem to be true but vanishes when you are aware and not deluded anymore! (May be the English word ‘Myth’ is derived from this Sanskrit word only.) Anyhow, the world which seems to be real in this practical and transactional milieu is known as ‘Vyavaharika Satyam’, meaning ‘functional truth and not real’! For it to be made or come into being there has to be some material (Upaadaana KaaraNa) using which some agency has to make or produce it (Nimitta KaaraNa). Adwaitam says that both are Easwara the God! If that were not so, God has to get the material from elsewhere, isn’t it? Then there has to be another world from which he has to get the material and the question arises as to who made that world!? That would lead to another God and become an endless loop or a vicious cycle. So, it is clear that the material cause and the intentional cause are both God himself for the creation, continuation and sustenance of all that is seen as the world and universe! God creates by himself, using himself as the material by Maya, as so many apparent and real, animate and inanimate things and life forms. This is all his play. The whole world is his dream world! Do we not see dreams ourselves? Is there any reality in it? Are we not both the upaadaana and Nimitta KaaraNa for our dreams? All the materials in our dream have come out of us only, isn’t it?
607. There are many principled viewpoints (Siddhaantam-s) like some which assert that there is no God (random chance), and those that claim that he is only the Nimitta KaaraNa and take the help of science to prove that the Upaadaana KaaraNa are the atoms of the atomic table of inorganic chemistry! Then there are some which treat some of the prophets as God! Adwaitam says that the cause, material, things and life forms including the prophets are all, the same one and only God!
608. Sankhyam says that God is not the creator of the Jagat. God is only the Gnaana – Awareness – Sentient – Being. From such consciousness, insentient materials cannot come into being, they argue. In reply to this view, AachaaryaaL says that, the root cause in truth has not created an insentient world at all. That is the Jada Prapancham (insentient universe) is not the eternal truth, but an appearance created by Maya, which resolves itself with awareness of its untruth! The physical world is also only a supposition. That is, as science says now, matter is also a type of energy only and so ‘matter does not matter’! As we imagine things, the root intelligence can imagine materials by itself. So, there is no contradiction or conflict between insentient matter and sentient spirit! So, our AachaaryaaL says that for the imaginary world there is a creator.
609. ‘Karta’ is a word in Brhma Sutra, which has been appropriated by Christians, as they call Jesus Christ as ‘Kartar’ in Tamil. Whether you call it Maya or imagination, for a world to be imagined there has to be someone who imagines it. This is the logic by which our AachaaryaaL countered the Sankhya views. He disproved the Meemaamsaka-s with the argument that, though action has an automatic reaction all Karmas do not have the same result and all efforts are not successful. So there has to be a Phala Dhaata or the adjudicating power, who takes all the observed and unseen factors into consideration. So the views of the Meemaamsakaa-s that there is no need for interposing an Easwara there, was opposed by our AachaaryaaL on the grounds that only an uninvolved omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent super brain can take all the interconnecting factors, that could weigh the actions and intentions, here, there and everywhere; then, now and in the future; into consideration and come to a decision and have the power to execute such decisions; call it God or Easwara or whatever you want!
610. Instead of further going into arguments and debates, our AachaaryaaL did his level best for inculcating, developing and spreading devotion in the entire society in the length and breadth of the country. He virtually ensured that there was no following for Buddhism and Jainism in the country. In the devotional procedures, he got rid of all secret, crude and cruel practices, making them noble, pleasing and satisfying; based on open, public and as per Mantras and Saastraas. He visited almost all the important Temples and enhanced their sanctity and orderliness. In many temples he installed divine Yantras to embellish the spiritual vibrations there. By writing such Slokas steeped in devotion, he enabled all the masses from children to erudite scholars to soak in the flow of Bhakti with melting hearts!
611. There are many Saastraas based on Tantras totalling some 64 of them meaning spells or charms. For each deity there is one Tantra, also called ‘Aagama’; though their literal meaning is Vedas only. But with a mistaken notion of achieving some esoteric powers, with a sense of accumulating super human powers for satisfying greed, people started some disgusting devotional methods. Our AachaaryaaL put a stop to all that by motivating people to adopt acceptably reasonable procedures as given in the Vedas. In the Tantra methods, there were three paths known as Koula, Misra and Samaya Margas. Amongst them Koula Marga was too independent unconcerned about Vedic practices. The Misra Marga as the name indicates was a mix of both Vedic and Non-Vedic methods. Our AachaaryaaL re-established the Samaya Marga completely as per the Vedas, setting aside the other two. That is how the Samaya Aachaara became synonymous with Vedic practices.
612. Then, Udayana Aachaarya who came after the time of our AachaaryaaL was an expert in Nyaaya Saastra, who using logical reasoning clearly established the existence of God and disproved the Buddhist lines of arguments as fallacious. The Buddhist’s ‘Nir-Easwara Vaadam’ was roundly blasted to smithereens by his book ‘Nyaaya Kusumaanjali’. He came on the scene immediately after the time of our AachaaryaaL and completed the balance job of his, in this respect in the relevance of the Bhakti Marga!
613. In the matter of the relevance of Karma Anushtaana, a major portion of our AachaaryaaL’s task in disputing and countering the Buddhist religious ways, was done by Poorva Meemaamsaka Kumarila Bhatta already. For AachaaryaaL Karma is only the first step for Chitta Suddhi. After such cleansing of the heart, mind, speech and actions, then you have to do ‘Gnaana Vichaara’ of trying to find the answers for questions such as, What is God, What is life, What is the purpose of existence and finally, Who am I?! That will lead to the Mukti / Moksha / NirvaaNa / that can also be called Self Realization / Adwaita Anubhava! So, as the Buddhism was not even letting the people take the very first step, our AachaaryaaL’s fight with that religion was only to that extent. For Kumarila Bhatta Karma Anushtaana was not only the first step but, the whole process, path or Marga! He was not interested beyond that at all. Gnaana is not required, Karma is Moksha, was his confirmed view point. So, he had more reasons to take up cudgels against Buddhism! He condemned Buddhism more strongly going deeper in to the whole thing as revealed by his Vaartikam on Sabara Swami’s Bhashya of Jaimini’s Meemaamsa Sutras.
614. Udayana Aachaarya countered the Nir-Easwara Vaadam of Buddhism and Kumarila Bhatta opposed their No-Karma policy, thus making our AachaaryaaL’s job that much easier, though they came on the scene some 50 years on either side of AachaaryaaL’s time. AachaaryaaL met him as a young man, in Kumarila Bhatta’s later years. But that story I will come to a little later. Here I wish to state only the fact that Kumarila Bhatta was our AachaaryaaL’s senior contemporary. 50 years before Easwara took Avatara as Sankara Easwara Kumara Kartikeya was born in the world as Kumarila Bhatta and had done enough to substantially reduce the work load to be borne by his Daddy, yet to come as an Avatara!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.