Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only' (review)

Transcription

1 Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only' (review) Alan Preti Philosophy East and West, Volume 61, Number 4, October 2011, pp (Article) Published by University of Hawai'i Press DOI: /pew For additional information about this article Access provided by National Taiwan University (17 Jul :17 GMT)

2 clearly thought long and deeply about the issues raised. This book is a very welcome contribution to both the scholarship on Śaivism and to comparative theology or philosophy of religion and should be widely read and discussed. Notes 1 T. Gaṇapati Śāstri, ed., The Virūpākṣapañcāśikā of Virūpakṣanāthapāda with Commentary by Vidyācakravartin, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series no. 9 (Trivandrum: Travancore Government Press, 1910). 2 David Peter Lawrence, Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument: A Contemporary Interpretation of Monistic Śaiva Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999). 3 Śāstrī, The Virūpākṣapañcāśikā of Virūpakṣanāthapāda, p K.A.S. Iyer and K. C. Pandey, ed. and trans., Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī of A bhinavagupta: Doctrine of Divine Recognition, vols. 1, 2 and 3 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986). 5 Ibid., Jñānādhikāra Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of Awareness Only. By Sthaneshwar Timalsina. New York: Routledge, Pp Reviewed by Alan Preti Rosemont College In the Indian tradition, the identification of pure consciousness as an independent monistic principle identical with Being can be traced, as is well known, to the e arliest Upaniṣadic speculations. The general picture to emerge from these reflections on the nature of subjective experience and external reality, although far from systematic, described consciousness as the ultimate subject of all mental states, itself ever precluded from becoming an object; as a universal type, it transcends the p sychophysical complex constituting the empirical individual and the three associated levels of waking, dream, and deep-sleep consciousness common to all. Ubiquitous, pure consciousness is the foundation for the knowledge relation between subject and object: the field, if you will, upon which the relation between mind and world plays itself out. The mind (and the world revealed to it), while not entirely fictitious, is nevertheless an obstacle to the realization that at bottom the individualized consciousness (ātman) is nothing but the universal consciousness (Brahman). The realization of the ātman-brahman identity is the summum bonum of existence, signifying final emancipation from the mundane world and the beginningless cycle of death and rebirth. This characterization served as the point of departure for the developed accounts of the nature and function of consciousness found in classical Advaita and its subschools, as well as in competing systems of thought. The developed accounts themselves resulted from debate, both internal and with other schools, on a constellation of related epistemological issues. The disputations arose as philosophers sought to 730 Philosophy East & West Volume 61, Number 4 October by University of Hawai i Press

3 defend their particular interpretation of the Upaniṣadic pronouncements; in so d oing, the accounts of mind and world grew in detail and sophistication. Answers to questions concerning the sources of knowledge (e.g., what are the causes of veridical cognition?), perception (what is directly perceived in an act of cognition?), truth and error (how are veridical and non-veridical cognitions distinguished?), consciousness in general (is consciousness intentional or non-intentional; is consciousness a substance, quality, or an act?), et cetera, ultimately led to the crystallization of a remarkable variety of views on the nature of consciousness among Indian philosophers. Sthaneshwar Timalsina s Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of Awareness Only is one of the more recent contributions to a growing body of specialized scholarship addressing themes in classical Indian thought as divorced from their soteriological context. The book is the latest in Routledge s Hindu Studies Series, whose aim, in collaboration with the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, is to foster research that focuses on Hindu theological, philosophical and ethical projects aimed at bringing Hindu traditions into dialogue with contemporary trends in scholarship and contemporary society ( from the front matter). Specifically, Timalsina s interest is in providing an account of the central Advaitic doctrine of cinmātra, or awareness only the view that identifies pure consciousness or awareness, free of any kind of modality or qualification, with ultimate reality. The account is not a philosophical reconstruction, nor does Timalsina seek to defend the awareness-only thesis of consciousness against opposing views; the work is essentially an analyticalphilological exploration of the development of the doctrine at the hands of its many proponents from classical through later Advaita. While the thesis that accords ontological primacy to pure consciousness can be approached from a variety of angles careful exegesis of important Upaniṣadic passages, reflection on Advaita as a method for realizing Brahman, or epistemological analysis Timalsina s efforts are directed toward the latter, the study consisting of an examination of the broad array of arguments advanced by exponents of classical Advaitic thought regarding the nature, function, and scope of knowledge, and their bearing on nondualism. One of Timalsina s aims is to call attention to the diversity of the approaches adopted by the various thinkers in the tradition; Advaita, he reminds us, is not a homogeneous system, but is best understood as multiple threads that all coexist within the overarching philosophy of nonduality (Introduction, p. xv). The extent to which Advaitins differed, either in their particular emphases or style of a rgumentation, with respect to the defense of nondualism is brought out in great detail by Timalsina, and readers who may have been accustomed to classifying all Advaitins as belonging to either the Bhāmatī or Vivaraṇa sub-schools quickly discover how many of them simply cannot be characterized as such. Thus, for example, while most of the earlier post-śaṅkarites such as Sarvajñātman, Vimuktātman, and Jñanottama by and large develop arguments first formulated by Śaṅkara s disciple Sureśvara, slightly later ones such as Śrīharṣa and Citsukha forge new ground for the tradition by addressing problems raised by the Nyāya school. Nevertheless, the unraveling of the multiple threads making up the Advaitic tradition is a formidable task, and given the number of philosophers examined in this connection, readers Book Reviews 731

4 would have been well served by a chronological list situating them within the g reater Advaitic context. The book is divided into four parts. In part 1, Timalsina explores over the course of several chapters the positive account of consciousness (cit) as being (sat); the aim is to lead the reader through the thicket of arguments regarding the nature of cognition, self-awareness, and truth advanced by the philosophers mentioned above, to the establishment of consciousness as ontological ground. While the first chapter introduces the reader to some of the concepts and arguments recurring throughout the study, the second, third, and fourth deal with the themes of consciousness as selfaware or self-revealing (svaprakāśa), the singularity of the individual self (ekajīva), and degrees of reality and truth, respectively. Part 2 consists of a single chapter dedicated to what may be the most important epistemological concept in Advaita, n amely avidyā. Timalsina examines in some detail its function and scope within the tradition, showing how various Advaitins address the critical question of why the world appears to have a quite different status than that which it is claimed to have according to the doctrine of cinmātra. While the first two parts of the book deal with the positive case for the a warenessonly thesis, part 3 considers the way in which the refutation of dualism supports the Advaitic view. In this section, Timalsina canvasses a series of arguments rejecting both the concept of difference and the realist view of the independent existence of material objects, in order to buttress the position that the phenomenal world is a projection of ignorance. Part 4 completes the study with a comparison of the awarenessonly doctrine with the Yogācāra Buddhist view of consciousness. While Consciousness in Indian Philosophy is primarily addressed to the s pecialist, and will thus not serve as an introduction to the issue of consciousness in Advaitic thought, the advanced student will find it particularly useful, as it fills a long-standing lacuna in contemporary studies of Advaita in the English language. A work of impressive scholarship that makes extensive use of primary sources (with translations provided by the author), it will repay careful study on the part of the serious student of Advaita Vedānta. The contention that consciousness is the sole reality is not particularly selfevident, nor is it easily established. How, then, do Advaitins argue for the cinmātra thesis? Regardless of the differences among individual philosophers, as Timalsina points out there are in general two approaches: the positive case, which begins with the question of what is directly perceived in an act of cognition and ends with the answer that it is simply awareness that is so perceived, and the negative case, consisting of the refutation of dualism (p. 85). With respect to the former, classical Advaita elaborates on the epistemological role of cit, characterizing it as the sākṣin, the selfmanifesting consciousness that is present in all cognitions as a non-involved witness. As self-manifesting, it is known immediately, with no additional cognition being required to reveal its existence. The metaphor of light is often used throughout the literature to emphasize this point: just as objects are manifested by a light which itself stands in no need of external illumination, so does the self-revealing sākṣin manifest its objects (whether external objects or mental states). Thus, for any awareness of an 732 Philosophy East & West

5 object o (or proposition p), that awareness is accompanied by knowledge that o (or that p); second-order cognitions invariably arise simultaneously with first-order c ognitions. The account is essentially one that characterizes consciousness as selfreflexive, in the sense understood by a majority of thinkers in the Western phenomenological tradition. The reflexivist view of consciousness is typically contrasted with the Nyāya view that consciousness is a property of the self, which, because it is intrinsically intentional and non-reflexive, is capable only of manifesting its object. Thus, in a manner analogous to Leibniz s treatment of apperception and to contemporary reflectionist accounts, a first-order awareness cannot be known unless manifested by a secondorder awareness. How, though, is the latter known? If a second-order cognition is required to manifest a first-order cognition, is not a third-order cognition required to manifest the second-order cognition, and so on, ad infinitum? The Nyāya avoids the infinite regress by positing that a third-order cognition need not necessarily arise there must be a special desire to cognize the second-order cognition. In this way, the second-order cognition can perform its task of manifesting the first-order cognition without itself being known. The establishment of consciousness as self-reflexive facilitates the transition to the cinmātra thesis, although the latter is by no means a necessary consequence of the view; witness the Yogācāra Buddhists and Prābhākara Mīmāṃsās, for whom consciousness is similarly reflexive, and yet who draw very different metaphysical conclusions. Still, as Timalsina shows, despite the unanimity regarding the existence of the witness consciousness, Advaitins were by no means in complete agreement as to its specific functions, and the chapter on Svaprakāśatā illustrates the extent to which this was the case. After describing the views of Śaṅkara, Ānandabhoda, and Śrīharṣa, Timalsina shows how, by the time of Citsukha (thirteenth century), a variety of definitions of svaprakāśatā had gained currency, ten of which the latter rejects, until finally settling on one that underscored the importance for Advaitins of the absolute consciousness of the liberated state precluding the cognition of objects (p. 29). So far so good. But the picture that emerges from this analysis is quite at odds with ordinary experience; while it may well be that consciousness is transparent to itself, the reduction of the empirical world to consciousness seems a somewhat i mplausible move. Given the (apparent) radical ontological discontinuity between Brahman and the world, between cit and a-cit, it is obligatory for the Advaitin to account for the nature of the relationship between the empirical world and Brahman, that is, between appearance and reality. This is, of course, effected through the notion of avidyā. Typically translated as ignorance or nescience (which, as Timalsina points out, tends to minimize some of the nuances of the term as used by various thinkers), the notion of avidyā is central to the Advaitic defense of nondual consciousness as the sole reality. Ordinarily, ignorance is understood as a lack or absence of knowledge; to be ignorant, say, of Russell s paradox is simply to lack knowledge of Russell s paradox. But the emphasis on negation or absence in this interpretation is countered by the Advaitic position that ignorance is more than just the mere absence of knowledge, for associated with the acquisition of knowledge is the recognition Book Reviews 733

6 that one was previously ignorant of that knowledge. Thus, upon acquiring knowledge of Russell s paradox, I am simultaneously aware that this is something I did not know beforehand. Knowledge is therefore always accompanied by an awareness of antecedent ignorance, understood not merely as a lack but also as a positive entity that serves, in effect, to conceal knowledge. This position ultimately safeguards the ubiquity of the sākṣin, which manifests both ignorance and knowledge. This contention thus has significance both metaphysically and e pistemologically: metaphysically, it bears on the distinction between appearance and reality, for as long as one is subject to avidyā, which is beginningless, Brahman remains concealed; remove or destroy the ignorance that produces the empirical world, and Brahman is revealed in all its fullness. Epistemologically, it bears on how objects are cognized; veridical cognition follows upon the destruction of the ignorance that previously concealed the object. The critique of difference and of the realist account of objects that takes up part 3 represents the second approach to nondualism mentioned earlier. In the first of two chapters, Timalsina shows how Advaitins developed their views largely in response to the challenges posed by the Nyāya school. Beginning with Maṇḍana Miśra (eighth century), the rejection of difference as a category was the most significant argument in support of cinmātra for many Advaitins. The issue turns on the question whether difference (bheda) is something directly given in perception, as the Nyāya would have it, or whether it is a conceptual construction. Advaitins and again, Timalsina illustrates in great detail how individual thinkers differed on this issue argued that the perception of difference is a mental modification, an appearance resulting from avidyā. Accepting difference as an ontological category, whether as homogeneous (e.g., two things belonging to the same class), heterogeneous (two things belonging to separate classes), or internal (the constituent parts of a whole) was shown to lead either to an infinite regress, circularity, or self-contradiction. The upshot is that consciousness, because it can have no other, no homogeneous or internal differentiation, and cannot be subject to origination or destruction, must be one, unchanging, and free of all difference. Arguments comparable to those refuting difference were employed against the manner in which the Nyāya defined the relation between object and object-bearer (the viṣayin, or subject). In the penultimate chapter, Timalsina examines Śrīharṣa s and Citsukha s arguments pointing out the inadequacies of the definitions proffered by their rivals for example, as the causally efficacious source of cognition with a view to undermining their realism. Several points emerge from the foregoing account that bear on the ontological status of pure consciousness in Advaitic thought. First, cognition is always the result of a modification of the mind, which is itself cognized immediately. The implied transparency of consciousness guarantees knowledge of the cognition, and underscores the notion of consciousness as ever-present. Second, all cognition is accompanied by the destruction of the ignorance that was responsible for the concealment of the object. Lastly, the identity of perceiver and perceived through a mental mode punctuates the Advaitic contention that pure consciousness is the substratum of both, and that subject and object are, in the final analysis, non-different. 734 Philosophy East & West

7 Timalsina s study is rounded out by a comparison of the cinmātra thesis with the Yogācāra Buddhist view of consciousness (cittamātra or consciousness-only ; also vijñāptimātra or impressions-only ). Correspondences between the Advaitic and Yogācāra views of consciousness have long been addressed by scholars, and Timalsina does a commendable job of not just identifying the similarities and differences between the positions, but of teasing out the details of the Advaitic arguments contra Buddhists such as Vasubandhu, Diṅnāga, and Dharmakīrti. His account of Śaṅkara s criticism of cittamātra leaves little reason to think of Śaṅkara as a crypto-buddhist, as he was labeled by Rāmānuja, at least with respect to the nature of consciousness. Although Yogācāra shares with Advaita a general vocabulary and a host of concepts, consciousness for the former consists of a series of self-manifesting cognitions (vijñāna) that occur in the absence of both external objects and a substantival ego; it is, especially in its later developments, a form of idealism distinctly at odds with the Advaitin insistence on the provisional reality of the external world. It must be said that at times the book makes extensive demands on the reader s concentration, especially in some of the lengthier passages; in such cases, continuity is undermined and the line of thought uncertain. Another point worth mentioning is that while the dialectics of the philosophers are captured in great detail, some discussion of the wider historical context would have contributed to a richer understanding of the overall account (although Timalsina does make it clear that the work is not a historical investigation). Lastly, several chapters, and the book itself, could have benefited by concluding remarks that would have served to tie the overall narrative together. It may be that these shortcomings are the result of packing material of great breadth and complexity into less than one hundred and fifty pages of text; indeed, the density of the account is evident from the outset. And while some careful editing would have improved the final result, the problems are more than compensated for by Timalsina s depth of scholarship; as mentioned earlier, the work fills an important gap in the literature, making it unique among English-language studies of Advaita with respect to its range, technical rigor, and appraisal of the material. Timalsina has contributed a valuable resource to the community of scholars interested in the issue of consciousness in Advaitic thought and in Indian philosophy in general. I will close with some additional reflections. Given the growing interest in Indian thought within the Western academy, it has become vital that the material be made accessible to those unfamiliar with the territory. A comparison may be useful: seminal early twentieth-century historical accounts of Indian philosophy such as those by S. Radhakrishnan, M. Hiriyanna, and S. N. Dasgupta, while introducing Western readers to some of the particulars of Indian metaphysics and epistemology and remaining rich resources for the beginning student, bear the imprint and spirit of their time; contemporary studies, typically more specialized and often produced by scholars trained in both Indian and Western traditions, have done much to make the wealth of material illuminating to Western scholars. One reason for this is the crosscultural emphasis in many recent works; it is now common to find references and/or comparisons to both Western phenomenologists and analytic philosophers in the ef- Book Reviews 735

8 fort to facilitate understanding (one thinks of B. K. Matilal, J. N. Mohanty, and others in this regard). Thus, an account of the Advaitic sākṣin may include a discussion of Husserl s transcendental ego or Sartre s prereflective consciousness, or an account of the Yogācāra view of consciousness as having a form might be contrasted with G. E. Moore s account of consciousness as diaphanous. Similarly, describing the sense in which, say, Yogācāra can be characterized as idealist, Nyāya as realist, Advaita as non-realist, et cetera, has become a widespread practice in recent works. The comparisons serve to provide a context that increases understanding and suggests new avenues of research. And while Timalsina is certainly under no obligation to engage in comparative philosophy or, for that matter, to reach scholars unfamiliar with but interested in Indian thought it is clear that the fruits of the current study and the author s command of the material have much to offer in this connection, and it would be most welcome to see future researches by Timalsina engage the variety of issues addressed by contemporary cross-cultural philosophical studies. The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science. By Arun Bala. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Pp Reviewed by Sundar Sarukkai Manipal University When I first encountered Indian philosophy after having studied Western philosophy, two examples of comparative interest caught my attention. One was Saussure s theory of meaning through difference (which led to the vibrant traditions of structuralism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism). I was immediately struck by the stark similarity between this theory and the Buddhist apoha theory of meaning. The other example was that of Hume, and in this case I was amazed at the sophistication of the Indian philosophical discussions on the problem of induction compared to which Hume s analysis was quite pedestrian. My encounter with both these issues illustrated two problems in the history of ideas. In the case of Saussure, I wondered whether he had any inkling of the apoha theory and whether that theory had any influence in his formulation. Given that Saussure was a Sanskritist this question is not only relevant but also necessary. This is primarily a problem of origin of ideas as well as of proper accountability. In the case of Hume, the problem is that philosophy around the world is taught as if Hume is the first and last word on the problem of induction and causality. A cursory look at Indian philosophy will immediately dispel any such belief, and in fact suggest a contrary picture, yet this practice of not acknowledging the intellectual contributions of other civilizations continues. There are too many examples like these two and this fact demands an explanation. It is against this background that I read The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science by Arun Bala. This book engages with similar issues but in the context of the origin of modern science. It succeeds in addressing these questions in a far more sophisticated and rigorous way than I would have thought possible 736 Philosophy East & West Volume 61, Number 4 October by University of Hawai i Press