The Philosophy of Bhakti and the Significance of Hindu Image-worship (I)

Transcription

1 S. S. RAGHAVACHAR RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY The Philosophy of Bhakti and the Significance of Hindu Image-worship (I) S. S. RAGHAVACHAR I am thankful for this opportunity accorded to me for delivering these lectures in this great Institute on so elevated a theme as bhakti. I am not sure that I will rise to the full requirement of my subject but I will endeavour devoutly to go as far as it lies in me. I have to receive consideration in view of the exacting dimensions of its scope. The God of bhakti A simple but comprehensive statement of what bhakti signifies is necessary to start with. It is not right to equate it with prayer or service. Prayer may be merely verbal and petitionary, and service may be understood as a set of ritualistic actions. In normal parlance, it is often taken as a matter of feeling, the feeling being of the nature of interest in and attachment to what is taken as divine. Bhakti includes all these in its vital substance but is more, and that substance needs clear enunciation. It is a total mobilization of the resources of personality in a godward direction in adoration, with the conviction that the supreme value of life is attained therein. The familiar word worship seems to bring out the central significance. The meaning of the concept receives clarification in the light of the history of the philosophico-religious thought of India. The Upanishads except one 1 do not contain the word bhakti. But a fundamental constituent of bhakti is contained in them in the oft-repeated term upàsanà. This is devout meditation, continuous dwelling in the thought of the Divine. The other terms significatory of the same are dhruvà smriti 2 (steady recollection) and nididhyàsana. 3 This is meditative contemplation. The emotional ingredient is added, in what may be described as superabundant proportion, by the other classic of Vedanta, the Bhagavad-Gità. It is to be remarked that when the Upanishads extol the knowledge of Brahman they seem to be inculcating this intense and steady practice of the awareness of that ultimate principle. It is cognition consolidated into perpetual and ever-increasing affirmation. This transformation of knowing into meditation gets recognized in the Brahma-Sutra in the important opening aphorism of the fourth chapter. The Brahma-Sutra does not contain the word bhakti, but it does contain its equivalent samràdhana 4 and Shankara understands it to mean bhakti along with its subsidiaries. It is interesting to note that the Bhàgavata seems to derive the name of Ràdhà from àràdhana. 5 When the Gità mentions the emotional ingredient of bhakti, namely love, it does not allow us to take it as mere emotion, for it takes care to insist on the recognition of the Supreme Lord as constituting all in all for the devotee. Vàsudevah sarvam 6 is the formula for the highest bhakta. There is a further aspect of bhakti. It is the active or conative attitude of 6 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November 2016

2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHAKTI AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HINDU IMAGE-WORSHIP (I) sevà or service, 7 specifically posited in the Gità. What may be the nature of this sevà we shall see later on. But the point to note is that contemplation and love issue in dynamic acts of worship in the entire range of possible activity. Thus we see that bhakti includes dhyàna or upàsanà, sneha or priti, and sevà or kainkarya. The final point of this integrated process of adoration is selfsurrender by which the devotee offers himself to the object of worship in total selfdedication. This is sharanàgati or àtmanivedana. 8 Worship is an inclusive process constituted of these principal factors. Metaphysical presuppositions With this preliminary enunciation we may go forward. We have to enquire into the metaphysical presuppositions of bhakti, understood in the comprehensive sense of worship. The presuppositions are twofold. In the first place, there is a general presupposition. Secondly, there is a specific presupposition. It is necessary to bring them into relief for a fuller understanding of the philosophy of bhakti. (a) Worship, which we have taken as representing bhakti in its essence, implies a definite conception of reality. Worship would not be rational if the universe is looked upon in the materialistic or naturalistic way. The Divine to which worship is to be addressed must be superphysical or spiritual and a philosophy that rules out the spiritual provides no place for worship. If the world is looked upon as an aggregate of entities, either material or spiritual or both with no supreme or eminent principle surpassing them all, such a world also cannot legitimately provide for the possibility of worship. Only if a Supreme Divine spirit is a reality, the attitude of worship or bhakti can arise naturally. Neither Jainism nor Buddhism in their authentic original form can admit or foster bhakti in all its magnitude. The ontological certainty of the Divine reality is the general presupposition of bhakti. That point is so obvious that it need not be elaborated. (b) The second presupposition requires more argumentation. The reality worshipped should be truly adorable, to translate the significant word varenyam 9 of the sacred Sàvitri Mantra. It must be of a nature to command worship. It is not enough if it is quantitatively infinite, it should also be qualitatively infinite. It must be characterized by all the perfections constitutive of qualitative infinitude. The bhakti philosophers take a definite stand on the concept of nirguna. The word rarely occurs in the Upanishads. It can be easily interpreted as denying of God qualities constitutive of materiality. The Gità makes clear that nirguna just means the negation of the three gunas of Prakriti. 10 There is no rejection of attributes in their totality. The other words standing for nirguna such as nirvishesha or nirdharmaka in later Vedanta occur nowhere in the older scriptures. On the contrary, the Brahma-Sutra freely speaks of the guna and dharma of Brahman. 11 When the Upanishads speak of Brahman in a negative manner as in neti, neti 12 they deny the possibility of exhaustive description and sometimes they indicate its transcendent character. There is abundant positive declaration of the perfections of Brahman in the qualitative sense. The bhakti approach to the Godhead seems to require this qualitatively infinite object of adoration. It is true that the Vedantins pursuing the attributeless Absolute, such as Madhusudana Sarasvati and the great Shankara himself, sometimes resort to the bhakti point of view. Invariably in such circumstances, they are to be taken as meeting the demands of the yearnings of the spiritual aspirants of a lower level or they are altering the natural signification of bhakti itself. The definition Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November

3 S. S. RAGHAVACHAR of bhakti as the contemplation of the nature of one s own self, svasvarupànusandhànam, 13 is an instance for the later mode of deviation. Bhajana, upàsanà, and sevà cannot be easily fitted into such an elucidation. The attributes ascribed to God admit of some kind of classification. There are attributes that constitute the metaphysical majesty of God, described as His paratva. Infinite existence, absolute knowledge, absolute power, omnipresence, eternity, joy, and transcendence of the finite world are attributes of this category. Again, there are attributes constitutive of His love, compassion, and grace, which are collectively named saulabhya. Without the latter the majesty of God would be incomplete and with only these the substantive cannot be Divine at all. 14 Bhakti is no one-way process and the devotee s approach is assumed to evoke response from on high. Dayà stands for eternal and infinite compassion and prasàda signifies the individual acts of grace. Grace operates at many levels. It may bring about the selfrevelation of God, it may complete and perfect human effort in the godward direction, and it may crown such effort with the consummation aspired after. God is no passive recipient of worship but an active partner in the process, bringing the worshipper to fullness of fruition. It is inconceivable that we can think of bhakti without ascribing to God this infinite initiative and co-operativeness. The human cry, meagre and defective as it is, must be met by abundance of grace, almost irrational in its magnitude, for it proceeds not in accordance with the limits of the demand but in accordance with the limitlessness of the source. The Bhàgavata lays down the principle that the God of bhakti is utterly saguna. âtmàràmàshca munayo nirgranthà apyurukrame; Kurvantyahaitukim bhaktim itthambhutaguno harih. 15 Even those sages who delight solely in Paramàtman, and the knot of whose ignorance and passion has (already) been severed, are devoted to the All-powerful Hari without a motive (an object); for Hari is of such excellent nature and attributes. The problem about substance and attribute is faced squarely by the bhakti schools of all types. Other implications of bhakti So the God of bhakti is infinite in qualitative perfection. If this is the indication of the nature of God presupposed by bhakti, something needs to be said about the subject of bhakta, the worshipper. Bhakti is a deliberate and voluntary process of a selfconscious being and is a determinate configuration of consciousness involving the contemplative, emotional, and volitional resources of personality. As such no philosophy which explains away personality in terms, materialistic and mechanical, can fit into the phenomenon of bhakti. Further, it is an attitude which involves the awareness of the self of the worshipper as vastly inferior to the object of worship and exalts that object as absolutely transcendent and elevated, such that through worship the agent seeks to gain self-amplification and without that relation of worship, he suffers self-attenuation. This dualism of the worshipper and the worshipped and the elevated status of the worshipped as conferring significance and fulfilment to the worshipper are also ineradicable implications of bhakti. No philosophy which takes the finite individual as a distorted presentation of Divinity itself can furnish the basis for bhakti conceived as an ultimate element or stage of spiritual life. Hence the bhakti schools in general fight dialectically for the reality of the individual. But the individuality is not considered by them in a 8 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November 2016

4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHAKTI AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HINDU IMAGE-WORSHIP (I) pluralistic sense, and the individual self is held real enough to support the process of bhakti and is not exaggerated into independence so as to render the devotional adoration of the Divine an impossibility. They point to the untenable character of the hypothesis that the individuality of the finite self is an appearance or illusion, for such a misreading of the absolute self can only be the work of a finite self and the misreading itself is held to set up the illusion of finite individuality. Nor can the universal and absolute self be the seat or victim of the illusion in question, for the liability to such misreading of reality is an exact negation of the absoluteness of the self. What could run into errors can hardly be the infinite Divinity. What constitutes the uniqueness of God is His qualitative eminence and what makes the individual deficient and seek plenitude of life through worship is an ontological actuality. These two, the eminence of God and the individual s need of God, are ultimate facts for the bhakti point of view. Nor can the consummation of bhakti, the union of the worshipper and the worshipped, be a cancellation of the distinctiveness of God and the elimination of the personality of the individual, whose perfection the union is supposed to constitute. Philosophy of Nature From a philosophy with these ideas of God and the individuality of the worshipper, we have to see if anything follows by way of a philosophy of Nature. We have already noticed that the concept of physical nature as the all-sufficient and self-explanatory principle of the totality of existence is antagonistic to the philosophy of bhakti, for which both God as absolute spirit and the individual self of the worshipper are fundamental verities. There is an opposite view of nature, for which Nature is something undivine, an illusion or principle of Cosmic error that sets up barriers of differentiation between God and man. For man, on this view, to realize his inherent identity with God it is necessary to annihilate through enlightenment this illusory framework of difference or duality. This is the familiar doctrine of Màyà. The philosophy of bhakti, as we have indicated, does not subscribe to the doctrine of identity. It holds that the transcendence of God and the indissoluble individuality of the finite self are ultimate facts and as such Nature or matter is not a principle of illusion. Nature is no illusion except when its reality is exaggerated as all-constituting. Following the lead of the Gità, the bhakti schools in general propound the view that Nature is a vibhuti (glory), carrying out the purposes of God in relation to the Jivas, the individual souls. It is no doubt non-living but serves the living creatures in manifold ways in accordance with Divine Teleology governing their progress. It is appropriately named the value of soul-making, or in the language of the Gità, the field, kshetra, in which the soul has to cultivate itself to reap the harvest of its life. The nature of the individual soul is such that it has to grow into the fullness of its powers in the worship of God. But such an ascent to its natural destiny is a free process wherein its creative initiative should exercise itself. If an individual turns away from God and refuses to seek his proper selffulfilment, Nature intervenes to further his inclination. It, in its capacity as tamas (inertia or dullness), conceals from his vision the Divine reality. He is effectively protected from the supreme presence and allowed to proceed with his experiment of a godless life to its legitimate issue. Tamas is thus the mechanism of negative hallucination making the disinclined miss the Reality of realities. If the individual Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November

5 S. S. RAGHAVACHAR seeks as worthwhile ends goals other than God-realization, Nature in its capacity as rajas (activity or restlessness) functions as an activating and facilitating force in that self-chosen direction till the experiment reaches the point of corrective frustration. If an individual is groping after God somewhat, Nature in its capacity as sattva (balance or wisdom) furthers his upward march by carrying messages of the splendour ahead. Thus in the drama of the Divine goal and the finite seeker, Nature functions at different levels with appropriate powers so that the free self-formation of the individual can take place in the right sequence. The Gità rightly names it a yantra, a machine. The totality of the physical system falls in the domain of God as a part thereof and carries out His purposes in relation to the finite spirits. Its darkening, misvitalizing, and revelatory aspects are well placed in their operativeness. The operations are brought about by the initial impulsions of the varied choices of the individual spirit. It is easy to see that the scheme seems to combine the mechanism of Nature, the selfdetermination of souls, and the inclusive providence of Divine love. We have to leave the matter at that. We can also see that the rise of materialism and the conception of Nature as illusory are also accounted for. When tamas predominates the concealment of the spiritual and the Divine is a natural consequence. No wonder the materialistic philosophy exalting matter to ontological inclusiveness arises. Sooner or later that concept of Nature breaks down and tends to produce the hypothesis that Nature itself is an illusion. When rajas functions dominantly, a perversion of values, suppressing the divine and projecting a contrary and undivine scheme of ends as worthy of utmost pursuit, does naturally come into force. This is the illusionism of values. When sattva holds away, Nature transmits intimations of the splendour of Divinity. It is of the last aspect that Tagore is speaking in the following glorious passage: Surrounded with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness, which may be likened to Ravana s golden city, we still live in exile, while the insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements and claims us as its bride. In the meantime the flower comes across with a message from the other shore and whispers in our ears, I am come, He has sent me. I am a messenger of the beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love. This island of isolation has been bridged over by him, and he has not forgotten thee, and will rescue thee even now. He will draw thee unto him and make thee his own. This illusion will not hold thee in thraldom for ever. (Sàdhanà, Indian edition, p. 102) Such is the bare outline of the metaphysical position presupposed by the religious philosophy of bhakti. God is the ultimate principle, absolute in qualitative perfection, constituting the core and soul of all existence. The Jiva, the finite soul, is real and derives its being, powers, and worth from Him and attains the perfection that it has in it to realize, in an integrated adoration of Him. The physical world is neither unreal nor the whole of reality. It functions in subordination to the purposes of God in relation to the individual souls and their eventual redemption from the maladies of finitehood. Though the picture is not monistic in the style of differenceless identity, it is monistic as it presents the singleness of the fundamental principle appropriating the plurality of finites as an adjectival determination of itself, constituting not a limitation but a vibhuti, through which it shines forth in its boundless splendour. Vedànta Deshika, a distinguished exponent of Ràmànuja, 16 suggests two pictures drawn from the epics and Puranas to 10 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November 2016

6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHAKTI AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HINDU IMAGE-WORSHIP (I) bring out this conception of concrete monism. It may be likened to the ràsamandala of the Bhàgavata wherein Shri Krishna is all in all, with and around whom the gopis (cowherdesses who are His companions) dance in rapture. The unique personalities of the love-mad gopis are not abolished in the dance but fulfilled, and the reality of the Bhagavàn stands supreme and all-encompassing. The other picture is equally arresting and appropriate. It is that of Arjuna s chariot in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The chariot is there symbolizing the physical reality. Arjuna is there representing the entire realm of finite selves and the Bhagavàn is the towering, all-sustaining, and all-surpassing reality in the situation. There is overmastering unity in and through the plurality of tools and agents making their own distinctive contributions to the glory of the divine design. This seems to be the final metaphysical import of all the philosophies of bhakti culminating, we may say, in the Vishishtàdvaita of Ràmànuja and the Acintya-bhedàbheda of Shri Caitanya Mahàprabhu. Essentials of bhakti With the foregoing account of the metaphysical implications of bhakti, we may go forward to delineate the essentials of bhakti. It is perhaps necessary to draw attention to the pervasive influence of bhakti in medieval Indian religious history. Bhakti flooded all the religious movements of the period in the whole country and all the cults of the period devoted to the several deities of Hinduism are forms of the basic cult of bhakti. The philosophical systems other than the specifically bhakti-oriented systems also came to include elements of bhakti. One may mention Yoga, Nyàya-Vaisheshika, and even the apparently atheistic Purva- Mimàmsà. Yoga inculcated bhakti as an aid to samàdhi, 17 Udayana opens and ends his great Nyàya-kusumànjali in the spirit of upàsanà, 18 and Kumàrila commences one of his great treatises with devotion to Shiva. 19 (To be continued) REFERENCES 1 Shvetàshvatara Upanishad, Chàndogya Upanishad, Brihadàranyaka Upanishad, 2.4.5; (hereafter Brihadàranyaka). 4 Brahma-Sutra, (hereafter B. S.). 5 Shrimadbhàgavata, (hereafter Bhàgavata). 6 Bhagavad-Gità, 7.19 (hereafter Gità). 7 Ibid., Bhàgavata, Tat saviturvarenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayàt (Rig- Veda, ). 10 Gità, B. S., ; 1.2.2; ; ; 1.3.9; Brihadàranyaka, Viveka-Cudàmani, Vedànta Deshika, Rahasyatrayasàra, 23 (hereafter Rahasyatrayasàra). 15 Bhàgavata, Rahasyatrayasàra, Yoga-Sutra, Upàsanaiva kriyate.... (1.3). Prito stvanena padapinasamarpitena (5.20). 19 Vishuddhajnànadehàya trivedidivyacakshushe, S hreyahpràptinimittàya namah somàrdhadhàrine (Shloka-vàrtika, 1.1.1). * Formerly Professor of Philosophy, University of Mysore, S. S. Raghavachar delivered a series of three lectures on The Philosophy of Bhakti and the Significance of Hindu Image-Worship in March 1978 as the Institute s Romola Memorial Lecturer for Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture November