the so-called "double-truth"

[Steve Farmer]

Vidyasankar Sundaresan writes:

> [Aside, for Steve Farmer and Lance Cousins -
> Other early upanishadic texts that lend themselves to the
> Vedantic theory of two truths (or even multiple levels
> of truth) are 6th and 7th chapters of chAndogya upanishad,
> and the mUNDaka and prazna upanishad references to parA
> vidyA vs. aparA vidyA. In the upanishads themselves, these
> theories don't arise because of attempting to reconcile
> irreconcilable elements in prior texts. There is a clear
> consciousness that these are new texts, different from
> the earlier Vedic samhitA-s. Exegesis is not yet central,
> although new ideas are presented in terms of old ritual
> elements. It is only after 5th century CE that exegetical
> concerns become important, taking these very upanishads
> as the texts that need exegesis.

Clear evidence from the Brahmanas, Nirukta, and a lot of other
exegetical texts (including the Vedic Sutras) can be raised
against your last point, Vidyasankar. Exegetical concerns like
this were found in virtually every layer of stratified traditions
-- not only in India, but throughout Eurasia. This is also the
case in respect to Abhidharma and other Indian scholastic
traditions, of course -- not just Vedic sources.

Often the exegesis evolved in an adversarial way. Before rushing
off for the holidays, let me offer you the following vignette of
a MASTER COMMENTATOR and his SKEPTICAL DISCIPLE discussing
a stratified holy text. (The fact that the text was heavily
layered -- something unsuspected by either of them --
ensured that the text was loaded with contradictions):

MASTER COMMENTATOR: "It is written in the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS
that 'X is Y.'"

SKEPTICAL DISCIPLE: "But the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS also says, in many
other places, that 'X is not-Y.' How can the text contain all
truths if it contradicts itself?"

MASTER COMMENTATOR (after a restless night of exegetical
dreaming):
"It is true that the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS says, in some
places, that 'X is Y,' and in others that 'X is not-Y.' But
the problem doesn't lie in the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS, my ignorant
pupil, but in your lack of mystical insight. For the statements
'X is Y' and 'X is not-Y' do not refer to the same but to
different levels of reality -- higher and lower. In revealing
this, I speak of the deepest, most secret, of all
Truths hidden in the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS, which cannot err
or contradict itself."

Reality in such discussions was bifurcated, providing future exegetes
with even more difficult objects of hermeneutical analysis.
The problem became even more complex when the works of our
MASTER COMMENTATOR and SKEPTICAL DISCIPLE -- with all their
own contradictions -- became canonized. This left future
exegetes (and *their* skeptical disciples) with the formidable
task of reconciling the two with each other and with the original
contradictions in the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS.

The complexities increased by orders of magnitude when
the BOOK OF ALL TRUTHS belonged to an evolving
CANON OF ALL BOOKS OF ALL TRUTHS comprised of
hundreds of complexly stratified texts.

Harmonizing them all would undoubtedly eventually lead someone
to posit an even *higher* realm of reality, where all
distinctions between "X" and "Y," and even "not-X" and "not-Y,"
were eradicated. At this point, the claim would emerge that the
very essence of the spiritual lay in the realm of paradox -- far
beyond ordinary human understanding.

Such concepts could be expected to start to evolve as soon as
the complexity of a canon (measured by its levels of internal
contradiction) required it. We begin seeing the first extensive
indications of this development by the 4th century
BCE in the Middle East, Greece, India, and China -- when
paradoxical concepts of many sorts started popping up all
through Eurasia. (You can also find earlier
paradoxes like this in later strata of the far more ancient
Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, arising from similar commentarial
mechanisms. For neat examples, see, e.g., some of the wonderful
materials expressed in the famous 42nd chapter of the Book.
Unfortunately, since the Bk of the Dead wasn't meant to be
read by humans but by the gods -- they wrapped dead bodies in
it -- scholasticism didn't develop far in ancient Egypt!)

In sum: exegetical processes led universally to many variations
of "double truths." The process was convergent: transmission
certainly occurred in certain cases, but it wasn't needed.
Nothing special here existed in either Vedic or Buddhist
traditions -- witnessed by the fact that similar developments
occurred all over the Old World. For comparative purposes --
even regarding dates -- the Buddhist example should be compared
closely with the development of Daoism. The dependence on
exegetical processes in the emergence of pardoxical concepts
in the latter tradition has recently become clearer following
the discovery of the Mawangdui and Guodian tomb texts of the
the Laozi.

Imagine repeated discussions like those of our MASTER COMMENTATOR
and SKEPTICAL DISCIPLE -- involving untold thousands of
commentators -- through many centuries of layered traditions.
The abstract byproducts embedded in the resulting
scholastic traditions would be similar no matter where the
discussion took place -- and no matter what the contents
of "X" or "Y," nor in which of the many BOOKS OF ALL TRUTHS
or CANONS OF ALL BOOKS OF ALL TRUTHS they were found in.

And with that, a happy Saturnalia to Vidyasankar and all other
Indology exegetes, one and all! :^)

Steve Farmer