Questions on Indian Philosophy

[Bhadraiah Mallampalli]

My comments in layman's language are as follow. I am not sure what school
they belong to. Adepts in the field are welcome to match them to any of the
existing systems if they make any sense, or trash them altogether.

>First of all, just for the purpose of clarification, would you agree >that
>the central thesis in Mimansa is to rationalise and defend the >Vedic
>rituals, the performance of which leads to pleasure or >happiness ("sukh").
>Further, the Mimansakas identify this pleasure >with "svarga", (heaven),
>i.e. svarga is not something that brings >pleasure, it is something that is
>identical with pleasure. Hope you >agree with this.

1. taittirIyA upaniSat says "bhUritivA RcaH, bhuva iti sAmAni, suvariti
yajUmsi, maha iti brahma".

The word svaH is equated to yajuH, which is either a hymn sung by (or a
decision made in the ritual by) the yajurvedic priests like adhvaryu. svaH,
svarg or svargalokA can be both a lokA or a theological concept.

(svaH and suvaH are same, but svAhA is a different animal, which belongs to
the trio svAhA, svAdhA and vaSaT. I speculate this trio is a hair-splitting
division on svaH.)

2. taittirIyA continues..

"bhUritivai prANaH, bhuvaityapAnaH, suvariti vyAnaH, mahaityannam"

(udAnA and samAnA are some times ignored in the theology.)

The third item on both 1 & 2 above, namely svaH and vyAnA are now equated.

3. chAndogyA defines vyAnA as "a state when one does not inhale or exhale.
While doing difficult things such as speaking a word or lifting a weight one
does not inhale or exhale".

(The following discussion is purely religious in nature. Reader discretion
is advised.)

Interpretation: My attempt is not to go "out of the scripture" in this
venture.

Veda knows that logic (of all flavors) will break down sooner or later, if
it has not already broken down and you haven't noticed yet. (If you take up
advaita logic breaks down faster than if you work with other systems.)

So when logic breaks down or is prone to break down how to assess what is
the truth? There are many ways, and one of them, the favorite of veda, is
perception of vyAnA or svaH.

Just to give an example, after a person reads an email or a post, when it is
time to make an assessment about the contents and decide what it is about,
and how much it is worth; at that time one does not inhale or exhale. That
is vyAnA. Any trace of inhalation keeps generating new ideas in the mind,
and any trace of exhalation is a sign of exhaustion; both qualities are
unsuitable to make decisions.

Now if every occurance of the word svaH is a decision about truth, all the
preceding stories, symbolism and arguments before the perception of svaH
were necessarily meant to help the performer to experience vyAnA or svaH.

Now after reaching svaH the performer has a choice: whether to go for
identity with mahaH (which is annam or food) or turn back to bhUh or bhuvaH
with that food (it is usually bhUh but some times it can be bhuvaH). If the
performer goes for identity with mahaH there is no return except by memory
which pulls him back. If the performer returns without going for mahaH then
he/she enjoys that food which is then happiness (sukh).

> >Kumarila refutes various notions of an ISvara, but has a place
> >for the devas in the sacrifice.

>--> Ah, but the devas are mere names sounds which are connected to >the
>Vedic ritual, according to the Mimansakas. Consider a deva who >has a
>hundred synonymns used to refer to him. Now, the Mimansakas >claim that
>those hundred different synonyms are actually hundred >different sounds to
>be used while performing some Vedic ritual.

I am not into sounds, but at conceptual level, if sun has two names sUryA
and mitrA they are both different and not interchangeable.

>--> But, by claiming that Isvara oversees the fruits of karma, you >are
>violating a fundamental tenet of the Mimansa: the fact that the >rituals,
>by themselves, when performed correctly, lead to pleasure >or 'sukh', and
>this pleasure is itself identified with heaven >('svarga')

I see no conflict. The memory(smarAH) which draws the performer back into
this world and forces him to enjoy the food, (that memory) is itself the
default IsvarA at that time, and assumes all necessary qualities of IsvarA
(please refer to chAndogyA upaniSat's discussion between nAradA and
sanatkumArA: "memory indeed is brahman"). It is memory itself which started
the ritual to begin with, and it is memory which oversees teh fruits of the
ritual. You can substitute any other item than memory (starting from name to
prANA) and the mechanism still works as above.

If you are expecting a plain vanilla IsvarA who is detached from ritual but
you also want to see the ritual, life is going to be tough. Either there is
IsvarA alone, or a reduced version of that IsvarA (such as memory) acting as
a defacto-IsvarA along with the ritual. This is just common sense ofcourse.

So it is the ritual which causes happiness and IsvarA is perceived to be a
part of the ritual as long as duality is seen. That is the reason why ritual
portions don't even pretend to contain non-dual knowledge, though they are
full of it.

Regards
Bhadraiah Mallampalli
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.