Philosophy and Religion / J. C. Chatterji: Hindu Realism

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

Hindu Realism

B—The Synthetic Aspect

Alternation of the Universal Manifestation.

A Beginningless and Endless Series of Universes, All Linked Together Causally. How the Essences of the Universe Alternate Between Phases of Chaos and Cosmos.

7. Then again, if the Universe, as it exists to-day, has been created as the result of moral worth on the part of the Atmans, it must also come to an end some day. For the Universe as a whole exists for the experience of the highest being, (that is Brahma, not Brahman, as such a being occupying this position is called in Sanskrit), and as such it is merely the actualisation of his worth.¹ But worth, being acquired, must come to an end some day, for nothing that is acquired as the direct result of activities can possibly be unlimited. The worth of Brahma, therefore, must also come to an end; and when it ends, the Universe, which exists merely as the actualisation of this worth, will also come to an end.

But if the present Universe ends, there will arise another Universe in its place and out of the ruins of this one. For beings are acquiring worth in this Universe as well and some one of them stands, in the universal hierarchy, next to the present Brahma. And when the present Universe perishes, much of this worth is bound to remain still unactualised, just as, in the case of an individual man, much of his worth remains still potential when he dies. And the potential and unrealised worth of the present Universe as a whole, as well as of the being standing next to the present Brahma, or, of the present Brahma himself, if his new worth would still permit him to occupy that position, must be actualised some day when the proper time and opportunity occurs. And when it is actualised, another Universe will follow.

But if this Universe will be succeeded by another as a result of the worths acquired in it, it must be concluded that the present Universe itself came into existence only as a successor of a past one, in which the present Brahma, and other beings, had acquired their respective worths.²

Similarly, the predecessor of the present Universe must have been preceded by another; and so on without a beginning.

Nor need we think that this series of Universes will ever come to an end. For there is no reason to suppose that the number of Atmans is finite. And if they are not finite, that is to say, if they are infinite in number, then the flow of the Universes will go on for ever, even though some of them may and even actually do, as we shall see, cease to have Adrishtas and therewith the necessity of having experience and existence in specific forms.

Thus the series of Universes must be infinite, beginningless and endless.

In this infinite series, the successive Universes being the inevitable results of worths acquired in preceding ones, it also follows, that the series is held together by an inexorable law of cause and sequence.

Following this sure and certain law of cause and effect, a Universe or orderly arrangement of things, i.e., a cosmos, comes into existence, out of what may be called chaotic and formless ingredients, and is again dissolved into the same chaotic and formless state, only to be succeeded by a new cosmic form. Or, as it may be stated: the ingredients are eternally alternating between the phases of a Chaos and a Cosmos. And if for ingredients we substitute Energy, and for chaotic and formless state, a potential phase, and for Cosmos a phase of explication, then this ancient Hindu teaching finds a strange corroboration in the words of Huxley, who says:—

“The faith which is born of knowledge finds its object in an eternal order, bringing forth ceaseless change, through endless time, in endless space; the manifestations of cosmic energy alternating between phases of potentiality and phases of explication. It may be that, as Kant suggests, every cosmic magma predestined to evolve into a new world, has been the no less predestined end of a vanished predecessor.”³

In this process of alternation on the part of the universal Energy or ingredients, a complete period of explication, together with that of the following potential phase, is technically called a ‘Kalpa’ (lit. Imagining or thinking), and its two phases Srishti and Pralaya, i.e. Creation and Dissolution, respectively.⁴ | ⁵

And these periods succeed one another by virtue of Kala, as seasons follow one after the other; as men are horn, die and are born again; as they wake up and sleep; and as heavenly bodies whirl around in orbits, and occupy the same postions in the all-pervading Akasha again and again and in ceaseless succession.⁶

Finally it is Dik which, when things are created, holds them in their relative positions as Kala urges them on.

In this way the Universe goes on and on, and for ever and ever, its essence alternating eternally between ‘phases of explication ’ and ‘phases of potentiality.’

Footnotes

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE