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

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

Hindu Realism

B—The Synthetic Aspect

Man—His Constitution and Achievements.

Man—How He Is Constituted.

3. And a consideration of the nature of man leads us to the next doctrine of the Vaisheshika. It is already implied in the analytic part, that man consists of¹:—

(i) A body and senses, which are produced out of the four classes of Paramanus and conditioned Akasha.
(ii) Manas, by the operation of which the awareness of the different things and memory are, on the part of the Atmans, made possible. It is eternal, but without any magnitude whatever.
(iii) The Atman which is eternal and infinite.

Atman in Man Is the Experiencer.

Of these three, it is the Atman which is the real experiencer and the Atman gains its experience of the world by means of the body, not immediately, but through the intermediate link of the Manas; without the Manas it can have no experience whatever, as without it there can be no awareness of things.

Atman as Agent.

And, as the real experiencer, the Atman must also be the agent of activities which are at least voluntarily performed.

Two-fold Results of Atman’s Activities.

As a result of these experiences and activities the Atman has produced in it:—

(i) Certain tendencies, faculties or character (Samskara).²
(ii) Certain potentialities of relation or moral worth (Adrishta).³

Samskaras—How Produced.

And the way in which Samskaras, faculties and character, are produced can be perhaps best illustrated by an example like the following.

Let us suppose a boy studies mathematics, say, Euclid, to be more definite, and becomes very proficient in it. Then, later on in life, he takes up, let us suppose, some profession or trade where he has absolutely no use for Euclid as such, and as a consequence forgets, say, in 20 or 30 years’ time, all that he learnt as a youth of Euclidean Geometry. He may even forget the very first definition. But he can never shake off the mathematical bent which his mind has received. This will follow him at every step, and guide and determine his mode of thinking. This bent, tendency or capacity, is what a Hindu would call a Samskara—a mathematical Samskara in this case, produced by his study of mathematics, of which the details may be entirely forgotten.

Samskara Is General Memory.

But what is this Samskara in reality? It is obvious it can be nothing else but a general impression, that is to say, a general memory of activities or experience as distinguished from their details, which, as in our illustration, may be entirely forgotten. But while the detailed memory, or memory of the details of experience may disappear, the Samskara as general memory is not gone.

And, as in the case of the mathematical, so in that of all other Samskaras or tendencies and capacities, they are produced by experiences and activities of other sorts and are the general memory of them as distinguished from their details, which may be equally forgotten.

So far then with regard to Samskaras as one of the results of activities. But before we leave this question we must take into consideration a few more incidental things.

Details of Experiences May Be Entirely Forgotten But Not Lost.

We have seen that when the Samskaras are produced, the details may be forgotten. We are forgetting details of experience every day. It often requires a great effort of memory to recall minute details of experience which a man had only yesterday. Thus while we are forgetting details always, this forgetfulness in some cases may be so complete that hardly a trace is left. That this is so in regard to details of experiences had as infants is obvious. As an illustration of such complete forgetfulness of the experiences of adult life take the remarkable Hanna case, as given by Drs. Sidis and Goodhart in their “Multiple Personality.” In this case every trace of memory of his twenty-four years’ existence was entirely lost by Mr. Hanna after an accident and he had to start life again as a new-born baby does, but with tendencies and aptitudes which were those of Mr. Hanna, as he was previous to the accident. And it was with the greatest difficulty that memory of the past existence previous to the accident was brought back, and the two Hannas—as the two separate groups of experiences may be called—were united into one whole.⁴

But that the memory of the past could be brought back shows that, though entirely forgotten, it was not absolutely lost.

Although there are not perhaps many cases recorded by European psychologists of such complete forgetfulness of the whole of the past, and its eventual recovery, examples are not wanting of complete forgetfulness of part of the past experiences, and their calling up to memory. Several such cases are known to students of hypnotism.

While these are examples from tho W'est, there are many in the East. All these show that:—

(i) The Samskaras are produced by experience and activity; and incidentally,
(ii) They are only general memory of the experiences;
(iii) The details of these experiences may be entirely forgotten, like the details of experiences had in infancy;
(iv) But because they are forgotten they are not lost;
(v) They can be brought back to memory;
(vi) Forgetfulness of the past experience, even when complete, does not prove its non-existence in the past; and finally,
(vii) They are retained in the experiencing Atman, as they must be, for reasons given in the analytic part.

So far then with regard to those results of experiences which are called Samskaras.

Adrishtas—How Produced.

As for potential worth or desert (Adrishta), that is, the second class of results produced by experience, let us see how that too comes about.

When a man is born be finds himself in a body of a particular kind, and in a certain situation and environment. What birth can really mean and why he finds himself in that particular body and that particular situation, but not in another, will be considered later. That he is born in a particular situation is obvious. Now, it is observed that, being born in a particular body in a particular situation, a man can, within limits, make his body and situation either better or worse. That is to say, he can make them more or less conducive to his happiness by acting one way or another. For instance, he drinks, and thereby brings on disease, and thus makes his body a source of misery for himself; or, he observes strictly the laws of health and keeps the body in good condition so as to derive nothing but happiness from it. Or, in regard to bis situation, he behaves in such a way that he makes all his relations, and those who surround him, most unfriendly to him; or, he renders services to them and makes them all helpful and grateful to him. While thus he can change his body and situation one way or another, if he chooses to do so, by behaving differently, the behaviour which would improve them and make them more conducive to his happiness and therefore better for him, together with the thoughts, ideas and feelings which will lead to such behavionr, may be called the right behaviour or conduct for him in that particular body and situation, and one which he should follow in that body and situation; while that conduct of his and those thoughts and feelings leading to it which would make his body and environment worse for him, may similarly be called the wrong conduct, which he should refrain from pursuing. In this way it can be ascertained which is the right conduct for a man in a particular body and situation, and which is wrong; and definite rules can be laid down so as to be able to say that such and such conduct, being right, would be conducive to his true happiness, while other conduct being wrong would produce suffering for him.⁵

While this is possible, and while there are cases where we may know absolutely which the right or wrong conduct is, we yet find that a man following it does not change his body or situation one way or another immediately. He may sometimes meet with results of his conduct immediately, but often he has to wait for them. Thus, for instance, a man may go on indulging in all kinds of excesses and yet may long escape the consequences. Again, although doing nothing but acts of kindness, a man may yet find himself surrounded by people who continue to be ungrateful to him, and make his life miserable, until, when he has waited for some time, he finds a change in the situation. Again, a man who is constantly cheating others, may yet for long find those very victims of his, his friends, until one day he is caught and sent to prison. Why the results of conduct for some time are thus postponed will appear later on, but that they do have to wait for manifestation is a fact. It is happening every day in our life, not only in one direction, but in all,—the results of conduct, right or wrong, waiting for fulfilment. But when the results appear, they alter a man’s relation with his body and situation. They may, therefore, be called the potential relations of the man to certain bodily conditions and situations, as distinguished from his actual relation to the body and situation which he possesses at the moment. This actual relation again may be said to represent what may be called his cash-value or worth, as, for instance, when we say: a man has such a fine or miserable body, such good or bad circumstances, so many friends or enemies, so much wealth or so much poverty, and so on. And if the actual relation to a body and situation is his worth in cash, the potential relations of a man may be called his worth in possibilities or, simply, his potential worth. And it is this potential worth which is called Adrishta in Sanskrit and constitutes the second group of results of experience.⁶

Thus a man is constantly producing by his experiences:—

(i) Samskaras, or tendencies, faculties, or simply character, on the one hand; and
(ii) Adrishta, or potential worth, on the other.

These results are had, as said above, really by the Atman. For it is the Atman that acts and has experiences and thereby produces Samskaras and Adrishta.

Meaning of Birth, Death and Life.

But of course the Atman acquires them, just as it has the experiences, when in relation with a body. But as any particular body is produced and has a beginning, it is obvious, that the relation with it, of the eternal Atman, (by means of the Manas), also begins.⁷

When this relation of the Atman, by means of the Manas, with a body begins, the Atman may be said to be incarnate. And while it is really the body, which is born, that is to say, is produced in a particular way, yet the Atman may also be said to be born in a figurative sense, meaning thereby the beginning of its relation with that body. Similarly, the death of the body may, in a figurative sense, be spoken of as the death of the Atman, meaning simply its dissociation from that body. The Atman being eternal can have no real birth and death, if by these terms are meant the production and destruction of a thing of which they are predicated. The Atman can only come into relation with and be dissociated from a body.

While thus the birth and death of a body, with which an Atman comes into relation, may be figuratively spoken of as the birth and death of the Atman itself, the period during which the body lasts may be called an incarnation of the Atman, and the latter spoken of as living during this period.

Footnotes

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE