Philosophy and Religion / J. C. Chatterji: Kashmir Shaivism

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

Kashmir Shaivism.

Part II. The Main Doctrines of the System. The Process of Manifestation

Now, the manifestation of such Universe, when regarded from the Trika point of view, is and can be but an expression of the ideas, or, more correctly, the experience, of Parama Shiva, the highest Reality, who is nothing but Chaitanya, pure and simple; and, as such, the process of Universal manifestation is, from this point of view, what may be called a process of experiencing out.

And if so, this process of Universal manifestation is, as is also obvious, the same as, or similar to, the psychical process in our daily lives of thinking and experiencing out, that is to say, of what may be called psychical Reproduction, (or mental Reproduction, using the word mental in the widest sense).¹ Technically the process is called one of 'Shining out'—Abhasana or Abhasa,²—and is in reality only a form of what in the Vedanta is called the 'Vivarta' i.e. the whirling or unrolling out, in other words, appearing in diverse forms. The only difference there is between the two may be stated as follows:—

The appearances are, according to the exponents of the 'Vivarta,' mere 'names and forms' (Nama-Rupa-matra) and can under no circumstances be regarded as Real in the true sense of the word, namely, with an essence in them, i.e., as part of them, which is absolutely unchanging and never non-existent. They are not essentially real because they are for ever non-existent in the Supreme Reality i.e. in Brahman, as the Reality in the Vedanta is termed—are never experienced in true Freedom, i.e. in Moksha, wheyein absolute oneness with the Reality is realised. And being thus non-existent in the Real, they are not of the nature of Reality in their essential character. Nor are they absolutely unreal, because they form d beginningless series as facts of experience in all stages and forms of existence short of Moksha, or that absolute Freedom and Independence which is constituted by the realisation, in experience (i.e. not merely as an intellectual conviction, a logical conclusion or a matter of faith), of one's absolute oneness with and as Brahman. The Nama-Rupas are—or rather Maya, of which they are but forms, is—what cannot have applied to it the predications of absolutely real or absolutely unreal, of Being ore not-being (Sadasadbhyam anirvachya).

The teachers of the Abhasa process, on the other hand, maintain that the appearances are real in the sense that they are aspects of the ultimately Real, i.e., of Parama Shiva. They are indeed non-existent in the Real in and as the forms in which we limited beings experience them. But they are not absolutely non-existent. They exist in the Real in a supremely synthesised form—as the experience which the Reality as such, i.e. as Parama Shiva, has. The appearances thus are essentially real as well. What in their essence and in the most highly synthesised form constitutes the experience of the Real cannot itself be unreal. For that would mean that the experience of the Real itself as the Real is unreal, which is absurd. The appearances therefore are not the forms of some indescribable, sadasadbhyam anirvachya, Maya, but real, Sat, in essence. ³

With only this difference between them, the two processes of Abhasa and Vivarta may be said to be practically the same. They are really one and the same process in so far as it is a process only—without reference to the ultimate nature of what that process brings about, i.e. of the 'appearances' constituting the Universe.

And as a process it may be described, if not defined, as that whereby products ore brought into manifestation from a source which, while giving birth to these, remains as unaffected and undivided as it ever was.⁴ Further, it is a process of apparent division, so that, when divided, the source, instead of undergoing any diminution, appears to gain in strength, substance and even volume, if such an expression can be used with regard to what is really beyond measure.

An illustration, in this latter aspect of the operation of the process, that is to say, the apparent strengthening of the source even when it seems to be divided may be found in that emotional expansion which has been so beautifully expressed by the immortal Kalidasa in the following lines:—

“That love of theirs (of King Dilipa and his queen Sudakshina) which, like the ideally loving union of a couple of chakora birds, had (hitherto) been resting only in themselves (the love of the one entwining round the other only, without a rivalry), although (now) shared with a son,—that love of theirs, in spite of thig division as to its object, only increased for each other." ⁵

Such statement may sound paradox and a contradiction in itself; but we all know that real love and other emotions not only show no signs of diminution when distributed and divided over an increasing number of objects but they only grow in volume and expansion, while the source from which they spring remains inexhaustible.

A Hindu philosophic thinker can also recognise, in the process of the growth and expansion of a vital cell, an instance of the operation of the Vivarta or the Abhasa. Here is a cell which is a sensible object with a something called life in it. As it grows and expands, it divides and multiplies itself. But how? Has there been a real division in the life also which was manifest in the first cell? If so, how is there no diminution in the life which is perceived in each of the new cells ? How is it that there is as much of life in each of the new cells as there was in the original one, if there has been a real division in the life itself? From the Hindu point of view the division is only apparent; and, although numerous other centres of life may be produced from a single centre, the life itself is not really divided but remains ever the same in every one of the newly produced centres.

These two cases may be regarded as examples of the Abhasa process in its aspect as production, or reproduction and expansion, without any real division.

But, as said above, Abhasa has another aspect also. In this aspect it is a process whereby, while the products come into manifestation, their source remains entirely unaffected and exists exactly as it ever was as the inexhaustible fountain-head of an infinite series of such products. The process of vital cell-division would be an illustration of this aspect also of the Abhasa, if we could observe the real source of not only the life we perceive in a cell but of all life. As however, this is not possible for all of us at this stage of human growth and evolution—it is the true masters of Yoga who alone can be said to possess this power of observation—we may have to seek elsewhere for a really satisfactory example of the Abhasa in all its aspects. But without being able to observe the source of all life, we may safely assert that even the immediate source of the life in the progeny—the vitality of the parent—is little affected when the offspring is given birth to, and that the reproduction of life by a parent is an instance, however imperfect, of the Abhasa process.

We should find •a good example of Abhasa in some of the recent findings of abnormal psychology, as it is now being studied in the West, if these findings were universally recognised as facts. The instance of what has been called the ' dissociation of a personality,' taken along with what has been named the subliminal self of a man, would furnish an excellent example of what is meant by Abhasa. For, in such a case, we could see how a number of 'personalities'—distinct individuals to all intents and purposes—is produced from apparently the one and only subliminal self which itself is not evidently affected in any way even when a number of offshoots, so clearly differentiated and separated off from one another, is produced from it.⁶

But what would seem to furnish a remarkably satisfactory example of the Abhasa, indeed would prove to certain minds its existence and operation in nature, may probably be found in the latest theory of Western Science as to the ultimate constitution of matter, when that theory is fully established and accepted on all hands. From what one understands of this theory, one would not be far wrong in saying that it is tending in a direction which would seem to point to the conclusion that perceptible matter will at last have to be regarded as somehow a product of a something which fills and pervades all space that we know,—that matter in its ultimate form is nothing more than maybe mere ‘places or centres of strain’ in the all-filling Something.

But how, even as 'centres of strain' only, can Matter be produced from this Something? The ‘Something' must be regarded as a Continuum and even a Plenum.⁷ It cannot be divided up and parcelled out, and a bit of it located here and another bit placed there, as matter can be. Nor can it, as a plenum and a continuum, really be changed—even if it be 'strained '—into some thing else, specially a something which is divisible and capable of allocation in disjointed sections of space, as Matter, its product, is. The production of Matter from the Something then must be by a process which, while bringing the product into existence, leaves the source of the product unchanged,—in short it is the Vivarta or the Abhasa process. Here then we have a remarkable illustration of what, the Hindu Philosophers mean when they speak of the Vivarta or Abhasa.

However this may be, what we have to note here is (a) that the process of the universal manifestation,— technically called Abhasa,—as regarded by the Trika, is one which, while bringing the product into existence does not in any way affect the source from which it is produced, the source remaining as unchanged as it ever was; and (b) that it is a process of only apparent division.

And this is so because the universal manifestation consists merely in an experiencing out, inasmuch as the ultimate source of the Universe is a Reality which is a purely Experiencing Principle, and as, there being no other ingredient whatsoever which does or can ever enter into the composition of the Universe, the process of production or reproduction on the part of an Experiencing Principle by itself is incapable of having any other meaning than the multiplication of thoughts, ideas, feelings and the like, i.e. having various experiences. The process therefore is essentially one which, as said before, may be likened to what may be called a psychical, rather a logical, process in our daily lives; and as such its operation is marked by steps or stages, which follow one another as logical necessities—each successive step following inevitably from the one preceding it, as the deduction of a certain conclusion of a particularised kind follows inevitably, in a rationally thinking mind, from certain premises of a general type. That is to say the operation of the process is guided by a law of logical necessity.⁸

And the way in which this law of a logical necessity operates, and the actual results to which it leads as the manifestation of the Universe proceeds, and how finally each successive result, when thus produced, in no way affects the preceding one or ones from which it follows, may be shown as follows.⁹

Footnotes

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