Mysticism

One of the major trends of Indian religious philosophy is mysticism. This term can be misleading, however, as it can evoke Western, and particularly Christian, notions of religious experience, practice, and ends. Nevertheless, many scholars of religion have long used such concepts to study Hinduism and to interpret it for Western students. The desire for union of the self with something greater than the self, whether that is defined as a principle that pervades the universe or as a personal God, is one sense in which Hinduism has a “mystical” dimension. Yet, while Hindu mysticism at one extreme is the realization of the identity of the individual self with the impersonal principle called brahman (the position of the Vedanta school of Indian philosophy), at the other extreme it is the intensive devotionalism to a personal God that is found in the bhakti (devotional) groups.

Most Hindu mystical thought displays four common features. First, it is based on experience: the state of realization, whatever it is called, is both knowable and communicable, and the systems are all designed to teach people how to reach it. It is not, in other words, pure speculation. Second, it has as its goal the release of the spirit-substance of the individual from its prison in matter, whether matter is considered real or illusory. Third, many systems recognize the importance or the necessity of the control of the mind and body as a means of realization; sometimes this takes the form of extreme asceticism and mortification, and sometimes it takes the form of the cultivation of mind and body in order that their energies may be properly channeled. Finally, at the core of Hindu mystical thought is the functional principle that knowing is being. Thus, knowledge is something more than analytical categorizing: it is total understanding. This understanding can be purely intellectual, and some schools equate the final goal with omniscience, as does Yoga. But understanding can also mean total transformation: if one truly knows something, one is that thing. Thus, in the devotional schools, the goal of the devotee is to transform into a being who, in eternity, is in immediate and loving relationship to the deity. But despite the fact that these are both ways of knowing, some consider the difference between them to be significant. In the first instance, the individual has the responsibility to train and use his own intellect. The love relationship of the second, on the other hand, is one of dependence, and the deity assists the devotee through grace. Thus, some theological schools emphasize self-control, while others stress devotion and divine grace. Still other teachers say that the devotee should not exert himself to control his mind; rather, with meditation his consciousness will naturally try to transcend itself and reach a blissful state. In fact, some Shrivaishnava theologians have said that one should simply consent to the reception of divine grace and not assume any responsibility in the scheme of salvation; others within this tradition have emphasized the importance of bhakti understood as active self-surrender to Vishnu and Lakshmi. The distinction between these two visions of salvation is illustrated by the analogy of the cat and the monkey. The cat carries her young in her mouth, and thus the kitten has no responsibility. But the young monkey must cling by its own strength to its mother’s back.

Philosophical sutras and the rise of the Six Schools of philosophy

The systems of the Six Schools (Saddarshana) of orthodox Hindu philosophy were formulated in terse sutras from about the beginning of the Common Era through the period of the Gupta empire (320–540).

The most important of the Six Schools is the Vedanta (“End of the Vedas”), also called Uttara-Mimamsa or, later, Mimamsa. The most-renowned philosopher of this school was Shankara (traditionally dated c. 788–820, though he probably lived in the first half of the 8th century). Born at Kaladi in Kerala, he is said to have spent most of his life traveling through India debating with members of other sects. The Shankaran system has sounded the keynote of intellectual Hinduism down to the present, but later teachers founded sub-schools of Vedanta, which are perhaps equally important.

Shankara was also responsible for the growth of Hindu monasticism, which had been in existence for more than a millennium in the form of hermit colonies. Inscriptions from Gupta times onward also refer to monklike orders of Shaiva ascetics, apparently living according to distinctive disciplines and with distinguishing garments and emblems. Shankara founded the dashanami, a closely disciplined Shiva order, perhaps partly modeled on the Buddhist order, the sangha. The dashanami, which is still the most influential orthodox Hindu ascetic group, is composed of 10 brotherhoods (dashanami means “those with 10 names”). Orders became an established institution with wider geographic affiliations. Some of these admitted Brahmans only; others were open to all four classes or even to women; some made a practice of nudity; and all are inclined to individual asceticism. Shankara is also said to have founded the four main monasteries (matha) at the four corners of India: Sringeri in Karnataka, Badrinath in the Himalayas, Dwaraka in Gujarat, and Puri in Orissa. Many followers of Shankara in southern India, however, aver that Shankara established a monastery in the city of Kanchipuram, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The monastic head of this institution as well as the abbots of the other monasteries control the spiritual lives of many millions of devout laypersons throughout India, and their establishments strive to maintain the traditional philosophical Hinduism of the strict Vedanta. In modern times, certain dashanami leaders have incurred criticism for their firm opposition to social change.

The theologians had to assume the task of explaining the relation between God, the unaffected and unchanging cause of all things, and the universe. According to the great South Indian thinker and devotee of Vishnu Ramanuja (c. 1017–1137), brahman (i.e., God) is a Person as well as the object of an individual’s search for the higher knowledge that is the only entrance to salvation. Because an absolute creation is denied, God is viewed as the sole cause of his own modifications—namely, the emanation, existence, and absorption of the universe. The universe, consisting of chit (consciousness) and achit (what is not conscious; this category includes matter and time), forms the body of brahman, or Vishnu.

God is conceived to be essentially different from everything material, the absolute opposite of any evil, free from any imperfection, omniscient, omnipotent, possessed of all positive qualities (such as knowledge, bliss, beauty, and truth), of incomparable majesty, the inner soul of all beings, and the ultimate goal of every religious effort. The universe is considered a real transformation of brahman, whose “body” consists of the conscious souls and everything unconscious in their subtle and gross states. The karma doctrine is modified as follows: the Lord, having determined good and bad deeds, provides all individual souls with a body in which they perform deeds, reveals to them the scriptures from which they may learn the dharma, and enters into them as their internal regulator. The individual acts at his own discretion but needs the Lord’s assent. If the devotee wishes to please him, God induces him, with infallible justice and loving regard, to intentions and effort to perform good deeds by which the devotee will attain him; if not, God keeps him from that goal.

Influenced by the bhakti movement, Ramanuja had admitted two ways of emancipation: in addition to the meditative method of the highest insight (jnana) into the oneness of soul and God, which destroys the residues of karma and propitiates God to win his grace, there is the way of bhakti. Those who prefer the former way will reach a state of isolation, the others an infinitely blissful eternal life in, through, and for God, with whom they are one in nature but not identical. They do not lose their individuality and may even meet Vishnu in his Vaikuntha heaven and enjoy delight beyond description. Among many followers of Ramanuja, however, complete self-surrender (prapatti) came to be distinguished from bhakti as a superior means of spiritual realization.

Authors of Shaiva Puranas established two ingenious and complementary doctrines to explain the nature and omnipotence of God, the existence of the world, and the identity of God and the world. A theory of five “faces,” or manifestations—each of which is given mythological names and related mantras—is of great ritual significance. It associates Shiva’s so-called creative function, by which he provokes the evolution of the material cause of the universe, with his first face, or aspect; the maintenance and reabsorption of the universe with his second and third faces; his power of obscuration, by which he conceals the souls in the phenomena of samsara, with his fourth face; and his ability to bestow his grace, which leads to final emancipation, with his fifth face. The five functions are an emanation of the unmanifested Shiva, who is the transcendent brahman.

The faces became the central elements of a comprehensive classification system. They were identified with parts of God’s body, regions of the universe, various ontological principles, organs of sense and action, and the elements. The system was used to explain how Shiva’s being is the All and how the universe is exclusively composed of aspects or manifestations of Shiva. In his fivefold nature, Shiva was shown to be identical with the 25 elements or principles assumed by the prominent Samkhya school of Indian philosophy. The special significance of the number five in Shaivism can be understood as a philosophical elaboration of the time-honored fourfold organization of the universe. (The four quarters of the sky also play a prominent part in religious practice.) According to this conception, a fifth aspect, when added to the four, is considered the most important aspect of the group because it represents each of the four and collectively unites all of their functions in itself. The system finds its complement in the doctrine of the five sadakhyas (five items that bear the name sat, “is” or “being”) representing the five aspects of that state, which may be spoken of as the experience of “there is” (sat) and which have evolved from God’s fivefold creative energy (shakti). In these God “dwells” in his aspect called Sadashiva (“Eternal Shiva”), which is regarded sometimes as a manifestation of and sometimes as identical with the Supreme Being.

Another Shaiva doctrine posits eight “embodiments” of Shiva as the elements of nature—ether, wind, fire, water, earth—and the Sun, the Moon, and the sacrificer, or consecrated worshiper (also called atman). To each of these eight elements corresponds one of Shiva’s traditional names or aspects—to the last one, usually Pashupati. The world is a product of these eight forms, consists of them, and can exist and fulfill its task only because the eight embodiments cooperate. Because each individual is also composed of the same eight realities (e.g., the light of man’s eyes corresponds to that of the Sun), Shiva constitutes the corporeal frame and the psychical organism of every living being. The eighth constituent is the indispensable performer of the rites that sustain the gods who preside over the cosmic processes and are really Shiva’s faculties.

Many branches of Shaivism having distinctive characteristics evolved in different parts of India. According to the idealist monism of Kashmir Shaivism, an important religious-philosophical school, Shiva manifests himself through a special power as the first cause of creation, and he also manifests himself through a second power as the innumerable individual souls who, because of a veil of impurity, forget that they are the embodiment of the Highest. This veil can be torn off by intense faith and constant meditation on God, by which the soul transmutes itself into a universal soul and eventually attains liberation through a lightning-like, intuitive insight into its own nature. Hindus who adhere to this group consider their doctrine a manifestation of the highest reality, Knowing Consciousness, neither personal nor impersonal.

The Shaiva-siddhanta, a prominent school of Tamil-speaking South India, assumes three eternal principles: God (who is independent existence, unqualified intelligence, and absolute bliss), the universe, and the souls. The world, because it is created by God (efficient cause) through his conscious power (instrumental cause) and maya (material cause), is no illusion. The main purpose of its creation is the liberation of the beginningless souls, which are conceived as “cattle” (pashu) bound by the noose (pasha) of impurity (mala) or spiritual ignorance, which forces them to produce karma. Members of this school see the karma process as a benefit, however, because they believe that, as soon as the soul has sufficiently ripened and reached a state of purity enabling it to strive after the highest insight, God graciously intervenes, appearing in the shape of a fully qualified and liberated spiritual guide (guru), through whose words God permits himself to be realized by the individual soul.