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Refutation of Advaita:Kumarila
Aug 6 2007 | Views 104 |
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Kumarila Bhatta (circa 7th century A.D.) is the outstanding representative of the Purva-Mimansa philosophy, often referred to simply as Mimansa; strangely enough, the Mimansa is also known by another name, namely Yajna-vidya, meaning 'knowledge of the Vedic ritual'. Such a name tells its own story. The ancient Vedic ritual or yajna is the be all and end all of this philosophy. Its purpose, in other words, is to rationalse and defend not only the fundamental assumptions of the performance of the Vedic rituals but also everything that is directly or indirectly connected with them--the ritual injunctions, the ritual acts, the spells and implements, the fee for the priests employed to perform the rituals and so on.
Further, since the possibility of even the slightest doubt about the validity of the Veda is ruinous for the Mimansakas, they argue that the Veda is absolutely valid. Not to speak of any human author of the Veda, they even deny any divine author of the Veda. The Mimansakas argue that the Veda is absolutely valid on its own strength or its own right. This is the genesis of their famous view of 'intrinsic validity' or svatah-pramanya.
The appaling orthodoxy and conservatism of the Mimansa philosophy is thus quite obvious. Peculiarly enough, the same philosophy takes a very radical stand particularly in refutation of idealism whose ablest representatives in the later history of Indian philosophy are the Advaita Vedantists. To explain this, i must digress.
As far as the general claim of the absolute validity of the Veda is concerned, there is no difference between Mimansa and Advaita Vedanta. And yet the Advaita is as uncompromising a defence of philosophical idealism as the Mimansa stands for its rejection. How is this possible? The answer is that inspite of the claim of being equally based on the scriptural authority of the Veda, the two philosophies do not refer to the same thing by the Veda. The traditional way of explaining this is that the Mimansa takes its stand on the karma kanda or ritual branch of the Veda, while the Advaita Vedanta is the outcome of its jnana-kanda or knowledge branch.
This means that despite all the verbose veneration for the Veda expressed by both Mimansa and Advaita, none of these two Vedic philosophies par excellence actually bothers to work out a philosophical view based on a comprehensive understanding of the contents of the Vedic literature. For all practical purposes the contents of the Rig Veda--assumed by the whole Vedic orthodoxy itself as forming the very basis of the whole of the Veda--is ignored by both. For the Mimansakas the Rig Veda is virtually nothing more than a bundle of ritual spells, important simply because of the sound these convey and not at all for what these really or literally mean. For the Advaita Vedantists also, Rig Veda is virtually non-existent beyong of course the veneration expressed for its name and beyond perhaps the few scraps of this vast literature which are quoted--invariably out of their original context--in the Upanisads.
Thus ignoring the actual contents of Rig Veda, just as the Advaita Vedantists concentrate almost exclusively on one trend of speculations recorded in the Upanisads, the Mimansakas take their stand on those portions of the Vedic literature that are directly concerned with the rituals i.e. concretely on the Brahmana literature in particular.
I will mention only one example to illustrate the point i am trying to make.
The Maitri Upanisad declares (iv.2),
indrajalamiva mayamayam svapna iva mithyadarsanam:The experience of this false world is a mere illusion like that of the magic show, it is like a dream.
indrajalamiva mayamayam svapna iva mithyadarsanam:The experience of this false world is a mere illusion like that of the magic show, it is like a dream.
This brief formulation determined in an important sense the subsequent development of the Advaita. All Advaitins follow the Upanisadic suggeston and try to explain away the reality of the material world and reduce our normal experience of it to the status of a dream and illusory experience.
But Kumarila obviously does not subscribe to this nonsense. Although he never criticises the Upanisads directly, it is obvious that he cares two hoots about what the Maitri Upanisad says with respect to the unreality of the external world. I quote Kumarila (from 'Sloka Vartika' niralambana-vada, 11-13, translator Sir Ganganath Jha). In what follows, words in square brackets are mine:
According to the theory [of idealists like the Advaitins], all experiences are like experiences of a dream. And it is for the refutation of this theory that we seek to prove the reality of the external things. It cannot be for the mere pleasures of a dream that people engage themselves to the performance of dharma or the religious duty [for which the Mimansakas simply means the performance of the Vedic ritual]. Since dream comes to a man spontaneously during sleep, [on the idealist assumption] the wise man would, instead of performing the rituals, lie down quietly when desirous of obtaining the real results. Therefore, we must try our very best to establish by argument the view that external objects are real.
The Advaitins have concocted a number of fictitious stories about Kumarila. It is claimed by them that Sankar personally met Kumarila, and according to one version of the story, defeated Kumarila in a theoretical debate. This is apparently absurd since the dates of Sankar are given as being born in A.D. 788 (and then dying at age 32), while Kumarila is placed in the seventh century A.D. Incidentially, besides this concoction, the Advaitins are also guilty of other wild concoctions like the claim that Adi Sankar wrote his famous commentary on the Vedanta sutra when he was only twelve (12) years old and further that Adi Sankar was an incarnation of Lord Shiva.
The writings of Sankar and Kumarila, too, give us the inevitable impression that as a thinker or logician, Kumarila must have been immensely superior to Sankar. Even if any philosophical debate between the two could actually have taken place, Sankar did not have even a remote chance of defeating Kumarila. Sankar's real merit is a lucid literally style and he must have borrowed from Kumarila those arguments which suited his purpose.
© Rashmun., all rights reserved.
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