THE ANALOGIES IN GITA.

    Analogy is very largely used in the elucidation and explanation of various principles in Oriental philosophy, and with more or less effect. In most cases they serve a very important function, and may truths there are, which by reason of their dealing with the ultimate existences can alone be demonstrated by such analogies and not by any other kind of proof. In the use of such analogies there are great dangers also and the analogy may look so plausible that one is apt to be carried away by it, without noting the inherent flaw in it and which a little closer investigation will clearly bring out. Care should, however, be taken to distinguish between analogies which are merely similes or metaphors, based on a mere semblance, and intended merely to bring home to our minds, the subject matter in a more impressive and clearer light, and analogies strictly so-called intended as proof. In the latter case, mere semblance alone will not do, and there must be sameness in the various parts of the illustration and the thing illustrated. Neglect of this rule often leads to great confusion and error in thought. If for the particular inference desired, the antecedents conform to the antecedents in the analogy, the inference will be quite justified if it conforms to the consequence in the analogy; and it would be simply illogical to strain the illustration to other purposes and to extremes. Analogy at best is but an indifferent kind of proof and where we do not take the proper precautions in using it, its value in philosophic argument will be almost nothing. Another source of error in the use of analogies by Indian writers is the brevity of expressions which is characteristic of such analogies as we meet them in some of the most ancient books. Where the analogy is taken literally without supplying the necessary parts and ellipses, they cannot but lead one astray.

    There is one school of philosophers in India, who are inordinately fond of these similes and who at almost every step seek the aid of a simile to help them out of their position; and these similes have now only become too much hackneyed and they pass from mouth to mouth, and even educated persons repeat them parrot-like, who would easily find out the fallacy, if the matter is only put before them for a moment. We expected at least those learned in the lore of the West to explain their subject instead of building all their argument on the strength of these doubtful similes and in this respect, even European scholars are not without reproach. For what shall we say of a scholar like Dr. Paul Deussen, if he gives expression to the following false analogy? Says he, "And then for him, when death comes, no more Samsara. He enters into Brahman, like streams into the ocean; he leaves behind him nama and rupam, he leaves behind him individuality; but he does not leave behind him his Atman, his Self. It is not the falling of the drop into the infinite ocean, it is the whole ocean, becoming free from the fetters of ice, returning from its frozen state to that what it is really and has never ceased to be, to its own all pervading, eternal, almighty nature." In these few lines he crowds together as many fallacies as there are words in it, and we have neither the time nor patience to indicate all of them. We will however point out the most glaring of them. The Soul returning from its migrations to its resting place, its final goal was the stream returning to the bosom of the mighty ocean. When the stream joins the ocean, it loses its name and form? Does it really do so, and if it did what of that, how is it in any way changed? What we generally call a stream is a small body of water flowing between two banks. The water by itself without its local connection cannot be called the stream. The moment the water leaves its local connection, it ceases to be called stream. So it is not really the stream that flows into the ocean but that the water of the stream flowed into and mixed with the water of the ocean. What makes really the difference between the ocean and the stream is the difference in the largeness and smallness of the respective bodies and the largeness and smallness of the receptacle. The water in either receptacle is acted on by the sun and wind, is tempest-tossed and discolored and made muddy. The juggle by which the learned Doctor converts the stream water, nay a drop, into a mighty ocean is not manifest in the illustration. The drop or the stream water is the drop or the stream water in the bosom of the ocean though, for the time being, we are unable to distinguish its identity. When the identity is lost, its individuality is not seen, is lost in a sense also. The water remains as water and has not lost its nama and rupa, thought this water gets other names by other accidents. It is the accident that determines the more specific name and we will have to enquire how the thing acquired this accident or became parted from it. Then we come to the figure of the frozen ocean and the free ocean. Here is a jump from one figure to another. The bound soul was formerly the stream, and the freed soul the ocean. In either case, we observed above, the two bodies of water were subject to the same changeability and disabilities except that one was larger than the other. Now, the bound soul is the frozen ocean and the freed soul is the ocean after it had thawed. And the learned Doctor speaks of the fetters of ice. What does it matter to the ocean whether it was in a frozen condition or otherwise? How does it cease to be almighty, all-pervading and eternal when it is frozen than when it was not? One would think that if the ocean's wishes were to be consulted it would much better like to be frozen than not, as it would not be subjected to the mercy of the Wind, and the Sun and the Moon. Water is water whether it remains a liquid or a gas or a solid substance. And it would be mere rhetoric to ascribe fetters to it. And this fetter is real or fancied, either an evil or a good. If real and an evil, how did this fetter happen to be put on. If not, why try to get rid of the fetter. The fetter was put on by the ocean's own will or by another will more powerful still. If the ocean put it on by its own will, it may do so again, and there is no inducement for anybody to try to get rid of this fetter, and "the strongest support of pure morality, the greatest consolation in the sufferings of life and death," would surely be undermined. If by another's will, who is the greater than this Atman; no doubt the Paramatman, which ends in veritable dualism. In the case of the ocean itself, it did not become frozen by its own will or power. As water, its nature is unstable and changeable, and the change is brought about by other causes. If we apply heat to it, its liquid condition disappears and it becomes a gas. Withdraw the heat, and the more you do it, the water becomes more solid, and in the arctic regions, where the sun, thousands of times more powerful than the ocean water, is altogether absent for several months the water gets affected by cold and darkness, and gets fettered in ice. The learned Doctor failed to take stock of the antecedent agent, in the freezing or otherwise of the ocean, namely the sun, and hence his error. The Siddhantis take the water whether it be that of the ocean or that of the smallest rill as analogous to the Soul and the universal Akas present both in the water of the stream and that of the ocean as the Parameshvara and Paramatman, the universal Supporter, and all-Pervader; and the Glorious Sun is also God, whose Panchakritya is also felt on the ocean and stream water, in its making and increasing and dissolving, and under whose powerful Sakti the minor powers of Karma (wing and moon) also find play, and the whole cycle of evolution is set a going.

    And it is this learned Doctor who spoke of the misinterpreting variations of Sankara's advaita, known under the names of Visishtadvaita, Dvaita, &c, and it is the frequent boast of people of his ilk, that Sankara's Advaita is the most universal and ancient system, whereas all other forms of Indian philosophy are only partial and sectarian and modern; and in the present paper, we propose to deal with this claim, to a certain extent by taking up the Gita, their most beloved Upanishad, and by merely taking the various analogies used by Lord Krishna, we will show, whether we find among them or not any of the favorite and hackneyed similes of this school, and whether the similes actually have any bearing on the special tenets of this school.

    The first simile in the book occurs in chapter 2, 13.

    "Just as in this body, childhood, and youth and old age appertain to the embodied man, so also, does it acquire another body."

    This is a popular enough simile, and its meaning is plain but it cannot be construed as is done by Sankara, that the soul undergoes no change or is not affected by the change of avastas or change of bodies; for it cannot be contended that the intelligence of Sankara is in the same embryonic stage as that of a new born babe, and the denial of this would also militate against all our ideas of evolutionary progress and the necessity for undergoing many births. In the previous verse, Sri Krishna postulated the existence of many souls, by asserting, 'neither did I not exist, nor thou, nor these rulers of men, and no one of us will ever hereafter cease to exist, "and he reiterates the same fact, in chapter iv, 5, where he alludes to his own former births which fact is also mentioned by Sri Krishna himself again in the Anucasana Parva and stated by Vyasa in the Yuddha Parva. By, 'I' and 'thou', and 'these', he clearly does not refer to their bodies as Sankara interprets. The next figure occurs in verse 22 of the same chapter, "just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on others which are new, so the soul casts off worn-out bodies and enters which are new." Similar instances are that of the serpent throwing off its skin, the mind passing from the conscious into the dream condition, and the Yogi into another body which are given by Saint Meikandan. The next one occurs in verse 58, where the Sage withdrawing his senses from the objects of sense is compared to the tortoise withdrawing its limbs, at the approach of anybody. The same simile occurs in Tiruvarutpayan.

    In chapter 3, only one illustration occurs and this in verse 38, which we have often quoted. "As fire is covered with smoke, as a mirror with dirt, as an embryo is enclosed in a womb, so this is covered with it." Sankara explains, "as a bright fire is covered with a dark smoke co-existent with it… so this is covered with desire."! The italics is ours. What 'this' and 'it' are, are seen to be, man and his wisdom-nature, Prakriti-guna Rajas and Desire constraining one to the commission of sins. 'Constrained,' Sankara explains as a servant by the King. Man is enslaved by his passion; his wisdom is such that it is deluded by unwisdom, ignorance (verse 40). Sankara leaves these passages quietly enough but when explaining the similar passage (xiv, 5) "Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, - these three Gunas, O mighty armed born of Prakriti, bind fast in the body , the embodied, the indestructible,: Sankara says, "now one may ask: It has been said that the embodied is not tainted (xiii, 31). How then, on the contrary, is it said here that the (Gunas) bind him? We have met this objection by adding 'as it were'; thus 'they bind him as it were.'" It would have been well for his reputation, if he had not raised the objection himself and tried to meet it in the way he has done. Why did not the Omniscient Lord Krishna himself add this 'as it were,' and leave these passages alone apparently contradicting each other. In his explanation, he has omitted the force of 'fast,' and he has forgotten 'Dragged and constrained' and of the co-existent darkness and delusion of the former passage and explanation. There is one other passage relating to the soul and its bound condition namely verse 21 in chapter xiii itself. "Purusha, as seated in Prakriti, experiences the qualities born of Prakriti; "attachment to qualities is the cause of his birth in good and evil wombs." Lo, the Supreme Self, attaching itself to qualities born of Prakriti, constrained to commit sin deluded by co-existent darkness, having to undergo births and deaths and getting fettered and seeking salvation, and all this 'as it were.'! What a precious excuse would it not prove, this 'as it were,' to the murderer, the liar, the thief &c.? Besides, Sankara identifies the embodied of verse 5, xiv, with the 'dweller in the body' in xiii, 31. Even so far as forms of expression go, they are not altogether the same thing. It may be noted that the expression 'embodied' is always used in describing the soul, Jiva, and never to denote God. Though God is seated in the hearts of all, he is the Soul of Souls, and Light of Lights, He can never be called the 'embodied.' The expression 'embodied' conveys itself the idea of attachment and bondage. Anybody reading verses 36 to 40 of chapter 3, and xiii, 21; xiv, 5, 20; and, verses iv, 14; ix, 9; xiii, 31 together, can fail to observe the utter contrast of the two entities; and we appeal to common sense if Sankara's 'as it were' will do away with this distinction and contrast. The distinction and contrast is brought out in different chapters, in the same chapter and it contiguous verses (xv, 16, 17, 18) nay in the same verse (v. 15). The word 'another' 'Anyatha' is itself a technical word as 'the inside of' 'Antas' &c., and occurs in the Gita in other places and in a number of Vedic texts to denote God Supreme as distinguished from the soul and the world, the entities admitted by Kapila Sankhyas Adhikaranas 4 to 9 of the Vedanta Sutra, and the texts quoted therein which appear in this very issue fully bear out our thesis. The apparent confusion caused by both the human spirit and the Supreme Spirit being spoken of as dwelling in the human body is altogether removed by the Mantras which speak of 'the two birds entering into the cave,' 'Rudra, destroyer of pain enters into me,' 'He who abides in the Vijnana,' 'He who abides in the Atman,' 'higher than the high, higher than the imperishable,' (c.f. xv, 18, Gita). Leaving this subject for the present we proceed. Chapter iv contains also only one simile, (37; "As kindled fire reduces fuel to ashes, O Arjuna; so does the wisdom fire reduce all Karma to ashes." The next illustration occurs in chapter v. 16, and is a very familiar one, that of Sun and darkness. "But in those in whom unwisdom is destroyed by the Wisdom of the Self, like the Sun the wisdom illuminates That Supreme." We have to read the previous passage together. "The Lord takes neither the evil nor the good deed of any; wisdom is enveloped by unwisdom; thereby mortals are deluded."

    Here 'wisdom' clearly means atma, atmagnan, Soul, Soul's intelligence. This intelligence is covered by Agnana, unwisdom. As contrasted with ignorance-covered soul, there stands the Paramaeshwara, untouched by evil, though dwelling in the body. How is the Soul's wisdom to get rid of the veil of unwisdom. If it was able to get rid of this wisdom by its own wisdom, it could have got rid of it the moment it wills so, and we will never her of a soul in bondage. So the illustration explains how this is done. Unwisdom is destroyed not by the soul's wisdom (spoken of merely as wisdom) but by Atmagnan, Brahmagnan, Sivagnana, leading to the perception and enjoyment of Sivananda, as the darkness covering the individual eye, flees before the Rising Glory of the Effulgent Sun, and the Sun while it dispels the darkness, at the same time enables the eye to exercise its own power of seeing (soul's wisdom) and makes it see the Sun itself. The reader is requested to read the simile as explained, with Sankara's own explanation and form his own conclusions.

    "As a lamp in a sheltered spot does not flicker" is the simile of the Yogi in Divine Union. ' திரையற்ற நீர்போல் சிந்தை தெளிவார்." "Like the wave less sea-water, the gnani attains clearness and calm" is another simile. The water and the lamp are by nature changeable, any little gust of wind (karmamala) can make the one flicker and the other form into ripples. But the Sun, or Akasha (God) can neither flicker nor change. And this is exactly the simile in ix. 6. The simile in vii. 7. Demands however our prior attention. There is naught higher than I, O Dhananjaya, in me, all this is woven as a row of gems on a string. Here the string is the Ishwara, and gems, other creatures and objects. Neither can the string become the gems, nor the gems the string; it only brings out the distinction of the lower and the higher Padarthas spoken of in verse 5, and how Ishwara supports and upholds the whole universe, as a string does support the various gems.

    The next simile already alluded to is n chapter ix, 6. "As the mighty wind moving everywhere rests in the Akasha, know thou that so do all beings rest in me." And Lord Krishna states the truth explained by this as the Kingly science, the Kingly secret, immediately comprehensible; and well may he say so, as this explains the true nature of advaita. The verses 4 and 5, have to be stated in full. "By me all this world is pervaded, my form unmanifested. All beings dwell in Me; and I do not dwell in them." "Nor do beings dwell in me, behold my Divine Yoga! Bearing the beings and not dwelling in them is my Self the cause of beings." With this we might read also the similes in xiii. 32, and 33 "As the all-pervading Akasha is by reason of its subtlety never soiled, so God seated in the body is not soiled." As the one Sun illumines all these worlds, so does the Kshetri (not Kshetrajna) illumine all Kshetra," and the simile in xv. 8. "When the Lord (the jiva the lord of the aggregate of the body and the rest – Sankara) acquires a body and when he leaves it, he takes these and goes as the wind takes scents from their seats." Here Parameshwara is compared to Akasha and the soul, jiva is compared to the wind; and the relation between God and Soul is the same relation as between Akasha and wind or things contained in Akasha. And what is this relation? Logicians and Siddhantis call this relation as Vyapaka Vyapti Sambandam, container and contained. We explained in our article on 'Mind and Body' that this was not a very apt relation as it has reference to quantity, yet it is the best synonym and illustration of the Advaita relation not Betha, (Madhwa) nor Abetha or nor Bethabetha (Ramanuja) nor Parinama (Vallabha), not Vivarta (Sankara), but Vyapaka Vyapti relation. Taking the five elements, and the order of their evolution and involution it is seen, how all the four evolve from and resolve into Akasha. But earth is not water, nor water earth, water is not fire, nor fire water, fire is not air, nor air fire, none of these is Akasha nor Akasha any of these. And yet all solids can be reduced to liquids, and liquids into gaseous condition in the one higher, and all in Akasha but Akasha cannot be said to be contained in any of these, though present in each. Each one is more subtle and more vast than the lower element, and Akasha is the most subtle and vastest and most pervasive and invisible ('my form unmanifested'). Akasha is not capable of any change, though the wind and water and fire and earth contained in it can be contaminated by that to which it becomes attached. Wind carries off scents, and is subjected to all the forces of sun and moon. Water of the ocean becomes saltish, becomes frozen, and becomes tempest-tossed. The lamp flickers and becomes smoky or bright, spreads a fragrant smell or otherwise by the nature of the oil or wood it is burning. The very illustration of sea (space) water and winds is used by Saint Meikandan in vii, 3-3 to illustrate ignorance not attaching itself to God but to the Soul. "Ignorance will not arise from God who is the True Intelligence, as it is Asat (like darkness before sun). The soul which is ever united to God is co-eternal with Him The connection of ignorance with the soul is like the connection of salt with the water of the sea." The word 'Akasha' by the way is a technical word, like 'another,' 'antas,' 'jyotis' &c. and is a synonym for God (vide Vedanta Sutras I, 1-22 and texts quoted there under and in the article 'House of God, 'Chit Ambara' in p. 153 last volume).

    The simile of streams and the sea occurs in xi, 28, to illustrate not the entering into moksha, but undergoing dissolution and death. The similes in xv, 1 &2, the Ashwattha rooted above and spreading below, and in xviii, 61, that "the Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings jivas, O Arjuna, whirling by Maya all beings (as if) mounted on a machine;" are the very last to be noted. These are nearly all the similes discovered in the Gita, and do we not miss here nearly all the favorite similes of the Mayavada school, and if so, how was it the omniscient Lord Krishna failed to use any one of them.