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________________ DANIEL H. H. INGALLS Sarkara on the Question: Whose is avidya?* 011. The word "avidya," which is variously translated as ignorance, nescience, illusion, is one of the most important terms in the philosophy of Samkaracarya and his followers. It is by the concept of avidya that these monistic philosophers explain the apparent diversity of the world. They claim that in truth there is one indivisible reality, that the experience we have of diversity is due simply to avidya. Now, the use of this concept leads to a logical dilemma. If this avidya is a real entity, then monism ends. On the other hand, to say that it is an imaginary entity is to destroy the very doctrine of avidya. As Descartes could not doubt that he doubted, so the Kevaladvaitins could not find illusion itself to be an illusion. There are two ways out of this dilemma. One of them has been taken by most of Samkara's followers and has come to be known as the typical Kevaladvaita point of view. In this system a new truth-value is set up, anirvacanzyatva, that which cannot be said to be either true or false. It is a direct consequence of the dilemma I have mentioned that the Kevaladvaita developed a multivalue system of logic, the most widely accepted system of this sort that the world has known. There is, however, another way out of the dilemma, that is, not by solving but by avoiding it. This was the way chosen by Samkaracarya himself. Most authorities on Samkara have overlooked the fact that he differs from his followers in this matter. The difference has recently been pointed out, however, by Paul Hacker in an article in ZDMG. Hacker there considers only the Brahmasutrabbasya. I have thought it might be worth while here to make a cast, though it must be a very brief one, into other waters. The premise from which all Samkara's arguments on the subject of avidya begin is this: One must realize that avidya is not an inherent characteristic of the self or soul. As soon as it is seen not properly to belong to the self, This paper was read before the American Oriental Society in Boston, April 2, 1952. * Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandiscben Gesellschaft, 100 (1950), 246-286.
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________________ DANIEL H. H. INGALLS the true nature of the self will be realized and moksa (release) will be obtained. The question of the exact modality of avidya is inconsequential. One is reminded of the words of another religious teacher of India. The Buddha was asked a number of metaphysical questions by the fool Malunkyaputta. His answer was to liken Malunkyaputta to a man struck by an arrow, who would not let the surgeon draw the arrow till he discovered the name of the man who shot it and the wood of which it was made. In at least three passages Samkara discusses the question: Whose is avidya? In each passage he denies the real connection of avidya with the self or soul, but in none of these passages, it is worth noting, does he deny the reality of avidya itself. In Brahmasutrabbasya IV.1.3 the synonym aprabodha (unenlightenment) is used in place of the commoner term. This is in order to obtain a rhetorical effect in answering the opponent: Whose then is this unenlightenment, it may be asked. To which we reply: Yours, since you ask about it. But [says the opponent], according to scripture I am God. Answer: If you are so enlightened as to know this, then you must know that unenlightenment is no one's. Hacker well characterizes this passage as "not philosophically exact, but pedagogically impressive." The same question is treated, but more philosophically and in considerably greater detail, in that commentary on the Brbadaranyaka Upanisad which is now definitely known to be by Samkara.? Here Samkara takes the passage "brahmaiva san brahmapyeti" (IV.1.6) as scriptural evidence of jivanmukti, release before death. In support of his view he shows that release of the self implies no real change within it nor any change in such qualities as avidya which might have been supposed to have belonged to the self. For avidya never truly belongs to the self. To prove this, Samkara shows that one can be aware of avidya only as belonging to the category of things known, never as belonging to the category of knowers. That is, whatever awareness we have of avidya shows that it cannot be a part of the self. It cannot be, because, to use Samkara's term, it is a visaya, an object of knowledge. The argument is first carried on briefly by means of a pun. The word viviktatas, distinctly, may mean distinctly, that is, clearly; or it may mean distinctly, that is, as something distinct or separate. "He who perceives avidya distinctly, like a pot, cannot possess avidya." Cf. Kathe Marschner, Zur Verfasserfrage des dem Samkaracarya zugeschriebenen Brbadaranyakopanisad-Bhasya, typescript (Berlin: Alfred Lindner Verlag, 1933); also Paul Hacker, Untersuchungen uber Texte des fruben Advaitavata (Mainz: Ak. d. Wiss. und Lit. Abhaadhooms der geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, 1950), p. 1918.
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________________ SAMKARA ON THE QUESTION: WHOSE IS AVIDYA? The reason is obvious. One cannot possess a quality which is distinct or separate from oneself. But the opponent is soon placed in a still more difficult position: But I do not know, says the opponent; I am a stupid man (mugdho 'smi). Surely this percept shows that I am in error through avidya. No, [says Samkara) because you have perceived it distinctly. One who perceives a fact distinctly cannot be in error concerning that fact. It is self-contradictory to say that a man both perceives a thing distinctly and is in error. At this point Samkara stops playing with his opponent and comes to the heart of the matter: You say that a man perceives that he does not know and that he is stupid. That is as much as to say that ignorance and stupidity are perceived by that perceiver, that they are objects (visaya) of perception, that they are an effect (karma). Then how can ignorance and stupidity, which are effects, be qualifications of the perceiver who is the effector? Rather than pursue this passage to its conclusion, let me turn to the Gitabhasya. This also has generally been attributed to Samkara, and I see no reason to doubt the ascription. In the long commentary on Gita XIII.2 Samkara raises the same question: Whose is avidya? But in the lines which follow, some new arguments are added. Granted that avidya is not essential to the self, it might be supposed even in a real sense to have some connection with the self. No, says Samkara, because such a connection can neither be perceived nor inferred. That it cannot be perceived is fairly obvious. I shall quote only the last part of the argument dealing with inference. If your knowledge is by inference, how can you know the connections? At the time that you, the knower, know avidya, the thing which is known, you certainly cannot also know the connection between yourself and it, for avidya is related to the knower solely as being an object of his knowledge. Nor can one imagine a knower of the connection between the knower and the avidya nor a knowledge having such a connection for its content, for we should then have to admit an infinite series. If one's connection with the known is known by a knower, then another knower may be set up, and another knower of that, and of that, and so on to infinity. But if avidya is the known, or, for the matter of that, if anything else is, then the known is simply the known. Similarly, the knower is simply the knower; he cannot become the known. Such being the case, the self (ksetrajna), which is the knower, is never affected by such entities as avidya and sorrow. In all these passages one sees that Samkara never admits either horn of the dilemma. Avidya is never said to be real. It is never said to be unreal. But no new modality is set up to solve the difficulty. One may even state
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________________ DANIEL H. H. INGALLS it as likely that Samkara disapproved the postulation of a third truth-value. This is only a guess. But the concept is certainly as old as the time of Samkaras and one may hazard a second guess as to why he rejected it. If the characterizing of the phenomenal world as anirvacaniya makes the world no more real than it is in Samkara's doctrine, it makes it a great deal less unreal. Such a characterization may well have seemed unsound to Samkara's intuition. What Samkara does is to avoid the difficulty. He concentrates on what he considers the heart of the matter, the teaching that is necessary for the attainment of moksa. This teaching is that avidya, whatever its modality, is never truly connected with the self. Here, as in other differences that may be noticed between Saskara and his disciples, one may say that Samkara's approach to truth is psychological and religious. His interest in metaphysics and logic is always subordinated to the center of his attention. His followers, while deeply attracted by this attitude, were gradually forced to construct a metaphysical system that is in all respects logically coherent. . . *As noted by Hacker (ZDMG 100.255 n.1) anirvacaniyatva in the sense of a third truth-value is found in Mandanamisra. In the rare instances where Samkara uses the word (e.g., on Brahma-sutra II. i. 27) it has quite a different meaning. It is there applied to namarupa, the cosmic stuff, in its unmanifested state where it cannot be said to be this or that, i.e., where it is undifferentiated. (Hacker, op. cit., p. 263.)