History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 1029

XIV]
Avyakta and Brahman
473
This principle was applied for proving the deathless character of the self. It is bound to strike anyone as very surprising that the Gitā should accept the sat-kārya-vāda doctrine in establishing the immortality of the self and should assume the a-sat-kārya-vāda doctrine regarding the production of action. It is curious, however, to note that a similar view regarding the production of action is to be found in Caraka's account of Samkhya, where it is said that all actions are produced as a result of a collocation of causes-that actions are the results of the collocation of other entities with the agent (kartṛ)1.
The word avyakta is also used in the sense of "unknowability" or "disappearance" in the Gitä, II. 28, where it is said that the beginnings of all beings are invisible and unknown; it is only in the middle that they are known, and in death also they disappear and become unknown. But the word avyakta in the neuter gender means a category which is a part of God Himself and from which all the manifested manifold world has come into being. This avyakta is also referred to as a prakṛti or nature of God, which, under His superintendence, produces the moving and the unmoved the entire universe2. But God Himself is sometimes referred to as being avyakta (probably because He cannot be grasped by any of our senses), as an existence superior to the avyakta, which is described as a part of His nature, and as a category from which all things have come into being3. This avyakta which is identical with God is also called akṣara, or the immortal, and is regarded as the last resort of all beings who attain their highest and most perfect realization. Thus there is a superior avyakta, which represents the highest essence of God, and an inferior avyakta, from which the world is produced. Side by side with these two avyaktas there is also the prakṛti, which is sometimes described as a coexistent principle and as the māyā or the blinding power of God, from which the gunas are produced.
The word "Brahman" is used in at least two or three different senses. Thus in one sense it means prakṛti, from which the gunas are produced. In another sense it is used as an essential nature of God. In another sense it means the Vedas. Thus in the Gitā,
1 Caraka-samhita, IV. 1. 54.
2 Gitā, IX. 10, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ suyate sacarācaram.
3 Ibid. VIII. 20 and VIII. 21; also Ix. 4, where it is said, "All the world is pervaded over by me in my form as avyakta; all things and all living beings are in me, but I am not exhausted in them."