Nirgrantha-3

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 51

32
Y. S. Shastri
Nirgrantha
elements : it transcends them all28. It is like ākāśa (sky, space) which pervades everything and is affected by nothing29. The term 'Sünya' is used for Reality to indicate indeterminate nature of Reality in terms of subject-object duality. The Reality by its very nature has no characteristic of its own to describe it 30. It is also called 'Suddhātman' and 'Mahātman'. He says that, realising the non-substantiality of ego and that of elements, understanding the real meaning of Sünyatā; the enlightened ones transcend the individual existence and realise Pure Soul (Suddhātman) and became one with that Universal Soul". It is also identified with Nirvāņa (Liberation)32. Nirvana is nothing but realising Dharmadhātu i.e. the essence of everything. For Asanga, every being is, in essence, the same as Dharmadhātu. It means, Nirvana is realisation of this Potentiality. Asanga thought that Nāgārjuna, emphasising as he did the transcendental aspect of the Absolute, failed to show the proper relation between Absolute and phenomena. It is true that Nāgārjuna accepted the Dharmadhātu as the underlying ground of phenomena and did not treat it as an entity separate from the phenomenal world. But he did not make clear how this Dharmadhātu or Absolute, immanent in empirical experience constitutes the very soul of all things. Asanga, to show the relation between the Absolute and the phenomena speaks of double process of the Absolute, namely defilement and purification (Sankleśa and Vyavadana). Phenomenal world is the defiled aspect of the Absolute alone. He believes in certain kind of Pariņāmavada (theory of transformation). Owing to powerful influence of ignorance, the Absolute becomes defiled and transforms itself into phenomenal world. But this defilement is not a permanent feature of the Absolute. It is foreign to it. Therefore, it can be purified by realising pure consciousness. Verily, the phenomena are not different from the Absolute. The relation between them is like that of pure and muddy water. The water is the same whether it is muddy or pure. Pure water is the muddy water from which the mud is removed. Similarly, Reality is nothing but the world from which subject-object duality is removed. The things of the manifold world are taken to be real by common men34. They think that the phenomenal world for certain exists independently by its own. To remove this misunderstanding, Asanga, like the previous thinkers, says that it is wrong to think that there is a difference between Noumena and Phenomena, Nirvana and Samsāra, apparent and the real. They are not two different realities posited against each other. Reality, viewed as dependent, relative as governed by causes and conditions, constitute the world (saṁsāra) and the phenomenal world viewed as free from all conditions is the Absolute 35. The Absolute is the only real, it is identical with phenomena. Reality lies at the very heart of phenomenal world. It is identical with phenomena in the sense that it is the basis or ground and innermost essence of all phenomenal things. Absolute is in phenomena as essence of it but is itself not phenomena. It transcends phenomena. It is the basic conception in the philosophy of Asanga that Dharmadhātu-the non-determinate Reality-is the ground of the determinate entities of the phenomenal world. This non-determinate reality is only the ultimate nature of the determinate phenomenal entities and not other entity apart from them. Thus, the fact, that the Absolute transcends phenomena does not mean that it is
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