CWTVKS Volume 3

A REVIEW AND REJOINDER

[The Prabuddha Bharata of March 1944, published the following review by Sri Dinesh Chandra Guha:

Umasahasram or thousand verses in praise of the Goddess Uma by the late poet Ganapathi Muni is a masterpiece of Poetry. Ganapathi Muni was a natural poet; gifted with sublime poetic imagination and penetrating inner vision. He was a poet of devotional temperament, and these thousand verses unambiguously prove his deep devotion to the Goddess Uma whom he worshipped as his ideal. The poet was a philosopher of no mean order as his philosophical insight can well be imagined from a perusal of these thousand verses.

The commentary on Umasahasram is lucid and faithful to the original work. Expositions by direct disciples generally become reliable, and the commentator who is a direct disciple of the poet may be relied upon in his exposition of the philosophical view-points of his preceptor. Subtle points of philosophical interest have been aptly justified by the commentator. This fact clearly demonstrates his wide range of study and mastery over the various philosophical systems.

Both the Umasahasram and its commentary can be whole-heartedly recommended to the poetry-loving public in general and the scholars of philosophy in particular. But here and there, there are some observations which cannot be justified from an orthodox standpoint of Indian philosophy. Of course if the work claims to establish a new system of philosophy, nothing can be said against it from that point of view.

Supreme Cit (consciousness) has been divided into three forms, e.g., wish, activity, and knowledge (10th verse, 2nd stabaka, 1st sataka). This division is arbitrary and is not supported anywhere in the authoritative orthodox philosophical treatises. The maya of the Advaita system of Vedanta philosophy has been assumed as sakti (11th verse, 3rd stabaka, 1st sataka), which is unwarranted. It has been argued that if sakti cannot create a sportive body (lilatanu) for her, she is not omnipotent (13th verse, 3rd stabaka, 1st sataka). A little reflection will expose the hollowness of this argument. God, though omnipotent, cannot indeed deduce five from two plus two. This sort of incapacity does not in any way affect his omnipotence, for certainly God should not be expected to break all the laws of truth and consistency to establish his omnipotence before his critics. If consciousness is the only supreme entity, which it certainly is according to the scriptures, God can never make it otherwise. The body of sakti has been described as deathless (amrtam) and that of God as pranava (Om) (17th verse, 3rd stabaka, 1st sataka). Evidently some sort of difference between the two bodies has been imagined. This is also unauthoritative. Is then pranava perishable? If by the term amrtam the author means nectar, then also the question may be put to him to explain what he exactly means by nectar. Mythological explanation will never be accepted in a philosophical treatise. The world manifestation, as it is experienced by us during our waking stage, is conceived as the transformation of the aggregate consciousness (17th verse, 1st stabaka, 10th sataka). This view cannot be justified by argument. Strictly speaking, there can be no parinama of consciousness in the technical philosophical sense of the term. The example furnished to establish the view-point has rendered the cause weaker. Is dream ever conceived in any authoritative philosophical treatise as the coarse form of the subtle consciousness?

In some places the commentator also has tried to convince his readers with fallacious arguments. Transitoriness (nasvaratvam) has been supposed to be the argument to prove the instability (anityatvam) of the body (commentary on the 8th verse, 3rd stabaka, 1st sataka), and in so doing the commentator has, clearly committed the fallacy of begging the question. Feminine and masculine forms of God have been inferred from the same argument (commentary on the 15th verse, 3rd stabaka, 1st sataka), which is impossible. Can two contrary terms be ever predicated of the same subject by the same argument?

In spite of all these drawbacks, the work with its commentary is on the whole agreeable. The reader will simply be charmed with the poetic imagination of the author. The tone of devotion is predominant in the entire work. The poet-philosopher Ganapati Muni was a real lover indeed. He had unshakable faith in the name of the Lord, and hence temperamentally he did not like to enter into rituals and logical discourses (16th verse, 3rd stabaka, 8th sataka). It must also be admitted that the poet had an inventive capacity and the Sanskri knowing world will surely be sorry to think that a poet of such an eminence is no more on this earth. It is to be expected that all other works of the poet will be published without delay.

We whole-heartedly recommend the book under review to the Sanskrit-knowing world in general and to the poetry-loving public in particular.]

A monthly magazine in English, even it be of front rank as Prabuddha Bharata undoubtedly is, cannot be the right forum for sastraic discussions which involve the use of Sanskrit terms with their English equivalents, quite often inadequate without long explanations. But there is no help but to crave the indulgence of the Editor to do us bare justice by allowing a short space for a brief reply to the misconceived observations made in the otherwise noble and good review of the critic.

Let me draw the attention of the reviewer to the following points about Umasahasram. The author was known for his saintly life a life quite often of inspiration; and in the tapasya he adopted, he had certain realisations, which were at the back of the philosophic concepts imbedded in this poetic utterance of the hymnodist. If the work is understood in this spirit, the question whether it claims to establish a new system, whether it is supported by orthodox schools of Indian Philosophy or not will not arise. Certainly, there are many ideas here that are either renewals of the Vedic, Upanishadic and Agamic thought which have no use for the dialectician, or fresh interpretative seeings of old truths which were of an age prior to the birth of the so-called orthodox systems of philosophy. The poet’s conception of Uma was a mental representation of his vision of the source, support and substance of all existences; it is a presentation of his outlook, rather inlook.

Umasahasram was not meant to be a battlefield for dialectics. That is why the commentary closely follows the original, giving explanations wherever necessary to elucidate the text in a manner more literary than philosophical. More space is given in the commentary to the sadhana or practical, as well as to the literary, poetical and rhetorical — aspects than to the theoretical and metaphysical. Even in the few places where controversy could have been raised, and discussion carried on in favour of the position presented by the text, the commentary resists the temptation and confines itself to the minimum that is necessary to throw light on the words of the text. This is so, because the commentator knows the simple truth that no system of philosophy, at any rate in India, has silenced the voice of rival systems or convinced those other than itself of its perfection. If your starting premises are not granted, there is no controversy; if they are granted then you carry the day, if you are clever, with the aid of your logic to guard you against error.

Referring to Umasahasram, the first dissentient note of the critic is that There are some observations which cannot be justified from an orthodox standpoint.” We are at a loss to know what pattern of orthodoxy the critic has in his mind. There are so many schools which are rightly recognised to be orthodox inasmuch as they are not outside the ambit of Vedic influence, vedabahya. It is interesting to note that the critic forgets that there are other orthodox schools which will oppose his statement that “ Consciousness is the only supreme entity . . . God cannot make it otherwise..." I am not concerned with the correctness or incorrectness of this bold assertion which implies that God is either different from or subordinate to Consciousness. Perhaps, he means there is really no God but Consciousness.

Reference numbers to some verses are given in the review to prove the absurdity of the author’s position. No care seems to have been taken to study the subsequent or preceding verses to those on which he depends for refuting the statements of the poet-philosopher. In the very beginning of the work, verses 2 and 3 of the First stabaka, if not the whole stabaka, the poet has said enough of Uma the Mahashakti and the character of Her embodiment. If the third stabaka is studied against this background, it will be quite intelligible. The poet says that God and the Shakti assume ’embodiment ’, for purposes of their own, though ’body’ does not mean “like our body’ (I.3.16,17). Once you admit the Omnipotence, then you have to admit also that God can be with form or without form. You have no right to put a limitation on his Will. To bring home this truth, the poet says “You will be attributing incapacity to the Godhead, if you say, He or She is always formless". On this the critic makes the following observation, perfectly missing the import of the verse, fancying at the same time that the author’s argument is hollow. “A little reflection will expose” – to adopt his expression — that he is open to the retort of his own remark that “ God should not be expected to break all the laws of truth and consistency to establish his omnipotence before his critic. ” Well said! That is what poet-philosopher says. Only this much is to be added: God is not expected to be confined to formlessness, to the formless omnipotence of my conception, in order to prove his capacity to be featureless or beyond features to the logical mind which revels in abstractions and to which things of subtler existences, of mind and spirit are sheer concepts.

The poet says that to explain creation etc. the orthodox Advaitin has to assume an inexplicable’ Maya’ which is neither negative nor positive. Shakti, positive, in its place, will be intelligible and there is no necessity to assume a Maya. The poet certainly equates his Shakti with the Maya of the Advaitin, but does not say that she is identical with Maya. Such an attempt at reconciliation was done long ago by the Tantriks, even by the author of Anandalahari — of course not by any orthodox philosophy, for which resaon, the critic calls this reconciling statement ’unwarranted’. The Iccha, Jnana, Kriya saktis — these three are well known to the Agamas and Puranas -are traced by the poet to their source in the Supreme Consciousness. The Three Shaktis or forces of Will, Activity and Knowledge are facts, and not fancied by the poet nor has he divided the Indivisible Consciousness into three Shaktis.

By Pranava (see Com. I.3.17) the undifferentiated Primordial Sound or Vibrant Voice (avyakta nada is meant, not the letter OM which is just a symbol of it used in the mystic paths with which logic and criticism have nothing to do. Soma is clearly explained; it is the Vedic pavamana, the rasa, the essential delight of all existence, the causal akasa, the substance of all existences in the core. The character of pranava and soma which is amrta is clearly stated in the text and the commentary also gives explanatory notes.

I will state one glaring example of the criticism where this mind eager to grasp at what to it appears a weak point, refuses to read the whole line, and stops with that portion of the line which, it is convinced, is sufficient to convict the commentary of falling into the fallacy of begging the question. In 1.3.8, a close rendering of the line in the commentary that is at issue will be thus:

“The body that is visible is non-eternal because of the perishability; for to predicate eternality of a body that is conditioned by space, time, and causation is opposed to Nature (as we know her of course)", desakala nimittapeksasya sarirasya nityatvoktih svabhava viruddha.

The italicised portion is the English of the Sanskrit which is given to explain nasvarattva. The critic takes it as a syllogism, probably because of the fifth case nasvarattavat, but ignores the explanatory part of the line, and presses the phrase to mean (by a convenient English rendering something absurd, fallacious. Nitya means steady, dhruva, also; but here anitya is deliberately used in the sense of what is not eternal. Nitya vastu is not steady or unshaky substance, it is the Eternal Something that exists. The commentary explains to the reader that what is subject to space, time and causation is perishable, and therefore, not Eternal. Strictly speaking, this is not a thing to be proved at all; only when there is doubt, there is paksa possible according to Indian logicians. It is an axiom that is explained here. It is like the stock argument in western logic about the mortality of Socrates which has no place in the Indian System of syllogistic reasoning, as no doubt is entertained of his mortality.

Again, the import of the verse 1:3.15 is thoroughly missed by the learned reviewer. The substance of the verse is this: there are some who would say that God has form, but not his Shakti; the poet tells them if it is reasonable to suppose a male form, it would be equally reasonable to accept a female form also. (Note that anumeya in the verse is not used in the technical sense at all). This simple verse does not offer any difficulty to a straight understanding. It is amazing to see that the erudite critic finds material here to charge the commentator with predicating two contrary terms of the same subject by the same argument.

There is no question of inference anywhere raised. That it is possible for God and Shakti to be with or without form is an assertion that is made by the poet from the beginning. The contrary terms are there only in our petty logic which cannot conceive of the Supreme Truth or God as the supreme reconciling Factor of all apparent contradictions that characterise the world phenomenal existence. To the mind of metaphysical bent, riddled with conceptual constructions, the Supreme Truth is only an abstract idea, it is all It, not He or She.

But to the man who has built an inner life, call him a mystic , if you like — It, He and She are complementary aspects, realities concrete in their own way, because seen and experienced in other dimensions of space, other states of being, other fields of consciousness, than those the normal human mind clings to in its refusal to be calm and look beyond itself. The poet-philosopher, the author of Umasahasram was not inventive and fanciful; he was an inspired Poet endowed with a seeing intelligence, pasyanti prajna. A mystic, he was in his presentation quite logical, not mythological. In spite of what in the book did not appeal to the reviewer, he has showered high praise on the work and its author; that is his large-heartedness to which we, in all humility, bow.