POINTS OF VIEW WITHIN THE DOCTRINE

THE FOREGOING ExplanatiONS show how a multiplicity of points of view can exist together within the essential unity of the same traditional doctrine without this unity being in any way affected thereby. Moreover, since each person brings with him a way of looking at things that is peculiarly his own, it may consequently be said that there are as many different ways of understanding as there are individuals; but this is only true insofar as the point of departure is concerned, for once the individual domain has been left behind, all these differences, which are not in any way incompatible, necessarily disappear. Apart from the differences inherent in the particular natures of the various human beings, each one may also choose to place himself at any one of a variety of points of view in order to study the doctrine under some more or less well-defined aspect, which will be the more closely defined the greater its degree of particularization, or in other words the further removed it is, in descending order of application, from the sphere of universal principles. The entire range of possible and legitimate points of view is always contained, synthetically and in principle, within the doctrine itself, and what we have already said on the subject of the plurality of meanings comprised within traditional texts will be a sufficient indication of the nature of this synthesis; in every case, therefore, it is solely a matter of a strict interpretation of the basic doctrine developed in accordance with the particular point of view in question.

This is exactly what is expressed in India by the Sanskrit word darshana, which properly speaking denotes nothing more or less than 'sight' or 'point of view', for the principal meaning of the verbal root drish, from which it is derived, is 'to see'. The darshanas are really therefore 'points of view' within the doctrine, and not, as most orientalists imagine, competing or conflicting philosophical systems; insofar as these points of view are strictly orthodox, they naturally cannot enter either into conflict or into contradiction with one another. We have shown that every systematized conception, born of that intellectual individualism so dear to modern Westerners, implies the negation of metaphysics, which constitutes the very essence of the doctrine; we have also pointed out the profound distinction between metaphysical thought and philosophical thought, the latter being merely a special mode peculiar to the West, which could not validly be applied to the knowledge of a traditional doctrine preserved in its integral purity. There is no such thing, then, as 'Hindu philosophy', any more than there is a 'Chinese philosophy', at all events not so long as it is intended to retain for 'philosophy' the more or less well-defined meaning imposed upon it by the line of thought issuing from the Greeks; but it must be confessed, especially when one considers what philosophy has become in modern times, that the absence of this mode of thought in a civilization is not particularly to be regretted. Nevertheless, orientalists are either unable or unwilling to see in the darshanas anything but philosophies and systems, to which they even pretend to attach Western labels: this they do simply because they are incapable of escaping from the 'classical' framework, and because they ignore entirely the most characteristic differences between the Eastern and Western mentalities. Their attitude in this respect might be compared to that of a man who, knowing nothing of present-day European civilization and chancing to come across a syllabus of university lectures, jumped to the singular conclusion that the scholars of Europe are divided into several rival schools, each with its own particular philosophical system, the principal ones being those of the mathematicians, the physicists, the chemists, the biologists, the logicians, and the psychologists; such a misunderstanding may sound quite ridiculous, but it is hardly more so than the present conception of the orientalists, who ought not even to have the excuse of ignorance, or rather it is their very ignorance which is inexcusable. Improbable as this may sound, it is only too certain that the questions of principle involved, which they seem deliberately to avoid, have never occupied their minds, which are in any event too narrowly specialized to understand these principles and grasp their full significance. This is indeed a remarkable case of extreme 'intellectual myopia' and one may be quite sure that, handicapped by such a disposition, they will never succeed in discerning the true meaning of the smallest fragment of any one of the Eastern doctrines which they have taken upon themselves to interpret after their own fashion, in conformity with their completely Western outlook.

Looking at things once again in their correct perspective, it may be said that the points of view from which the doctrine may be considered are obviously capable of being multiplied almost indefinitely; on the other hand not all are equally irreducible, and there are some, more fundamental in certain respects, to which the others may be subordinated. It will therefore always be possible to group the secondary points of view around these principal ones, and only the latter need then be considered separately as so many branches of the study of the doctrine, the others representing nothing more than simple subdivisions which in the majority of cases need not even be specified. It is the main divisions or principal branches that properly speaking constitute the darshanas in the accepted meaning of the word. Following the classification generally admitted in India, there are six of these main divisions, which should not be confused, owing to their number being the same, with what are called the six Vedāngas.

The word Vedānga literally means 'limb of the Veda', and this name is applied to certain auxiliary sciences of the Veda, which are compared to the bodily limbs by means of which a being acts outwardly; the fundamental treatises relating to these sciences, which we are about to enumerate, form part of smriti, in which indeed they occupy the first place by reason of their direct relationship with the Veda. Shiksha is the science of correct articulation and exact pronunciation, implying a knowledge of the symbolical value of letters, as also of the laws of euphony which are more important and more developed in Sanskrit than in any other language; in a traditional language, in fact, the use of a phonetic method of writing is in no way inconsistent with the preservation of an ideographic meaning, as may also be observed in the case of both Hebrew and Arabic.

Chhandas is the science of prosody, which determines the application of the various metres in correspondence with the vibrations of the cosmic order which they serve to express, thus setting them in quite a different category to that of 'poetical' forms in the purely literary sense of the word: moreover, the profound knowledge of rhythm and its cosmic correspondences, which leads to its use in certain preparatory methods of metaphysical realization, is common to all Eastern civilizations, totally strange though it is to Western peoples.

Vyākarana is grammar, but instead of being presented simply as a body of rules that appear more or less arbitrary because the reasons for them are unknown, as commonly happens in Western languages, it is on the contrary based upon conceptions and classifications that are always in strict relationship with the logical meaning of language.

Nirukta is the explanation of important or difficult terms which are found in the Vedic texts; these explanations do not rest solely upon etymology, but also, and more often, upon the symbolic value of the letters and syllables of which the words are composed. This is a source of innumerable errors on the part of orientalists, who can neither understand nor even conceive of this last method of explanation, which is perfectly natural to the traditional languages and very similar to that found in the Hebrew Kabbalah; the result is that they are unwilling or unable to see anything but fanciful etymologies, or even a common play upon words, in what is obviously something very different.

Jyotisha is astronomy, or more exactly it is both astronomy and astrology, which have never been separated in India, any more than they were by any of the ancient peoples, not even by the Greeks themselves, who employed these two words indifferently to describe one and the same thing. The distinction between astronomy and astrology is in fact quite modern, and it should also be added that the real traditional astrology, such as is still to be found in the East, has practically nothing in common with the divinatory speculations to which certain people wish to attach the same name in contemporary Europe.

Lastly comes kalpa, a word which actually bears many different meanings, but which here stands for the whole body of precepts relating to the accomplishment of rites, knowledge of which is indispensable to give the latter their full efficacy; in the sūtras where they are set forth, these precepts are condensed by means of a special symbolical notation into formulas which are in appearance not unlike those used in algebra.

In addition to the Vedāngas, mention must also be made of the Upavedas, a word designating branches of knowledge of an inferior kind, but which nevertheless rest upon a strictly traditional basis; these branches of knowledge refer to the domain of practical application. There are four Upavedas, which are attached to the four Vedas in which they find their respective principles: Ayur-Veda is the science of medicine, related thus to the Rig Veda; Dhanur-Veda is military science, related to the Yajur-Veda; Gandharva-Veda is music, related to the Sāma-Veda; Sthāpatya-Veda includes mechanics and architecture, and is related to the Atharva-Veda. According to Western ideas these are arts rather than sciences properly so called; but the traditional principle given to them here confers a rather different character upon them. Naturally, the foregoing enumeration of the Vedāngas and Upavedas in no way excludes other sciences not mentioned in this list, of which some at least have also been cultivated in India since ancient times; it is known that mathematics in particular, comprising, under the general name of ganita, pātī-ganita or vyakta-ganita, 'arithmetic', bīja-ganita, 'algebra', and rekhā-ganita, 'geometry', received a remarkable development, especially as regards the first two of its three branches, from which Europe, through the mediation of the Arabs, was to benefit later on.

Having thus given a brief survey of the whole body of the traditional sciences of India, each of which moreover constitutes some secondary aspect of the doctrine, we will now return to the darshanas, which should also be regarded as forming an integral part of this body of knowledge, failing which one will never understand anything at all about them. It ought never to be forgotten that in India, as well as in China, one of the gravest insults one can offer to a thinker is to praise the novelty and originality of his ideas; in civilizations that are essentially traditional, this characteristic suffices to deprive such ideas of all real significance. No doubt, among those who attach themselves specially to the study of one or another of the darshanas, schools may sometimes be formed differing from each other on certain points of interpretation, but these divergencies have never been able to proceed very far without overstepping the bounds of orthodoxy; bearing usually only upon secondary points, they are in fact more apparent than real, amounting rather to differences of expression, and moreover having their uses through their being adapted to differing types of intelligence. Besides, it is obvious that a 'point of view' can never have been the exclusive property of any particular school, although to those who are content to regard things superficially it may sometimes appear to be identified with the conceptions of the school that has chiefly developed it; confusions of this kind seem to come naturally to Westerners, who are accustomed to attribute to particular individuals, as actual 'inventions', all the conceptions they have ever heard of. This postulate is to a large extent implicit in their 'historical method', and at the present time even the religious point of view does not escape the consequences of this special turn of mind, which directs against it all the resources of that anti-traditional exegesis to which we have already referred.

The six darshanas are Nyāya and Vaisheshika, Sāņkhya and Yoga, Mīmānsā and Vedānta; they are usually enumerated in this order and in pairs in order to mark their affinities; as for wishing to assign a chronological order of succession to their development, this is a vain question without any real interest for reasons already stated, since we are concerned with points of view which from the very beginning were implicitly contained in perfect simultaneity within the primordial doctrine. To characterize them briefly, it may be said that the first two points of view are analytical, while the four others are synthetic; on the other hand, the two last stand out from the others as being in a direct and immediate way interpretations of the Veda itself, from which the rest are derived more remotely; also, no heterodox opinions, be they even partially so, have ever been able to take root in these last two darshanas, while some have arisen in schools dedicated to the study of the four others. Since too abridged a definition of the darshanas would inevitably be incomplete and difficult to understand, and consequently of little use, we have thought it preferable to allot a separate chapter to each one of them in turn, especially as the subject is sufficiently important in relation to the aims of the present work to merit being treated at some length.