Symbolism and Philosophy

Symbolisme et philosophie, November 1935.

The philosophers, who claim to take hold of the most diverse of things as if their competence extends to everything, sometimes also deal with symbolism, therein they arrive at the strangest ideas and theories; this is how some people wished to constitute a 'psychology of symbolism,' per- haps we will return to this subject. However, some of them recognize that symbolism does not belong to philosophy, but they intend to give this assertion a clearly unfavorable meaning, as if symbolism was some- thing inferior and even negligible in their eyes; one may even wonder if they are simply confusing it with the pseudo-symbolism of certain liter- ary men, thus taking an abusive and diverted use of the word for its true meaning. In reality, if symbolism is a 'form of thought' as is said, which is true from a certain point of view, but does not prevent it from being something else first and foremost, as we will say later, as philosophy is something radically different and opposing it in many regards. We can go further: this form of thought that represents philosophy corresponds only to a very special point of view and is valid only in a rather limited domain, of which its greatest fault is perhaps not knowing, or not want- ing to know, its limits. Symbolism, as we have explained often, has a very different meaning; even seeing it as nothing more than two forms of thought would be a grave mistake to place them on the same plane. That philosophers are of a different opinion does not prove anything; to put things in their proper place, we must above all consider these impartially, which the philosophers cannot do in this case. As for us, we are well convinced that, as philosophers, they will never be able to penetrate the most profound meaning of the least symbol, because there is something there which is entirely outside their way of thinking and which neces- sarily exceeds their comprehension.

Those who already know all that we have said elsewhere regarding philosophy cannot be surprised to see ourselves attributing to it only a relative and secondary importance; moreover, without even reaching the essence of things and in order to realize that its position can only be sub- ordinate, it is sufficient to remember that every mode of expression nec- essarily has a symbolic character, in the most general meaning of this term, in relation to what it expresses. Philosophers can only use but words, and, as we recalled in our previous articles, these words in them-selves are and can be nothing but symbols; therefore, it is, in a certain sense, philosophy which enters the domain of symbolism, which is con-sequently subordinate to it, and not the inverse. However, there is, in a certain relation, an opposition between phi-losophy and symbolism, if one understands the latter in the more re-stricted sense which is most habitually given to it: this opposition con-sists in what philosophy is, as all that is expressed in the ordinary forms of language is essentially analytic, while symbolism itself is essentially synthetic. The form of language is, by definition, 'discursive' as it is the proper instrument of human reason, of which it follows and copies the march as precisely as possible; on the contrary, symbolism properly speaking is truly 'intuitive,' which, quite naturally, renders it incompa-rably more apt than language to serve as a point of support for intellec-tual and supra-rational intuition, this is why it forms, as we have already said, the mode of expression par excellence of all initiatic education. As for philosophy, it represents in a way the type of discursive thought (which, naturally, does not mean that all discursive thought has a specif-ically philosophic character) that imposes limitations which it cannot free itself from; on the other hand, symbolism, as a support for intuitive thought, opens truly unlimited possibilities. Philosophy, through its discursive character, is exclusively rational, since this character is that which belongs to reason itself; the domain of philosophy and its possibilities cannot extend in any case beyond what reason is capable of attaining, and yet it represents only a certain partic-ular use of this faculty, for it is evident, if only because of the existence of independent sciences, that there is in the very order of rational knowledge, many things which are not within the purview of philoso-phy. Moreover, it is not a question here of challenging the value of reason in its own domain so long as it does not claim to exceed it, but this value can only be relative just as this domain is relative; besides, does the word ratio itself not originally have the meaning of 'relation'? We will not even dispute the legitimacy of the dialectic, even within certain limitations, although philosophers all too often abuse it, but this dialectic must never be anything but a means, not an end within itself, and, moreover, it may be that this means is not applicable to all indistinctly; to be aware of this, one must only go beyond the bounds of the dialectic, and that is why the philosopher cannot do as such. Even admitting that philosophy goes as far as is theoretically possible, meaning to the extreme limits of the domain of reason, it will still be very little in truth, because, to use an Evangelical expression, “only one thing is necessary," and it is precisely this thing which will always remain for- bidden to him, because it is above and beyond all rational knowledge. What can the discursive methods of philosophy do in the face of the in- expressible, which is, as we explained in our last article, the 'mystery' in the most true and profound meaning of the word? Symbolism, on the contrary, has the essential function of making this inexpressible ‘asser- tion' able to provide the support which will enable intellectual intuition to reach it effectively; who, having understood this, would still dare to deny the immense superiority of symbolism and to dispute that its reach is incomparably beyond that of any possible philosophy? So excellent and so perfect as a philosophy may be (and it is certainly not modern philosophies that would reach such a hypothesis), it remains only a piece of straw,' this word being from Saint Thomas Aquinas himself, which should not be brought to depreciate philosophic thought beyond meas- ure.

But there is something else: considering symbolism as a 'form of thought,' it is only considered in the purely human relation, which is the only one under which a comparison with philosophy is possible; it must doubtlessly be considered in this way, but, in truth, it is far from being sufficient and represents only the outermost side of the question. We have all too often had occasion to insist on the ‘non-human' side of sym- bolism so that it is not necessary to return to it at great length; what is sufficient, in fact, is to state that it has its foundation in the very nature of beings and things, i.e. in perfect conformity with the laws of this na- ture, and to reflect that the natural laws themselves are only at their es- sence an expression and externalization, so to speak, of the Divine or Principle Will. The true foundation of symbolism is, let us repeat once again, the correspondence that exists between all the orders of reality, which connects them to each other, and which consequently extends to natural order taken as a whole alongside supernatural order itself; by virtue of this correspondence, the whole of nature is itself only a symbol, i.e. it receives its true meaning only if it is regarded as a support for rais- ing us to the knowledge of supernatural truths, or 'metaphysics' in the true sense of this word, which is precisely the essential function of sym- bolism and what is also the profound raison d'être of all ‘traditional sci- ence.'^[442] By this very fact, there is in symbolism something whose origin goes higher and further than humanity, and one could say that this origin is in the very work of the Divine Word: it is firstly in the universal man- ifestation itself, and then, especially in relation to humanity, in the Pri-mordial Tradition, which is also a 'revelation' of the Word; this Tradition, which all the others are only derivative forms, is incorporated, so to speak, into symbols which have been transmitted from age to age with-out having any 'historical' origin attributed to them, and the process of this kind of symbolic incorporation is still analogous, in its order, to that of the manifestation.^[443] In the face of these qualifications professing symbolism's transcend-ent value, what can philosophy ever lay claim to? The origin of symbol-ism is truly identical to the origin of time, if it is not, in a sense, beyond time, since time includes only a specific mode of manifestation. Moreo-ver, no authentically traditional symbol can be attributed to a human in-ventor; should this not all be food for thought for those that are capable? On the contrary, all philosophy only goes back to a definitive period, in sum, a period that is always recent, even if it is a question of 'classical' antiquity which is only a very relative antiquity (which proves that, even in the humane, this form of thought is not essential);^[444] it is the work of a man whose name is known to us as well as the dates on which he lived, and it is in this very name which is usually used to designate it, which shows there is nothing here but the human and individual. This is why we said earlier that we cannot think of making a comparison between philosophy and symbolism unless we consider it exclusively on the hu-man side, since, for the rest, we cannot find in the philosophic order any equivalence or correspondence whatsoever. At best, philosophy is 'human wisdom,' but it is only that in any case, and this is why we say that it is something very little at essence; it is only that because it is a perfectly rational speculation, and reason is a purely human faculty, the very one by which the individual human nature is defined as such. 'Human wisdom,' as well as 'worldly wisdom,' in the sense that the 'world' is understood in the Gospel;^[445] in the same sense, we could still say just as well 'profane wisdom.' All these expressions are synonymous at their essence, and they clearly indicate that what is in-volved is not true wisdom, it is at most a shadow.^[446] Moreover, let us insist again, even a philosophy that is as perfect as possible is truly under this shadow and can pretend to be nothing more, but, in fact, most phi-losophies are not even that, they are only constructions devoid of any solid foundation, more or less fanciful hypotheses, simple individual opinions without authority and real significance.

In concluding, we can summarize in a few words the substance of our thought: philosophy is only 'profane knowledge,' while symbolism, un-derstood in its true sense, is essentially part of ‘sacred science.' We know very well that most of our contemporaries, if not the majority, are unfor-tunately unable to make the distinction between these two orders of knowledge as is appropriate (if a 'profane' knowledge truly deserves this title); naturally, it is not these that we are addressing, because it is only 'sacred science' that we intend to concern ourselves with.

Varnah Varna, November 1935.

Mr. Gualtherus H. Mees, in his book Dharma and Society which we have already spoken of, expands on the question of castes; he does not accept this word in the sense we understand it, but he prefers to keep the San- skrit word varņah without translation or rendering it by an expression such as that of 'natural classes,' which, in fact, quite well defines what it is, since it is truly a hierarchical distribution of human beings in accord- ance with the specific nature of each of them. However, it is to be feared that the word 'classes,' even accompanied by a qualifier, evokes the idea of something more or less comparable to the social classes of the Occi- dent which are purely and truly artificial, and which have nothing in common with a traditional hierarchy, of which they represent at most a kind of parody or caricature. For our part, we find that it is better to use the word 'castes,' which certainly only has a very conventional value, but which, at the least, has been made expressly to designate the Hindu organization; Mr. Mees reserves it for the multiple castes that actually exist in present-day India, and in which he wishes to see something quite different from the original varņāsaḥ. We cannot share this way of think- ing, because these are really only secondary subdivisions, due to a greater complexity or differentiation of the social organization, and, whatever their multiplicity, they are nevertheless still part of the four varņāsaḥ, which alone constitute the fundamental hierarchy and remain neces- sarily invariable as an expression of traditional principles and a reflection of the cosmic order in the human social order. There is, under this distinction that Mr. Mees wishes to establish be- tween varnah and 'caste,' an idea which seems largely inspired by the Bergsonian theories on ‘open societies' and 'closed societies,' although he never explicitly refers to these: he tries to distinguish between two aspects of the dharma, one which corresponds more or less to varņah and the other to 'caste,' whose predominance would assert itself alternately in what he calls 'periods of life' and 'periods of forms,' to which he re- spectively attributes 'dynamic' and 'static' characters. We have no inten- tion of discussing here these philosophico-historic conceptions which obviously do not rely on traditional data; it is more interesting for us to point out a misunderstanding regarding the word jāti, which the author believes to designate what he calls 'caste,' whereas, in reality, it is simply used as an equivalent or synonym of varņah. The word jāti literally means 'birth,' but it should not be understood, at least not exclusively or in principle, in the sense of ‘heredity'; it designates the individual nature of the being as a set of possibilities which it will develop during its existence, insofar as it is necessarily determined from its very birth. This nature results first and foremost from the being in itself, and secondly from the influences of the milieu, of which heredity properly speaking is apart of. It must also be added that this very milieu is normally determined by a certain law of 'affinity,' to conform as closely as possible to the proper tendencies of the being who is born there; we say normally because there may be more or fewer exceptions, at least in a period of confusion like the Kali-Yuga. That being so, we do not see at all what an 'open' caste might be, if we understand by that (and what else could we understand?) that an individual would have the possibility of changing castes in a given moment; that would imply in him a change of nature which is just as inconceivable as a sudden change of species in the life of an animal or plant (and it may be remarked that the word jāti also has the meaning of 'species,' which further justifies this comparison). An apparent change of caste would be nothing more than the reparation of an error, in the case where one would have first attributed to the individual a caste which was not really his; the fact that such an error can sometimes occur (precisely because of the confusion of the Kali-Yuga) does not preclude, in a general way, the possibility of determining the true caste from birth. If Mr. Mees seems to believe that the consideration of heredity would intervene only then, it is because he probably does not know that the means of this determination can be provided by certain traditional sciences, if only through astrology (which, naturally, here is something quite different from the claimed 'scientific astrology' of some modern Westerners and has nothing to do with the 'conjectural' or 'divinatory' art, nor with the empiricism of statistics and calculation of probabilities). This being established, let us return to the very notion of varņah: this word properly means 'color,' but also, by extension, 'quality' in general, and that is why it can be taken to designate individual nature; Mr. Mees quite rightly dismisses the bizarre interpretation proposed by some, who wish to see in the meaning of 'color' the proof that the distinction of the varņāsah was originally based on differences of race, of which it is absolutely impossible to find confirmation anywhere. The truth is that if colors are actually attributed to varņāsaḥ, it is purely symbolic, and the 'key' of this symbolism is given by the correspondence with the guṇāḥ, a correspondence which is particularly indicated very explicitly in this text of the Vișnu-Purāṇa: “When Brahmā, in accordance with his design, wished to produce the world, beings in which sattva prevailed came from his mouth; others in which rajas was predominant came from his chest; others in which rajas and tamas were great came from his thighs; finally, others came from his feet, having as their main characteristic tamas. Of these beings, the four varņāsah were composed, the Brāhmaṇāh, the Kṣatriyāh, the Vaiśyāḥ, and the Śūdrāh.” Sattva being represented by the color white, this is naturally attributed to the Brāhmaṇāḥ; likewise, red, the representative color of rajas, is attributed to the Kṣatriyāḥ; the Vaiśyāh, characterized by a mixture of the two lower guņau, carries the symbolic color of yellow; finally, black, the color of tamas, is consequently the one that suits the Śūdrah.

HAMSA

BRAHMANAH

KSHA TRIYA

VAI ŚYA

ŚŪDRA

The hierarchization of varņāsaḥ, thus determined by the gunāh which predominate respectively in them, is superimposed exactly over that of the elements, as we have explained in our recent study on this subject; this is immediately shown by comparing the diagram opposite the one we gave then. It must only be remarked, for the sake of completeness, that the place of the ether must be occupied here by Hamsa, i.e., by the single primordial caste that existed in the Krta-Yuga, and which contained the four later varņāsah in principle and undifferentiation, in the same way that the ether contains the four other elements.

On the other hand, Mr. Mees, while also defending himself from pushing these analogies too far, tries to indicate a correspondence of the four varņāsah with the four āśramāh or regular stages of existence, which we will not examine here, and also with the four purposes of human life of which we have spoken previously regarding dharma; in the latter case, the very fact that it is a quaternary division has induced it to be mani-festly inaccurate. Indeed, it is obviously inadmissible that we propose as a goal, even if it is the most inferior of all, to obtain something that cor-responds purely and simply to tamas; the distribution, if carried out as-cending from below, must, in fact, begin at the degree which is immedi-ately superior to that, as indicated by our second diagram, and it is easy to understand that dharma corresponds to sattva, kāma to rajas, and ar-tha to a mixture of rajas and tamas. At the same time, the relation of these goals with the character and the role of the three higher varņāsaḥ (i.e., of those whose members possess the ārya and dvija qualities) then appear on their own: the function of the Vaiśya refers to the acquisition of artha or the goods of the corporeal order; kāma, where desire is the motive for the activity which is proper to the Kṣatriya; and the Brāhmaṇa is truly the representative and the natural guardian of the dharma. As for mokṣa, this supreme goal is, as we have already said, an order entirely different from the other three, without any measure in common with them. It is therefore beyond all that corresponds to the particular func-tions of the varņāsaḥ, and it cannot be contained just as transient and contingent goals are in the sphere which represents the domain of con-ditioned existence, since it is precisely the liberation of this very exist-ence; naturally, it is also beyond the three guņāh, which concern only the states of universal manifestation.

MOKSHA

DHARMA

ΚΑΜΑ

ART HA

These few considerations show quite clearly that when it comes to traditional institutions, a purely 'sociological' point of view is insuffi-cient to get to the essence of things, since the true foundation of these institutions is of a strictly 'cosmological' order; it goes without saying that certain shortcomings in this respect must not prevent us from recognizing the merit of Mr. Mees' work, which is certainly far superior to most of the work that other Westerners have devoted to the same questions.