Phenapas, whose name means literally “froth-drinkers.” Perhaps this curious designation stems from their practice of drinking the morning dew from leaves. Their diet is stark, consisting chiefly of certain kinds of fruit. Unlike the other eremites, the Phenapas have no fixed abode.
The wandering renouncers (parivrâjaka) comprise the following categories:
Kuticakas: The name refers to their wearing of a tuft but has other connotations as well. Thus the word kuti can mean both “house” or “home” and “sexual intercourse,” whereas the stem caka means “to tremble.” Hence the kuticaka is one who trembles when he ponders the householder existence, especially the lure of sexual attachment, that is, he practices chastity. He wanders from place to place, wearing a loincloth and carrying a renouncer’s staff and water vessel. He practices meditation by means of sacred syllables or chants (mantra).
Bahûdakas: Their lifestyle is as simple as that of the Kuticakas. They subsist on eight morsels a day, which they gather from different places “like a bee.” The appellation means literally “abundant water” (bahu “much,” udaka “water”) and refers to the fact that renouncers of this type tend to frequent sacred places along rivers.
Hamsas: These itinerant ascetics are so named because they live like “swans.” (Strictly speaking, the word hamsa refers to the male of India’s species of wild geese.) They do not even beg their food but live from the products of cows, including urine and dung.
Paramahamsas: The way of life of these “supreme swans” is still more Spartan. They are described as smearing their entire body with ashes as a sign of their total renunciation of conventional existence. Various scriptures prescribe different rituals for them, such as wearing a single loin cloth or carrying a bamboo staff. But the important fact about the parama-hamsas is that they are considered to be fully Self-realized beings. According to some texts, such as the Vaikhânasa-Smârta-Sûtra, the parama-hamsas wander about in the nude and frequent graveyards. This strange custom foreshadowed the later left-hand rituals of Tantra, which will be introduced in Chapter 17.
The Nârada-Parivrâjaka-Upanishad (c. 1200 C.E.) adds two more classes to the above schema-the turîyâtitas and the avadhûtas. Both are Self-realized adepts. The former, whose name means “transcending the Fourth,” live on the little food that is placed directly in their mouths-a practice that is called “cow-face” (go-mukha). The latter depend equally on the charity of others. The most telling distinction between the two is that the avadhûtas walk about naked, thus demonstrating their ecstatic obliviousness to all differences: There is only the One Reality, which is sexless. All else has, as the name avadhûta suggests, been “cast off.”
As can be seen, the term “renunciation” covers a wide range of possible lifestyles-from the householder who simply performs an inner or symbolic renunciation to the forest-dweller who continues to observe certain ritual obligations, to the naked wanderer whose way of life can be described as a form of sacred anarchy. Some of these renouncers practiced one or the other form of Yoga, while others simply contemplated the mysteiy of the Self, without any external aids. All these different types have, over the millennia, contributed to the rich tapestry of Indian spirituality.
IV. YOGA AND HINDU PHILOSOPHY
In Hinduism the distinction between philosophy and religion is not as clear-cut as it is in our contemporary Western civilization. Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism, does not have straightforward equivalents for either the term “philosophy” or “religion.” The closest synonym for “philosophy” is ânvîk-shikî-vidyâ (“science of examination”). The related term tarka-shâstra (“discipline of reasoning”) is generally applied only to the Nyâya school of thought, which deals with logic and dialectics. Modern pundits use the term tattva-vidyâ-shâstra (“discipline of knowing reality”) to express what we mean by “philosophical inquiry.”
The concept of “religion” is captured in the Sanskrit term dharma, which means “law” or “norm” (with many other connotations). Hindu religion is referred to as sanâtana-dharma (“eternal law”), which corresponds to the Western notion of philosophia perennis.
For the Hindu, philosophy is not a matter of purely abstract knowledge but metaphysics that has moral implications. In other words, whatever one’s theoretical conclusions about reality may be, they must be applied in daily life. Thus philosophy is always regarded as a way of life and is never pursued as merely an inconsequential exercise in rational thinking. More than that, Hindu philosophy (and Indian philosophy as a whole) has a spiritual thrust. With the exception of the materialist school, which is known as Lokâyata or Cârvâka, all philosophical schools acknowledge the existence of a transcendental Reality and agree that a person’s spiritual well-being is dependent on how he or she relates to that Reality. Hindu philosophy is therefore closer to the spirit of the ancient Greek philosophia (“love of wisdom”) than to the contemporary academic discipline of conceptual analysis, which goes by the name of philosophy but is not particularly concerned with life-enhancing wisdom.
Hindu philosophy comprises the same areas of rational inquiry that also have preoccupied the philosophers of the West since the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle-namely, ontology (which deals with the categories of existence), epistemology (which is concerned with the knowledge processes by which we come to know what there is “in reality”), logic (which defines the rules of rational thought), ethics (which critically examines the philosophical basis of action), and aesthetics (which seeks to understand beauty). However, as is true for instance of Christian philosophy, Hindu philosophy is greatly concerned with the ultimate spiritual destiny of humankind. Hence it often describes itself as âtma-vidyâ (“science of the Self’) or âdhyâtmika-vidyâ (“spiritual science”).
The earliest philosophical speculations or intuitions of Hinduism are found in the ancient Rig-Veda, though mature self-critical systems appear to be the product of the time after the emergence of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.E. Traditionally, six systems are distinguished, which are referred to as “viewpoints” or “visions” (darshana, from the verbal root drish “to see”). This phrase hints at two significant things about Hindu philosophy: Each system is not merely the product of rational thinking but also of visionary-intuitive processes, and each system is a particular perspective from which the same truth is viewed, which suggests a position of tolerance (at least in theory, if not in practice). And that identical Truth is what has been handed down by word of mouth (and by esoteric initiation) as the ultimate or transcendental Reality, whether it is called God (îsh, îsha, îshvara, all meaning “ruler”), the Self (âtman, purusha), or the Absolute (brahman).
Tradition is a key element in Hindu philosophy, and tradition means the Vedic revelation (shruti), particularly the Rig-Veda. In order to establish their respective schools within the orthodox fold, the Hindu philosophers had to defer, or at least pay lip service, to the ancient Vedic heritage. The six principal schools recognized by the Hindu orthodoxy as representing valid points of view within the context of the Vedic revelation are the following: Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ (which puts forward a philosophy of sacrificial ritualism), Uttara-Mîmâmsâ or Vedânta (which is the nondualist metaphysics espoused especially in the Upanishads), Sâmkhya (whose principal contribution concerns the categories of existence, or tattvas), Yoga (which here refers specifically to the philosophical school of Patanjali, the author of the Yoga-Sûtra), Vaisheshika (which, similar to the Sâmkhya school, is an attempt to grasp the categories of existence, though from a different angle), and Nyâya (which is primarily a theory of logic and argument). I will briefly describe each school and highlight its relationship to the Yoga tradition.
Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ
The school of Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ (“Earlier Inquiry”) is so called because it interprets the “earlier” two portions of the Vedic revelation: the ancient Vedic hymnodies themselves and the Brâhmana texts that explain and develop their sacrificial rituals. It is contrasted to the
Uttara-Mîmâmsâ (“Later Inquiry”), represented by the nondualist teachings of the Upanishads. The Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ school was given its distinct form by the Mîmâmsâ-Sûtra of Jaimini (c. 200–300 B.C.E.). It expounds the art and science of moral action in keeping with Vedic ritualism. Its focal point is the concept of dharma, or virtue, insofar as it affects the religious or spiritual destiny of the individual. The secular applications of dharma are left to the authorities of ethics (dharma-shâstra) to define and explain. There have been several renowned Jaiminis, and the author of the Sûtra must be distinguished especially from the sage who was a disciple of Vyâsa at the time of the Bhârata war.
The Mîmâmsâ thinkers, or mîmâmsâkas, regard ethical action as an invisible, extraordinary force that determines the appearance of the world: The human being is intrinsically active, and action determines the quality of human existence both in the present incarnation and in future incarnations. Good actions (actions in keeping with the Vedic moral code, which is thought to mirror the universal order itself) bring about positive life circumstances, whereas bad actions (actions contradicting the Vedic moral code) lead to negative life circumstances.
The purpose of living a morally sound life is to improve the qualities of one’s existence in the present, in the hereafter, and in subsequent embodiments. Because the individual has free will, he or she can accumulate positive results, and even annul existing negative results, through good actions. Free will is guaranteed by the fact that the essential Self is transcendental and eternal. In contrast to Vedânta, the Mîmâmsâ school postulates many such essential Selves (âtman). These are deemed intrinsically unconscious and come to consciousness only in conjunction with a body-mind. Consciousness is, therefore, always I-consciousness (aham-dhî) for the Mîmâmsâ thinkers. There is no God over and above those many eternal and omnipresent Selves, although from the fifteenth century on, some representatives of this school started to believe in a Creator God.
Since the Self is held to possess neither consciousness nor bliss, the earlier mîmâmsâkas naturally found the ideal of liberation pursued by other schools quite undesirable. This orientation was rejected by the eighth-century philosopher Kumârila Bhatta and his pupil Prabhâkara. They both taught that abstention from the prohibited and merely optional actions and the dutiful performance of the prescribed actions automatically lead to the dissociation of the Self from the body- mind-that is, liberation. They looked upon the Self as consciousness, though failed to fully develop the metaphysical implications of their position.
The practice of yogic techniques has no place in Mîmâmsâ, which extols the ideal of duty for duty’s sake. Sarvepalli Râdhâkrishnân, a former president of India and a great scholar, remarked about this school of thought that “as a philosophical view of the universe it is strikingly incomplete … There is little in such a religion to touch the heart and make it glow.”13 However, Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ was one of the cultural forces encountered by the Yoga tradition, and therefore it needs to be taken into account here.
By Western standards, this system of thought would hardly be called philosophical, though Pûrva- Mîmâmsâ was instrumental in developing logic and dialectics. Apart from Jaimini, Kumârila, and Prabhâkara, the most outstanding thinker of this school, which has a rather comprehensive literature, is Mandana Mishra (ninth century C.E.), who later became converted to Shankara’s school of Advaita Vedânta and assumed the name Sureshvara.
The story of the electrifying encounter between Shankara and Mandana Mishra is told in the fourteenth-century Shankara-Dig-Vijayâ, a spurious biography of Shankara. According to this legend, the young Shankara, who had adopted the life of a renouncer, visited Mandana Mishra’s stately mansion just as the great scholar of Vedic ritualism was about to embark on one of his ceremonies. He was annoyed with Shankara, who wore neither the traditional hair tuft nor the sacred thread across his chest. After a barrage of insulting remarks, which Shankara took calmly and not without amusement, Mandana Mishra, rather proud of his learning, challenged the visitor to a debate. They agreed, as was customary in those days, that whoever lost the debate was to assume the lifestyle of the winner.
Their combat of knowledge and wit lasted over several days and drew large crowds of scholars. Mandana Mishra’s wife, Ubhayâ Bhâratî (who was none other than Sârasvatî, the Goddess of Learning, in disguise), was appointed umpire. Before long, she announced the defeat of her husband but then promptly argued that Shankara had defeated only one half; for his victory to be real, he would also have to defeat her. Slyly, she challenged the young renouncer to a discussion about sexuality.
Without losing his composure, Shankara asked for an adjournment so that he could acquaint himself with this area of knowledge. It so happened that the ruler of a neighboring kingdom had just died, and Shankara, wasting no time, used his yogic powers to enter the corpse and reanimate it. Under the joyous exclamations of the king’s relatives, he returned to the palace. In the spirit of Tantra, Shankara enjoyed and explored for a period of time the delights of sexual love among the dead king’s wives and courtesans. As the legend goes, he got so absorbed in this new life that his disciples had to steal into the palace and remind him of his former life as a renouncer.
Restored to his true identity, Shankara deftly dropped the king’s body and resumed the debate with Mandana Mishra’s wife. Of course, he won. Mandana Mishra declared himself a pupil of Shankara, whereupon his wife Ubhayâ Bhâratî revealed her true identity. Shankara’s victory is generally seen as a victory of his superior nondualist metaphysics over the less sophisticated philosophy of Pûrva-Mîmâmsâ. This may be so, but it was primarily a triumph of yogic experientialism over intellectualism.
Uttara-Mîmâmsâ
The many-branched school of Uttara-Mîmâmsâ (“Later Inquiry”), also known as Vedânta (“Veda’s End”), gets its name from the fact that it evolved around the consideration of the “later” two portions of the Vedic revelation: the ranyakas (forest treatises composed by hermits) and the Upanishads (esoteric gnostic scriptures composed by sages). Both the ranyakas and the Upanishads represent a metaphoric reinterpretation of the ancient Vedic heritage: They preached the internalization of the archaic rituals in the form of meditation. Especially the Upanishadic teachings gave rise to the whole consciousness technology associated with the Vedânta tradition.
The literature of the Uttara-Mîmâmsâ school, or Vedânta, comprises the Upanishads (of which there are over two hundred texts), the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (which is given the sacred status of an Upanishad and may belong to c. 500–600 B.C.E.), and the Vedânta- or Brahma-Sûtra of Bâdarâyana (c. 200 C.E.), which systematizes the often contradictory teachings of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gîtâ.
Vedânta is metaphysics par excellence. Its various subschools all teach one or another form of nondualism, according to which Reality is a single, homogeneous whole. The fundamental idea of Vedântic nondualism is articulated in the following stanzas from the Naish- karmya-Siddhi (“Perfection of Action-Transcendence”), composed by Sureshvara (the former Mandana Mishra):
Nonrecognition of the singular Selfhood [of all things] is [spiritual] ignorance (avidyâ). The mainstay of [that ignorance] is the experience of one’s own self. It is the seed of the world-of-change. The destruction of that [spiritual ignorance] is the liberation (mukti) of the self. (1.7)
The fire of right knowledge (jnâna) arising from the brilliant Vedic utterances bums up the delusion of [there being an independent] self. Action does not [remove ignorance], because it is not incompatible [with ignorance]. (1.80)
Because action arises from ignorance, it does not do away with delusion. Right knowledge [alone can remove ignorance], since it is its opposite, rather like the sun is [the opposite of] darkness. (1.35)
Upon mistaking a tree stump for a thief, one becomes frightened and runs away. Similarly, one who is deluded superimposes the Self upon the buddhi [i.e., the higher mind] and the other [aspects of the human personality], and then acts [o
n the basis of that mistaken view], (1.60)
Advaita Vedânta stood the earlier Vedic ritualism on its head. It is a gospel of gnosis: not intellectual or factual knowledge but the liberating intuition of the transcendental Reality.
The two greatest exponents of Vedânta were Shankara (c. 788–820 C.E.)14 and Râmânuja (1017–1127 C.E.). The former succeeded in constructing a coherent philosophical system out of the Upanishadic teachings and has largely been responsible for the survival of Hinduism and the displacement of Buddhism from India. Râmânuja, on the other hand, came to the rescue of the Advaita Vedânta tradition when it was threatened with losing itself in dry scholasticism. His notion of the Divine as entailing rather than transcending all qualities encouraged the popular thrust toward a more devotional expression within Hindu spirituality. Both Shankara and Râmânuja, as well as many other Vedânta teachers, have had strong links with the Yoga tradition. This is explored in Chapter 12.
Sâmkhya
The tradition of Sâmkhya (“Enumeration”), which comprises many different schools, is primarily concerned with enumerating and describing the principal categories of existence. This approach would be called “ontology,” or the “science of being,” in Western philosophy. In their metaphysical ideas, Sâmkhya and Yoga are closely akin and in fact once formed a single pre-classical tradition. But whereas the followers of Sâmkhya use discrimination (viveka) and renunciation as their chief means of salvation, the yogins proceed mainly through the combined practice of meditation and renunciation. Sâmkhya is often characterized as the theoretical aspect of Yoga practice, but this is incorrect. Both traditions have their own distinct theories and practical approaches. Because of its emphasis on discriminative knowledge rather than meditation,
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