Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  Part III

  Images of time, space, and eternity

  13

  Reckoning time and ‘progress’

  It is often said that traditional Hinduism, religious or otherwise, is entirely lacking in the groundwork for a concept of history, not to mention progress, in the way we tend to use these terms today. This is attributed to the supposed Hindu tendency to view time as an endlessly repetitive sequence of events, in the context of which the concept of real progress – religious, moral, social or otherwise – both for the collective and the individual, cannot consistently be accommodated. There is a semblance of truth to this claim, but it is grossly over-simplified. The reality is far more complex. To appreciate why, we must first examine the traditional Hindu view of the passage of time.

  Hindu philosophy has always acknowledged a number of different views about the nature of time. Thus, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, time (kāla) belongs to the category of ‘substance’ (dravya). This means that it is an objective reality that cannot be reduced to any other category of being. Further, it is that kind of ‘substance that is also infinite, immaterial and partless; as such, it is pervasive in our universe. This makes our modes of reckoning time by such indicators as the sun (or clocks of various kinds) both relative and contingent. According to Advaita, however, the position is different. There is only one ultimate Real in Advaita, Brahman, so our experience of time and space etc. derives from the principle of māyā, which being neither real nor unreal in its own right, ‘refracts’ Brahman into an ultimately illusory world of grades of differentiated being. Time, therefore, in Advaita, is only provisionally real, not absolutely so.1

  Time in these philosophical positions can be measured only contingently; it has no absolute units, but this does not mean that, in popular conceptions, time cannot be dealt with seriously and creatively. In these imaginings, time is real enough. The term kāla has been derived from the root kal, which means to count, to reckon, to bring about. So time is the great Reckoner;it presides over the origin and destruction of worldly being. In the Gītā (11.32), Kṛṣṇa identifies himself with time: ‘I am Time, bringing about the destruction of the world’.

  In the popular imagination, time is associated with the act of devouring. Hindus have a tendency to link temporal transitions with a devouring of some kind, which itself can be associated with experiences of hardship in this world. Thus in Hindu mythology, eclipses of the sun and moon are attributed to Rāhu, the ‘seizer’. The story goes that ‘at the beginning of time’, the devas or celestials, and their rivals, the āsuras, used the cosmic serpent and mountain as a rope and pivot, respectively, to churn the elixir of immortality (amṛta) from the primeval waters. When the amṛta appeared, Rāhu, an āsura, disguised himself as a celestial and swallowed some of the elixir. But the sun and the moon exposed his disguise, and Rāhu was beheaded by Viṣṇu in punishment. Ever since then, the vengeful Rāhu has periodically swallowed both sun and moon, who in due course emerge from his severed throat. Here, the temporal phenomenon of an eclipse with its untimely absence of light and/or warmth, is linked to an act of devouring. Similarly, in many vernaculars, Indians speak of experiencing life's woes as a ‘swallowing’, e.g. the Bengali idiom of ‘eating’ a beating or insults. Ingestion is a form of reconciliation of (presumably) compatible elements – a way of integrating and transforming by way of digestive fires, for the good of the ingester – hence it is a way of neutralizing or minimizing potential discord. The travails of saṃisāra are ‘consumed’, and so made more bearable. The Sanskrit word for an experiencer in this world is bhoktā, which can also be translated, ‘eater’.

  In the traditional popular conception, time unfolds in the form of cycles of four ‘ages’ or yugas which start with an age of perfection and end, by way of progressive decline, with an age of degeneration. But what declines in this process? Mainly the observance of dharma, whose neglect engenders attendant evils. In the first age or satya yuga (also called the kṛta yuga), dharma or the socio-religious order, which is sometimes likened to a sacred cow, is, according to this image, firmly established on four legs (see Zimmer 1962:13f.). Human passions are generally under control in this age and the rules of caste etc. are respected; as a result, human capacities are heightened, e.g. the span of life is much longer than at present, and so on. This is the ‘golden’ age, the longest yuga, where the veil between mundane life and the transcendent realm is transparent. The Viṣṇudharmottara, a Purāṇa-like text,2 says that in the satya yuga, the deities are worshipped in their visible form (viz. by pratyakṣa-pūjā). There is no need for images or temples (see Banerjea 1956:229).

  But there is a steady decline of dharma. This is the result of human beings allowing their passions to get out of control. Both natural and moral goodness progressively wane, and the world becomes more prone to disorder. Now we are in the shorter treta yuga in which the sacred cow of dharma is more or less steady on three legs. In due course, the proportionally shorter dvāpara yuga begins, where dharma balances on two legs. As human capacities decline, the deities and/or celestials become directly visible less and less, and need to be approached through temple and other images, more and more. The veil between worldly existence and the transcendent realm is darkening. Finally, the kali yuga sets in.3 This age is characterized by the Viṣṇu Purāṇa as follows:

  [It is the age] when society reaches a stage where property confers rank, wealth becomes the only source of virtue, passion the sole bond of union between husband and wife, falsehood the source of success in life, sex the only means of enjoyment, and when outer trappings are confused with inner religion.

  (see Zimmer 1962:15)

  Will the reader be surprised to learn that, according to Hindu reckoning, this is the age in which humankind lives at present, and that it has hardly begun! It is proportionally the shortest yuga, the sacred cow of dharma wobbling on one leg only. Image-worship is commonplace, and avidyā or spiritual ignorance and obtuseness cloud the mind. When this age has run its course, it will be brought to an end by great floods or conflagrations (or both), and the cosmos will be reabsorbed into its prakritic source. The souls of living beings will co-exist in suspended mode. Then a new satya age begins, the cosmos once again taking due shape and form. And so the yuga-cycles, folding and unfolding, run on. In greater detail, the process is described as follows.

  Each series of four ages, from satya to kali, is called a mahā-yuga or ‘great yuga’, and each cycle is presided over by the deva, Brahmā (not to be confused with Brahman, the ‘Godhead’ or Supreme Being). Through Brahman’s command and power, and with the dictates of the law of karma in mind, Brahmā directs the formation and decline of the cosmos from yuga to yuga (for an interpretation of this process according to the theologian, Rāmānuja, see Chapter 9). One thousand cycles of world-projection and dissolution in this way (called a kalpa) are regarded as one ‘day’ of Brahmā (celestial ‘days’ are almost immeasurably longer than human days), and at the end of this, there is an equally long Brahmā-night, when the whole process is suspended. After 100 Brahmā-years of this cycle, everything stops and there is a period of quiescence for an equal length of time; only the Supreme Being remains, presiding over it all. The former Brahmā has discharged his function and his unexpended karma takes him to a new form of existence. When the process begins again, a new individual takes over as Brahmā, which is the fruit of his karma. This, in short, encapsulates the lineaments of the traditional mythic conception of time in (popular) Brahminic Hinduism.

  Is there a sufficient basis here to construct a modern idea of history, of true contingency and real progress (or decline)? I believe there is – if one is so inclined (we shall note the significance of these words presently). There are enough conceptual openings in the mythic understanding of time to give a proper historical reading to the unfolding of events. In the first place, there is little if any widespread support for the view – though some people do hold this view – that each succeeding mahā-yug
a or kalpa is a replica of the preceding one, so far as individual lives and shared events are concerned. Certain things are repeated with the (cyclical) passage of time, e.g. the basic structure of the universe and of the Veda, certain offices or functions such as that of Brahmā, the primeval seers or sages, and so on. But the common view is that, in each cycle, even the shortest, which extends for a considerable period of time anyway, human beings retain the freedom to shape their lives as they see fit; this allows, further, for individuals to attain final liberation and so change the course of events in which they have found themselves.

  Note the following anomaly in the conception, though. On the one hand, the cyclical process is presumed to be invariably degenerative; on the other hand, decline is generally attributed to more or less freely allowing the passions to get out of control. So logically, decline need not have taken place. But because human beings, and even the celestials (there are many myths to illustrate this), exist – even in the satya age – as essentially imperfect, with the capacity for baser instincts, things can and do go wrong. From the beginning, therefore, the elements of contingency and chance are introduced into the system as providing for the possibility of real change. There is room for the exercise of free will and reason, and consequently for genuine progress and decline in the course of events. In earlier chapters, in our analyses of dharma, rationality, karma and fate, we have seen how this is affirmed in the tradition. When some Hindus interpret their lives and world events in a deterministic way, then, they attribute to karma or fate an effectuating power that exists in excess of what is commonly held to be the case, and the scope for understanding history as a function of genuine contingency is eliminated. But this is a minority view.

  It is true, however, that historiography has not traditionally been a Hindu literary strength. We have noted in the early chapters of this book that, already from early times, Brahminic Hinduism was concerned to explore the nature of language in order to service the performance of the sacrificial ritual, rather than to seek to explain the passage of events. Further, the emphasis, certainly by the time of the early Upaniṣads (and reinforced by Buddhist and Jain thought) on minimizing the role of ‘I-making’ (ahaṃkāra) in the conduct of human morality, would have discouraged any preoccupation with recording human initiative in the shaping of events. This would affect adversely such exercises as composing histories. Extending this idea,4 one could say that producing historical narratives requires the dividing of peoples into a ‘them’ and ‘us’, so that a confrontation of national or collective identities occurs in terms of which one group can emerge superior to another. The sad tale of armed conflict so distinctive of our past histories, attests to this fact.

  But Hinduism as a whole has not made this kind of project a priority;it has focused, rather, on the religious quest for liberation or a spiritual freedom that transcends the constraints of conditioned existence. This is why I said earlier that the traditional conception of time allows for the possibility of producing history, ‘if one is so inclined’. As noted earlier, the focus in Hindu tradition, in general, on self-effacement as a moral ideal, coupled with the emphasis on understanding the nature and function of language, has not encouraged inclinations of this sort. In a word, Hinduism has self-reflectively stressed freedom from the limitations of conditioned existence as the ultimate goal, not immersion in this existence in order to shape and direct the course of events. This emphasis has had repercussions for the production of histories. Perhaps we can understand better now what lies at the heart of Vinay Lal's provocative statement:

  Does not [the stress on] history, and the development of a historiographical tradition, have a natural association with the notion of a personal savior and with proselytism [as found in the Abrahamic faiths]? ... History records the triumph of that faith, its spread through vast spaces over a period of time, and the acceptance by the conquered peoples of the personal savior as the redeemer of mankind ...

  Stated less strongly, the argument suggests only that monotheistic faiths almost certainly have resorted to the idioms of historical thought and writing, while Hinduism has been indifferent, if not hostile, to the historical enterprise.

  The acceptance of history is nothing but the narrowing of man's options, the submission of a people to the reigning ideas of the time ... History is servitude: and it is this view ... which must principally account for why Hindu civilization chose not to produce a historiographical tradition.

  (Lal 1996:123–4)5

  Theologically too, as opposed to mythologically, the freedom of the Godhead to produce the world is invariably affirmed in a context in which human freedom mimics the divine freedom. Thus Rāmānuja argues that the divine production of the world is a free act since it is based on prior deliberation (viz. it is ‘buddhi-pūrvaka’). He appeals to the scriptural passage, ‘It [the Supreme Being] thought, “May I be many, may I bring forth”’ (e.g. Chāndogya Up. 6.2.3) as describing the creative act. Rāmānuja interprets this utterance as implying God's freedom to produce the world;the statement is in the optative mood in Sanskrit, which implies the agent's freedom to act. His junior contemporary, the theologian Madhva, also stresses the divine sovereignty. Indeed, for Madhva, this is the distinctive attribute of the Supreme Being (Puthiadam 1973). In these views, the divine production of the world does not entail a determining Providence with respect to human actions and events;human beings are free to exercise genuine autonomy in their lives. Again, in Tantra, Abhinavagupta (see Chapters 3 and Chapter 10) insists that the progressive manifestation of dependent being from its transcendent source, whether this be ‘subjective’ or ‘objective’ being, word or object, is entirely subordinate to Śiva's sovereign will to initiate and sustain the whole process. Thus, an overriding determinism in the development of world events, whether initiated by the deity or presided over by some other power, has no philosophical underpinning in traditional Hinduism: historiography becomes a viable option.

  At this point, it would be relevant to revisit an important concept in traditional Hindu thought, often encountered even today. This is the concept of līlā (introduced in Chapter 8), which we can consider now with reference to the Supreme Being's relationship with the world. Hindus often say that the production of this world, or some event or sequence of events in it, is an expression of the deity's līlā – which is then misleadingly translated as ‘sport’ or ‘play’. In the light of this translation, Hinduism is then criticized for the belief that God does not take the world or human affairs seriously, and that the world is not an arena for responsible divine action. But this charge is quite misdirected, and has no philosophical or theological backing in the major strands of Hinduism.

  Here līlā invariably signifies that the deity is not constrained intrinsically or extrinsically to perform any action with regard to the world, whether this has to do with bringing the world into being or presiding over its destiny. The deity is not forced by his or her nature to produce the world in the first place. Sometimes this idea is expressed in figurative terms. Thus in the Lakṣmī Tantra, a text of about the eleventh century C.E. or even earlier, and included in the Pāñcrātra literature which has strong Tantric overtones, it is said that a ‘millionth particle of [Viṣṇu] as the will to create (sisṛkṣā) initiates creation’. This is obviously symbolic language for the view that creation is a totally unconstrained act on the part of the deity. In related texts of this corpus, it is simply the will of Viṣṇu that creates (P.P. Kumar 1997:28 and footnote 29).

  Theologians have posited a moral necessity in the Supreme Being to act in certain ways, consequent upon the sovereign decision to produce the world, ranging from manifesting scripture, to upholding the law of karma as an expression of divine justice or mercy, to reaching out in saving love. But all this is an expression of responsible divine action, and refutes the charge that the divine līlā is some kind of toying with humankind. On the contrary, līlā signifies the deity's freedom to produce and govern the world without an ulterior mot
ive of any kind. That God cares for the world is shown in various ways: the production of a structured universe with stable physical and moral laws, the bestowal of salvific scriptures and rituals, the divine descent (avatāra) in various forms to teach and save, and so on.

  However, in some traditions, līlā has an extended meaning. It points to the sovereignty, the spontaneity, the existential thrill of the Lord's deeds, during his descents into the world, or in some cases, to the majestic display of God's power. We have come across both these contexts before. The former is especially associated with Vaiṣṇava bhakti traditions, such as those of Rama and Kṛṣṇa. Where Kṛṣṇa is concerned, there are much-loved accounts of his numerous adventures as a young boy and of his amorous exploits with the gopīs or milkmaids in the idyllic setting of Vṛṇdāban, on the banks of the Yamunā river in north India. Kṛṣṇa pilfers butter, gets up to mischievous pranks with his friends, teases and dallies with the gopīs, and dances in ecstatic delight with them in a whirling ring in the light of the autumnal moon, so that each gopī believes that he dances with her and has eyes for her alone (the famous rāsa dance). This is līlā. Let us look at the Rāsa Līlā or circular dance more closely;it will help us understand the concept of līlā in greater depth.