Nevertheless, the inherent goodness of the qualities of the spirit attained, such as wisdom, kindness, serenity, forebearance, purity of intention, economy of thought and action, etc., is thought to radiate outwards beneficially towards all. According to this ideal, it is not a desirable thing to have ‘really lived’, that is, to have immersed oneself in the vortex of human relationships and their attendant passions, for such living perpetuates itself through the ignorance and misery of the karma and rebirth it engenders. In classical Śāṃkhya, there is no God who seeks actively to save individuals, and while Pātañjala Yoga does affirm the existence of a God (īśvara), this is a God, who, rather than being a saving God, is little more than the exalted Exemplar of the final state to be achieved. For the successful yogi, at death – all karma having been consumed – the link between spirit and the realm of prakṛti is finally severed, and permanent kaivalya is attained. No personality, as we understand it, survives to experience this goal. It is described as a state of never-ending, blissful, self-aware, relationless, ineffable, and self-contained isolation (though some analysts of classical Yoga and Sāṃkhya are beginning to argue that the liberated spirits of these traditions are envisaged as existing in a state of shared awareness and bliss).
Though the ideal of the yogi who seeks kaivalya has generally been respected among Hindus for its single-mindedness and rigorous discipline, the practitioners of this path have always been few in number, for not only are they expected to embark upon an arduous and rather solitary spiritual journey, they must also seek an End that most devotional Hindus believe is religiously unattractive, misguided and insular.
(ii) Ekatva or Identity
This is the monistic End, the goal of those who believe that ultimately all being is simply One (ekam). We have alluded to it in one context or other earlier in this book. In Advaita Vedānta, for instance, Mokṣa is the experience of absolute identity with the ultimate, relationless, actionless, distinctionless, ineffable, spiritual brāhman; such Upaniṣadic statements as'I am Brahman (ahaṃ ibrahma asmi;Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10) are interpreted by some Hindu commentators as endorsing this goal. As in the case of kaivalya, ‘I’ here does not refer to some liberated personality: there is no room for the metaphysical and other distinctions such a personality implies. ‘I’ refers allusively, through such statements, to the Spirit that resides at the core of one's being, which is only provisionally and illusorily distinguished by physical embodiment and individual personality. All along, however, this Spirit is really brāhman, only ‘we’ don't recognize this fact till we successfully follow the spiritual path – the ethical and meditative discipline – that leads to this realization. When this happens, rebirth ceases and the identity with brāhman that is the final state takes over.
According to this stance, the unenlightened live at the level of the ego-personality. Once the appropriate sādhana or discipline is adopted – this may make provision for (temporary) faith in a deity (e.g. the God of the Bhagavad Gītā) as a preliminary means – one gradually realizes that the pluralist framework in which people live – the framework of belief in the existence of a God and a differentiated world – is both illusive and delusive; thence, stripping away all reliance on the reality of the empirical ‘I’, the adept finally realizes identity with the one, underlying spiritual'I, the Ātman, which is identical with brāhman. In this tradition, too, jīvan mukti or liberation in the body is possible, the mukta or liberated one living and behaving analogously to the enlightened yogi of Sāṃkhya/Yoga.
Similarly, in the context of some schools of Tantra, it seems that the ultimate spiritual objective is to experience one's existing but unrealized identity or ‘consubstantiality’ with the Supreme Reality, viewed and related to during the sādhana stage as the union between God and Goddess (e.g. Śiva and Devi). This appears to be the view of Abhinavagupta as developed in his mature works. There are different stages to this ‘ascent’, characterized generally as a passing from some state of communion with aspects of the deity in outer realms of experience (where a kind of bhakti may come into play) progressively ‘inwards’ to one of difference-in-identity with the Goal to a final state of identity of some kind, or consubstantiality (‘identity-in-difference’), with the Supreme Reality. At this point, a distinguishable ‘I’ of the adept may cease to exist. The sādhana may vary, but in general it consists of unalloyed focus in service/attachment to the Supreme Being according to the ethical precepts, ritual and theory of the particular tradition being followed (see Sanderson's mapping of Śaiva Tantra in Sutherland et al. 1988). In some cases, there seems to be a stronger theistic complexion than exists in Advaita Vedānta, not only to the sādhana or discipline practised but also to the description of the ultimate state. As in the case of kaivalya, the goal of identity with the Supreme Being endorsed here is not a popular one, and for similar reasons.
(iii) Communion with the deity
This is the goal of bhakti proper, and is the passive or active ideal of the majority of religious Hindus. However, as we have intimated already, such communion has been variously described. Theologically, it is generally described as a never-ending state of intimate and personal blissful and loving union with the deity in the company of the heavenly court, which comprises other liberated souls and those associates of the deity (e.g. the divine consort, angelic beings called sūris) who have never been subject to the realm of prakṛti, viz. embodiment etc. Here Mokṣa consists of the experience one enjoys in God's heavenly dwelling-place.
In some (usually Vaiṣṇava) bhakti traditions, different kinds of communion with the Divine Being are envisaged. These seem to be unions of degree in sharing the divine life. Thus the following five-fold distinction is sometimes mentioned: sālokya – sharing the divine dwelling-place or ambience; sāmīpya – sharing the divine presence; sārūpya – participating in God's form in some way, or sharing his lustre, or sharing his appearance in some manner; sādharmya – sharing/participating in God's characteristics in some way; and sāyujya – becoming conjoined to or totally absorbed in God. These forms of divine union can be variously interpreted. In the brāhmavaivarta Purāṇa, which assumed its present form by about the sixteenth century, we are given more than one list of the kinds of mukti/Mokṣa or liberation available. In one case, six muktis are named: sārṣṭi, sālokya, sārūpya, sāmīpya, sāmya and līnatā or nirvāṇa. Since the text advocates devotion to Kṛṣṇa, the first five concern union with Kṛṣṇa in such a way that the devotee's sense of identity is preserved:
Sārṣṭi is attaining the power or condition of God. Our text does not make clear how this differs from sāmya (equality). Possibly sārṣṭi and sāmya both refer to the devotee's sharing God's divine knowledge, splendor, and virtue. Sālokya is the attainment of the same world as God, that is, Vaikuntha or Goloka. All true devotees of Kṛṣṇa attain Goloka, carried there at death in a jewelled chariot according to the usual conception of our Purana. Sārūpya is bearing the same form as the Lord. When a devotee of Kṛṣṇa dies, he sheds his human body, and going to Goloka, puts on a divine form. The form is that of a cowherd (gopa), dark-blue, with flute in hand, in other words, the supreme form of Kṛṣṇa ... Sāmīpya is closeness or proximity to God.
(C.M. Brown 1974:109–10)
Apparently, though the state of salvation is permanent according to this Purāṇa, some of the modes of salvation may not be, the devotee being able to pass from one mode to another. This is an interesting idea. Equally interesting is the status given to the last item on the list, mentioned before the quotation: līnatā or nirvāṇa (not to be confused with the Buddhist nirvāṇa). As the two alternative names indicate, this is a state of merging or dissolution into the Supreme Being. This Being is still Viṣṇu/Kṛṣṇa, so that the Source of the six forms of liberation is one and the same; what continues to differ, however, is the mode of liberation. In līnatā, a state of non-duality between the Supreme Being and the (former) individual soul seems to occur, so tha
t the individual liberated loses identity. According to the text, this is not really to be desired, since without a sense of personal identity one cannot continue to serve the Lord in heaven and enjoy his company and that of the blessed, which is the true goal of life. Hence līnatā seems to be an inferior form of liberation, reserved for those who for one reason or another are unworthy or incapable of experiencing the higher forms of mukti. It may be the case, though, that līnatā does not refer to complete eradication of personal identity, so that those who attain that state remain in a kind of blissful (though still inferior) union with God.
In general, as the passage above indicates, bhakti theologians are markedly less reluctant than their colleagues in the first two categories to describe the liberated state; these descriptions are invariably derived from texts like the Purāṇas. Devotees look forward to celestial bodies on which the earthly versions are modelled, but which are not susceptible to earthly laws and limitations. The heavenly court and domains are models of idyllic earthly scenes, e.g. bejewelled and imposing palaces peopled by never-ageing, happy individuals, with sparkling fountains and beautiful gardens in which animals, naturally at odds with each other in this world, roam about amicably. Indeed, as the extract given above intimates, in some conceptions there are different levels of heaven or liberation, each with its own name and distinctive attributes, in which the deity exists in a different form. I have been assured by a guru of a large Vaiṣṇava sect that an accurate description of heaven could be drawn from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. However, it would appear that an increasing number of people, theologians and others, are now seeking to demythologize such descriptions.
Mythologically, as opposed to theologically, heaven (svarga) is not always a never-ending state of happiness, both in the high and low traditions of the Ancient Banyan. This is because mythology and theology tend to operate on two different levels. Whereas mythology concerns the world of myths and mythmaking and their heuristic and instructive meanings, theology seeks to guide us towards our ultimate destiny in relation to the Source, Mainstay and End of all being (‘God’). Thus while ‘heaven’ in theology – or Mokṣa or liberation – is generally a permanent state (whatever its internal dynamics may be) from which we tend not to return, ‘heaven’ in mythology is usually a dwelling-place still within the realms of karma, whose pleasures seem to be temporary extensions or intensifications of the pleasures of earth and whose inhabitants, for one reason or another, can fall to earth and return again (thus in the Bengali Manasā Magal, Behulā, Lakhāi's wife and one of the main characters, is the human embodiment of Ūṣā, a dancer in Indra's heaven, who was cursed to be reborn on earth. Her earthly husband is the embodied version of Aniruddha, Ūṣā’s heavenly spouse;see Chapter 8).13 Though theologians may attempt to demythologize religion, or at least to put myth in its subservient place, many Hindus, oblivious of or resistant to such distinctions, live in the uneasy borderlands between myth and theology. This is nothing to be surprised at; it is an occupational hazard of the religious life.
In fact, it seems that quite a few Hindus do not actively expect or even seek some immediate post-mortem ‘salvation'or liberation. In the context of the doctrine of karma and rebirth, this goal may seem a distant ideal. On the other hand, many devotional schools and gurus of one sort or another actively encourage their followers to aim for salvation in the next life. Either way, religious Hindus, like people of other faiths, must struggle to stay afloat as they continue life's journey across the hazardous waters of the stream of life (saṃsāra). Maintaining good health, recovery from illness, peace of mind, economic security, burying the dead, consolation in distress, producing and caring for children, success in various ventures, protection from various dangers – these (and many others) are immediate concerns for all Hindus in the round of daily life, irrespective of their religious affiliation or spiritual development. For the religious-minded they must be dealt with in the context of different religious goals. The fact is that we cannot generalize; life's ideals for religious Hindus are many-tiered and vary from circumstance to circumstance, ranging from the more sublime to the more mundane. The Great and Ancient Banyan harbours birds of every feather in its labyrinthine worlds.
Concluding postscript
One of the tasks that an author introducing so varied and vast a cultural phenomenon as Hinduism must surely attempt, is to provide some way of corralling off this phenomenon from others that we might wish to place in the same general (cultural) category. The reader will have noticed that the underlying theme of this book – with precisely this end in view – is what I have called ‘polycentrism’. In this concluding postscript, I should like to draw the strands of this regulating theme together so as to explain more succinctly what I mean by it.
Polycentrism, as I understand the term, stands for an attitude, an orientation, to the world. It does not refer to some core property (or properties) that Hindus are supposed to share in common, such as owning allegiance to a particular caste or birth-group (varṇa/jāti), accepting the Veda as regulating scripture, or professing belief in the doctrine of karma and rebirth. I have tried to indicate that the attempt to define Hinduism in terms of such properties tends to end in failure, for when applied to their subject the properties in question invariably turn out to be too narrow in scope (caste, Veda) or too broad (the belief in karma and rebirth; see Chapter 1). In other words, it is not helpful, I think, to attempt to define Hinduism in terms of what has been called a ‘hard essentialism’.
The image I have used to reflect my polycentric model of Hinduism is that of the banyan tree. Unlike single-trunk or monocentric trees like the oak and the beech, an ancient banyan can display a multiple root-system that resembles a (proliferating) cluster of trees linked together by a tracery of branches under a single leafy canopy – many yet one (the great banyan of the Kolkata botanical gardens presents a representative illustration). It is the organic image of this banyan that I wish to draw attention to, not its botanical properties (which can display only a limited amount of diversity). Just as the Kolkata banyan manifests as a network of individual root-systems vitalized by the same sap so as to appear as one organic whole, so Hinduism can be viewed as a web of numerous systems of belief and practice characterized by the same distinct tendency that flows through them and binds them together into one mac-rocosmic entity. This is the tendency to polycentrism, which must now be explained in more cohesive fashion than was possible in the body of the book.
We are speaking here of an attitude of mind, of a disposition to structure the world. The idea underlying this disposition is of some unfragmented power or energy – ‘transcendent’ (only in this respect) to the specificities of space and time – which manifests interactively through multiple centres that are located in time and space. There may well have been an original centre of the system, but in time other centres come into play, or rather, are brought into play, through the vagaries of historical circumstance, so that all function together as centres of the same interactive grid, feeding off each other, so to speak, and displaying in the process the characteristic(s) of the same ‘transcendent’ power or source. We have given a number of examples of this tendency in the course of the book. Let us revisit some of them here so as to present a bird's eye view of our theme.
In Chapter 2 we spoke, when analysing the relationship between the ‘gods’ and the ‘goddesses’ of the k Saṃhitā, of a ‘single nexus of being’, of ‘an ontological grid through which the [devas and devīs] shared power and manifested variously’ with reference to a single reality, the One. The devas and devīs comprise collectively a (layered) web of numinous focuses or micro-centres of the underlying, macrocosmic One. The distributive ascription of ‘supreme’ epithets to the various ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ in the individual hymns demonstrates that the same transcendent source is being implicitly invoked through the hymns – or to put it theologically, that this source is at work interactively in and through the multicentred grid of celestial beings.
This is one way in which polycentrism expresses itself in the Ancient Banyan. The same perspective is discernible, but with subtle variations, in the theology of Hindu worship which has been characterized in the literature as a ‘polymorphic monotheism’. We discussed this approach in the context of Śrī Vaiṣṇavism, in Chapter 14. We spoke there of a binitarian deity manifesting through the persons of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa and the Goddess Śrī-Lakṣmī:
Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa manifests in various modes particular to time and place, e.g. as one avatāra or other, or as this or that persona through the image(s) resident in one temple or other, in accordance with his gracious will. The Goddess Śrī-Lakṣmī, the other person of the Godhead, has her own history and panoply of multiple manifestations. Yet the broad gamut of these secondary forms, which invariably have their own liturgies of worship, are expressions of the same Godhead, endorsing and reinforcing each other in a shared framework of divine salvific efficacy. Or, to put it more specifically in the language of polycentrism, the one transcendent invisible Godhead, itself composed of two personal centres in dialectical relationship, manifests concretely through individualized personae that function as interactive centres of shared grace and power within one and the same domain of Śrī Vaiṣṇava cultic practice.
We pointed to a further dimension of this expression of multifocalism, viz. the assimilation into this schema, in outer peripheries of being, of ‘other’ gods and goddesses from different strands of Hinduism (e.g. Śaiva and Śākta;see Chapter 14). Elsewhere I have expatiated on this as follows:
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