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XI. The Modern Hindu Doctrine of Works
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The great mass of Hindūs of the present day follow, and for nearly five centuries have followed, the religious doctrine of salvation by bhakti, or loving faith. This, although nominally based on the Vēdas and Upaniṣads, is strongly opposed both to the advaita Vedantist doctrine of salvation by knowledge and to the Mīmāṃsā doctrine of salvation by works. Its very idea of salvation, a life of never-ending bliss near the Holy One, is radically different from that offered by these two schools.
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page 342 note 1 The aṇkuśa, or elephant-goad, is one of the forty-eight marks said to be on the feet of Viṣṇu, each of which has a mystic meaning. These marks are the lines on the sole of the foot, and correspond to the lines on the hand that are still employed in this country for palmistry.
page 342 note 2 The Fish is the first of the ten well-known incarnations of Viṣṇu. According to the legend as preserved in Bhāgavata Purālṇa, viii, 24, in this incarnation Viṣṇu rescued the Vēda from the demon Hayagrīva and saved Vaivasvata Manu in the Deluge. He also instructed Vaivasvata in religion. See the next note.Google Scholar
page 342 note 3 Vaivasvata Manu was a royal sage, and was also called Satyavrata and Śrāddhadēva (see Bhāg. Pu., as above quoted). ‘Śrutadēva’ in the text seems to be a slip for ‘Śrāddhadēva.’
page 343 note 1 A reference to the ‘cat’-school.
page 344 note 1 Bhagavad Gītā, iii, 22–4:—Google Scholar
yadi hy ahaṁ na vartēyaṁ mama vartmānuvartantē utsīdēyur imē lōkā saṁkarasya cos kartā syām
varta ēva ca karmaṇi ║ jātu karmaṇy atandritaḥ | mānuṣyāḥ, Pārtha, sarvaśaḥ ║ na kuryām karma cēd ahaṁ | upahanyām imāḥ prajāḥ ║
page 345 note 1 It is hardly necessary to point out that the whole of the above is written with a belief in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Every work, good or bad, has its fruits. Bad works consign the performer, for a longer or shorter period, to one or other of the numerous hells, while good works exalt him to one or other of the numerous heavens under similar conditions. A man's fate after death (so far as it is dependent upon works) is settled by the balance of the fruits of his good and bad works. These fruits, in course of time, become exhausted, and then he has to begin over again. When salvation is gained (in this system of belief) by faith (bhahti), the chain of cause and effect is broken, and there is no more rebirth.
page 345 note 2 ‘Disinterested’ (niṣkāma) corresponds to what Bhag. Gītā, iii, 19, calls asakta.Google Scholar
page 346 note 1 The stories of these are all well known, and I need not repeat them here.
page 346 note 2 It is of course to be understood that, as has been said in a preceding note, all works have fruits, and unless these fruits are destroyed there must be this ‘departure and return’ for ever. The fruits of good works are destroyed by being accepted by and merged into the Holy One, but this cannot be expected of the fruits of bad works. These therefore remain, and prevent by their mere existence, irrespectively of the punishment due for them, the salvation of their doer.
page 348 note 1 Bhagavad Gītā, iii, 20:—Google Scholar
karmaṇaiva hi saṁsiddhim āsthitā Janakādayaḥ|
By works alone did Janaka and the rest work for complete accomplishment. Cf. iv, 15:—
ēvaṁ jñātvā kṛtaṁ karma kuru karmaive tasmāt tvaṁ
pūrvair api mumukṣubhiḥ | pūrvaiḥ pūrvataraṁ kṛtaṁ ║
page 348 note 2 As suggested to me by DrBarnett, , the passage referred to is evidently Bhagavad Gītā, iii, 4:—Google Scholar
na karmāṇām anārambhān naiṣkarmyaṁ puruṣō 'śnutē|
Without undertaking works no one attains to worklessness.
page 349 note 1 The name of a fast regulated by the moon, the food being diminished every day by one mouthful during the dark fortnight, and increased in like manner during the light fortnight. I regret that I have failed to identify the passages referred to.
page 350 note 1 Including the well-known ten, followers of the bhakti-religion count no less than twenty-four incarnations of Viṣṇu. Of these twenty-four the Vyāsa is the eleventh.
page 350 note 2 Regarding the marks on the feet see note 1 on p. 342. Indra with his thunderbolt slew Vṛtra, and cut off the wings of mountains. Similarly, meditation on the thunderbolt mark on Viṣṇu's foot crumbles the mountain of sin to dust.
page 352 note 1 These are the names of famous poets of the bhakti-school. They all wrote in the vernacular.
page 352 note 2 All the persons named above are well known to students of Sanskrit literature. According to the bhakti-system they were energetic proclaimers of the gospel. One important tradition may be mentioned. Nārāyaṇa himself taught Lakṣmī. She taught the Pārṣadas. These Pārsadaṣ, or attendants on the Holy One, occupy a very prominent place in the theology of the school. Their leader was Viṣvak-sēna. He taught Śaṭha-kōpa, who taught Vōpadēva, who taught Ś;rīnātha, who taught Puṇḍarīkākṣa, who taught Rāma-miśra, who taught Parāṇkuśa, who taught Yamunācārya, who taught Pūrṇācārya, who taught Rāmānuja. It is thus claimed that Rāmānuja, the great founder of the modern Rāma-bhakti religion, was twelfth in spiritual descent from Nārāyaṇa himself, through Lakṣmī and Viṣvak-sēna.
page 353 note 1 These are all famous religious teachers. Śaṁkara was the great Vēdānta apostle. He cannot, by any stretch, be looked upon as a teacher of bhakti. His followers make him an incarnation of Śiva. To a Vaiṣṇava, that deity was one of Viṣṇu's pupils in bhakti (see below). The ordinary Vaiṣṇava explanation (see, e.g., Hariścandra's, Vaiṣṇaixi Sarvasva, p. 5Google Scholar) of Ś;iva's connexion with Śaṁkara is that when the world was filled with Buddhism and other heresies, the Holy One directed Śiva to become incarnate and to preach a doctrine invented by himself (Śiva), so as to turn people from the Holy One and to manifest his glory by the consequent destruction of unbelievers. Wilson, (Religious Sects, p. 11)Google Scholar quotes a similar legend from the Padma Purāṇa, a Vaiṣṇava work, according to which Namuci and other Daityas had become so powerful by the purity of their devotions that Indra and the other gods were unable to oppose them. The gods had recourse to Viṣṇu, who ordered Śiva to introduce Śaiva tenets, by which the Daityas were beguiled and rendered “wicked and thence weak.” The idea of the Supreme Being Himself being the motive cause of the invention of heretical doctrines, in order to consign their believers to damnation, conveys quite a refreshing whiff of Western, odium theologicumGoogle Scholar
Rāmānuja, the founder of the Śrī-saṁpradāya, which directed its faith more especially to Rāma, is said by his followers to be an incarnation of Śēṣa, the serpent of eternity. The name of the sect is derived from Śrī, or Lakṣmī, through whom, as explained in the preceding note, Rāmānuja is believed to have had spiritual descent.
Nimbārka, the founder of the second, or Sanakādi-, saṁpradāya, is said to have been an incarnation of Sūrya, or the sun. The Holy One, in his incarnation as a Haṁsa, or swan (the fourteenth in the bhakti list of incarnations), taught Sanaka and his brethren, who taught Nārada, who taught Nimbārka or Nimbāditya. The followers of this sect worship Rāma and Kṛṣṇa conjointly.
Mādhava or Madhvācārya, the founder of the third, or Brahma-, saṁpradāya, is said to have been an incarnation of Vāyu, or the air, and had been previously incarnate as Hanumāa and as Bhīma. He also had spiritual descent from the Haṁsa incarnation of the Holy One. Haṁsa taught Brahmā, who taught Nārada, who taught the Vyāsa, who taught Subuddha, who taught Narahari, who taught Mādhava. The sect is a Vaiṣṇava one, and its distinguishing point is that it teaches duality, or the distinctness of the principle of life from the Supreme Being. Although a bhakti-sect, it does not single out any special incarnation of the Holy One for worship. For further particulars of his teaching see Bhandarkar, R. G., Report on the search for Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Bombay Presidency during the year 1883–1884, P. 74.Google Scholar
Viṣṇusvāmါ, the founder of the fourth, or Rudra-, saṁpradāya, is said to have been an incarnation of the Vyāsa. His spiritual descent is derived from the Varada-rāja form of the Holy One, who taught Śiva, who taught Prēmananda. From the last-named, Viṣṇusvām012B; was fortyeighth in spiritual descent. The sect is considered to have been derived from Śiva or Rudra, whence its name. It is devoted mainly to the worship of the Holy One under the form of KṛṠ1E47;a and Radha.
These four, the Śrī-, the Sanakādi-, the Brahma-, and the Rudra-, are the four great Saṁpradāyas, or Churches of the bhakti-school. Every sect claims to be a member or branch of one or other of them. The first and the last are the two which are current in Northern India, and with hich I am best acquainted. The Śrī-saṁpradāya includes all those ects which specially worship Rāma, and the Rudra-saṁpradāya those that worship Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. According to Wilson the dates of the four masters are as follows:—Rāmānuja, middle of the twelfth century; Nimbārka, date unknown (tradition makes him very ancient); Mādhava, early in thirteenth century; Viṣṇusvāmī, date unknown (tradition puts him as living during the war of the Mahabharata).
Vallabha, or Vallabhācārya, was a teacher of the Rudra-saṁpradāya, born in 1479 A.D., who founded the Vallabhācārī sect, and introduced the now very popular worship of the infant Kṛṣṇa.
Hita Harivaṁ1E63;a (born 1559 A.D.) was the founder of the well-known Rādhā-vallabhī sect, and a famous poet. According to some he belonged o the Brahma-, and according to others to the anakād-saṁpradāya.
page 354 note 1 I.e., Badrīnāth in Gaṛhwāl, a famous place of pilgrimage. One of the sources of the Ganges.
page 354 note 2 The abode of Kṛṣṇa.
page 354 note 3 The abode of Rāma.
page 355 note 1 Bharjavad Gītā, iv, 7, 8:—Google Scholar
yadā yadā hi dharmasya abhyutthānam adliannasya paritrānāya sādhūnāṁ. dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya
glānir bhavati, Bhārata | tadātmānaṁ sṛjamy ahaṁ ║ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām | saṃbhavāmi yugē yugē ║
It will be observed that the people preserved are called sādhu, not bhakta. Strictly speaking, in technical language, the two words do not connote the same thing.
page 355 note 2 The eleventh tithi of each lunar fortnight is sacred to Viṣṇu. It is known as the Hari-vāsara, the Lord's day.
page 356 note 1 An anonymous life of Rāmānuja. Anantācārya was one of the most eminent of Rāmānuja's successors as a preacher of bhalcti. See Hariścandra's, Caritāvalī, p. 25.Google Scholar
page 357 note 1 The first reply is supposed to be given by a professor of the pantheism of the advaita Vēdānta, to which the bhakli-belief is in the strongest opposition. ‘Laborare est orare’ is a free translation of yah bhī to Bhagavat-bhajan hai.
page 358 note 1 Dr. Fleet, to whom I am also indebted for the reference to CĪnāpaṭṭana, suggests that ‘the twelve Malhārs’ means ‘the Mallāḍ’, a Kanarese corruption of Malnāḍ, Malanāḍu, and a well-known name for the Ghāṭ regions of the Kanarese country. Why the writer numbers them as twelve is not clear.
page 359 note 1 The work of Sūra-dāsa. The vernacular Bible of the Kṛṣṇa-worshippers.
page 359 note 2 The famous Rāma-carita-mānasa. The vernacular Bible of the Rāma-worshippers. These two works are between them said to exhaust all possibilities of the poet's art.
page 359 note 3 These are all poet saints of the northern Bhakti-school.
page 359 note 4 The famous work of Nābhā-dāsa, the Acta Sanctorum of the Bhalcti-school. I have failed to trace the passage referred to.
page 359 note 5 A section of the Anuśāsana Parvan of the Mahābhārata, cataloguing the thousand names of Vi1E63;1E47;u. Its repetition is over and over again enjoined on Bhaktas.
page 359 note 6 The Bhagavad Gītāt.
page 359 note 7 The name of BhĪṣma's hymn in honour of Kṛṣṇa, in the Śānti Parvan of the Mahābhārata. The title means the ‘King of Hymns of Praise’.
page 361 note 1 See Journal of the Society for 1907, p. 493.Google Scholar