J. H. H A T T I A N G A D I
WHY I S INDIAN P H I L O S O P H Y MYSTICAL?
Comments on Professor B. Matilal's
'Mysticismand Reality: Itt effab ility '
Of Indian Philosophy I know little, and none of it at first hand. Pm fessor
Matilal, however, is that very rare person - an expert in Indian Philosophy
who has not surrendered his intellectual standards. Nevertheless, when he
asked me to comment on his paper before you, who are many of the leading
experts in the field, I astonished myself by accepting tile invitation.
I propose to make the most of my ignorance today by forthrightly
asserting some of my secretly held 2rejudices before you. They should be
I*
provoking, I hope your response will justify my foolhardiness.
The ccntral point of Professor Matilal's paper is that philosophy
classical India was often a genuine intellectual effort, and not 'perfurmed
nonsense'.'
To quote:
It is clear that the Nyaya-Vaisesih thesis is a good antidote to mysticism andthe
ineffability doctrine. It should also remove the modern (predominantly Western)
misunderstanding that Indian philosophy is invariably mystical. The business of most
classic31 Indian philosophers was solid and down-to-earth philosophic asgumentation,
not the creation of mystical illusion or poetic descriptions of mystical experien%es1
c .
Bertrand Russell distinguished two impulses in the history of phildophy the mystical impulse and the logical one.' Professor Matilal shows with great
lucidity that one could not say that Indian philosophy is an outburst of the
mystical impulse. The reason is this: In Indian philosophy, mysticism is the
subject of argument; and what is argument but the expression of a logical
impulse? All those interpretations of Indian philosophy which rely upon the
psychopathology of the Indian mind, or upon the supposed perennial but
insoluble character of philosophical problems, are therefore being challenged
by Professor Matilal. .He says, to understand the development of philosophy in
India, study the arguments. And I say, Bravo.
Apart from this historical or historiographical thesis he also attacks
mysticism as a doctrine. With his attack I am so completely in agreement, that
I shall not bother to repeat his cogent and, in my opinion, entirely successful
criticisms.
Journal o f Indian Philosophy 3 (1 975) 25 3-258. All Rights Reserved
Copyright Q 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dardrecht-Holhnd
But two nagging questions still remain. I shall try to complement Professor
Matilal's well argued thesis with a few speculations of my own in answer
to these further questions. The questions. One: Let us grant that Indians are
not mystically inclined. Why then is it that in India more than anywhere else
mysticism is the recurrent theme of the argument? Question two, which I will
deal with later: If Reality is not Ineffable, why does mysticism crop up in
different independent intellectual traditions?
Each question threatens Professor Matilal's rationalism. Take the first.
Mysticism undoubtedly figures prominently in Indian disputations, and in
traditions which are its offshoots. No other intellectual tradition revolves so
closely around mysticism.
Professor Matilal says, Indians did not just affirm ineffability, they argued
about it. Quite right. But why invariably and perennially about the mystical?
Here is my answer: Mysticism as a doctrine is an important theme in Indian
philosophy because it plays a very special role against the unique Vedic
background of Indian philosophy. Mysticism in India was not however the
outburst of the 'mystical impulse' at all. Rather, I shall argue that mysticism
was originally an expression of, if any thing, the most extreme kind of 'logical
impulse'. The doctrine of ineffability was a revolutionary attempt to combat
obscurantism and cant. It was meant to encourage one to think for oneself,
to challenge authority. If I am right you will grant that this is the opposite of
a mystical impulse.
But, I shall argue, the doctrine had logical flaws; it was forced by its
own logic into a new kind of cant, the kind which Professor Matilal has so
ably exposed for what it is. This is my historical hypothesis of the tragic
story of Indian philosophy, whose details I shall now sketch.
Because of their reverence for the Vedas, the Indims of classical antiquity
felt the need to preserve them as authentically as possible. In the absence of
Vedic writing, the problem of preserving an authentic verbal record found
a unique solution in India. It was achieved by a division of labour of a special
sort. A separate caste of people, the priests, were charged with the task of
memorizing the works, without interpreting them Interpretation was left to
others. Hence there was no way a priest could contaminate. the veae to suit
his philosophy, because his task was not to expound wisdom but merely to
know the word$ and to recite them by heart at the right occasionr
To this day the greatest Sanskrit scholars in India are not thow with a
great depth of understanding, but those who can recite them flawlessly and
-
W H Y IS INDIAN PHILOSOPHY MYSTICAL?
effortlessly, even backwards, if necessary.
As we all know, this method of preserving the verbal record was astonishingly successful. But only at a cost: The cost was that though the verses
remained, the original interpretation of the words was gradually lost. Yet the
people remained in awe of the words.
The organon of the preservation of the Vedas was the Sanskrit Grammar.
This grammar, of which the earliest known and greatest is that of Panini, is
uniquely suited to the study of the Sanskrit language, with a minimum of
interpretation It is a characteristic of the grammar that it is synthetic. It shows
how to synthesize elements into longer fragments. It is also phonetic, in the
sense that it deals primarily with sentences and sounds, rather than with
meanings and interpretations, though the latter cannot be entirely avoided.
Indian grammar treats of language as phonetically as possible?
Long before 700 B.C. Indian life came to be dominated by the unmeaning
word. And so it has remained, for the most part. Even a modern Hindu wedding
is mainly a matter of ritual, and of the recitation of uncomprehended and
incomprehensible verse, the rnantmz The priest need not understand it. And
the audience will carry on with what they are doing - crying, eating ice cream
S.
or discussing political matters - while the incessant mantra-recitation goes on.
An anthropologist who knew Sanskrit and who caught a few words might
wonder which god was being propitiated. The sun-god perhaps, the god of air.
or yet another? But he would be wrong. In all Hindu ceremonies ,there is
only one God, and that is the God of the pure phoneme, the un$aning sound.
This entire phonetic religion fmds expression in the amusing &d incredible
doctrine that the whole universe is contained in the word 'AUM', a sound
which when properly produced, is uncannily like a foghorn on a misty river.
Everything - so it is said - is in that one word. Not in its meaning, (who
knows the meaning?) but in the sound.
This is the obscurantism which I believe the doctrine of ineffability set
out to destroy. The doctrine asserted: The most important things are not in
words, not even in Vedic words. So when you hear the words, do think for
yourself. Or better still - the words need you to think and interpret them which interpretation is in turn not in the words.
If 1am right then the early Unapishads must be interpreted as not just
commentories on the Vedas, but as critical commentories. They were not
expositions of the true meaning of the Vedas at all. Rather they wen expositions of the bankruptcy of the phonetic religion.
#-
,,
3. H. H A T T I A N G A D I
1 cannot see how the Upanishads can be interpreted otherwise. If you
grant that they even hint at a doctrine of ineffability, what can this be but a
challenge to the self-sufficiency of the ancient words of the Vedas? And
against the background of Vedic cant, what can 'the doctrine of ineffability'
mean other than "Think for youself. Do not be mesmerized by words, even by
very wise words."
A small piece of indirect eivdence to show that the Upanishads were
perhaps critical is the fact they were for the most part written by Ksatriyas,
.r
who were traditionally competing with Brahmins for social ascendancy.'
There may well be direct evidence, too, which could help us decide one way
or the other upon the truth of this hypotheses. But that will have to be
provided by the experts.
The doctrine of ineffability then, was originally an expression of the
logical impulse, of rationalism, the impulse to challenge cant and obscurantism.
But it fell prey to a serious argument which rendered it obscurantist in its turn
Let me speculate further.
In order to oppose the power of the meaningless word, the early Upanishads
deny that .ultimate knowledge is expressed in Vedic verse. But unfortunately,
the Upanishads did not go far enough. They did not deny the view that Vedic
verses contain the very wisest of words. Here is the difficulty. If the most
important knowledge is not expressed in the wisest of words, then the
knowledge must be inexpressible. In that case whatever you and I say must be
always besides the point.
This is how the Pernicious doctrine of ineffability came to exist - I mean
the one which Professor Matilal has so ably criticized. The Buddha opposed
not only the Vedic cant but also the Vedas. He did so in order to be rational,
pragmatic and humane? He was the unluckiest of all philosophers. For most
of his followers fell into the Upanishadic trap, the trap of mysticism, the very
trap his teaching was bent on avoiding. And so his followers unwittingly
betrayed him in their anti-Vedic zeal.
This is the tragic story of Indian philosophy
This must be how it happened. If the Upanishads did not lay the groundwork for Buddha's more complete rejection of the Vedas, how can we possibly
explain the ease and speed with which the doctrines of MahSvira as well as
Gautama Buddha found widespread favour in India? Even if these two men
were intellectual giants, could all their followers have been intellectual giants
also?
I
W H Y IS l N D I A N PHILOSOPHY MYSTICAL'?
257
So much for the first question. Next question: Why is mysticism found in
all intellectual traditions, even ones which are independent of each other? What
do these traditions have in common?
- W. T. Stace thinks it could be the ineffable reality, which we must recognize
eventually,which is common. But Matilal has demolished that suggestion.
Another suggestion: It could be human natun which is shared by all
traditions. But this takes us back to the mystical impulse theory of philosophy
which also will not do.
What then is the common factor?
AU mystical traditions do share something, which they also share with
non-mystical traditions. That something is Janguqge I believe that mysticism
is really a theory about language, and hardly about reality.
It is not surprising that in several thousand years of speculation about
language doubts about the limits of language are expressed now and again.
Hence, if we regard mysticism as a theory of language, and not a theory of
reality, there is nothing mysterious about the fact that mysticism occurs in
different independent intellectual traditions.
But is mysticism a theory of languqge and not a theory of a really unique
Reality? I think so; here is my reason: Suppose I have no particular4 theory
of language. Suppose I fmd I cannot express adequately my disgust upon
that is ineffable? No!
seeing some colour. Can I then say that there is anyNot everything that I cannot 'express' so to speak is ineffable. So if I go on to
say that something is indeed ineffable, I am proposing a theory of-.the limits
of language, Q.E.D.
y
I have already indicated my prejudice that Indian mysticism is a tragic
story, which began promisingly enough as a revulsion against the worship of
cant - in other words out of an overwhelming concern with language.
It cannot be a coincidence that the dangerous rise of popular mysticism
today (in the years after Wittgenstein) comes at a time when the natun and
limits of language have again become topics of central concern.' This also
partly explains the new found popularity of the mystics of India and East Asia.
One can only hope that the modem and very different problems about
language will soon be resolved, before our neo-Greek culture, which is now
stoutly denying its own values, turns entirely upon itself.
York University, Gnada
J . H. HATTIANGADI
NOTES
This paper is a comment on 'Mysticism and Reality: Ineffability' by B. Matilal. The
phrase 'perfumed nonsense' does not occur in his paper. It is Whitehead's description of
the philosophy of Santayana.
Ibid., p. 246.
'.B. Russell,Mysticism and Logic (Hibbert Journal, Vol. 12, 1914).
Most linguists would agree that Indian grammars are synthetic. By thp second
description 'phonetic' I mean to contrast it with a grammar such as the Aristotelian
grammar which ruled in the west until the discovery and dissemination of Paninian
grammars in the nineteenth century. Sanskrit grammar deals with particles of words as
sounds, where the Greek approach was judgement-oriented. (This is in response to one
of several incisive queries of Professor Cardona.)
B. Matilal and Radhika Herzberger have brought this to my attention.
It would be indeed a coup to find Buddha explicitly arguing that giving up cant is
not enough, but the Vedas must also be given up, for the reason outlined above.
' The compelling modem reason for mysticism seems to be the discovery of Russell's
and other antinomies, which cannot be solved without falling back on a logical inconsistency at some level. Mysticism in western thought has also been associated with
linguistic worries regarding the Bible, which is more akin to Indian mysticism than the
more dangerous modern kind of mysticism.