The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - D

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - D

Reading between the lines what we notice is that the Lokayatas of the time of the Imperial Cholas were just as astute as the Saiva philosophers who were inspired by the insights of the Saiva Nayanmars in the metaphysical pursuits. It is unfortunate we do not have any texts by the Lokayatas to understand their views from their own words 

( There is a manuscript published recently by Dr N. Ganesan which may fill up this gap. I had only a cursory look at it and it seems to be a severe critique of the religious philosophies of the times)

Undeterred by Arunandi's critique of the Lokayatas position that Karma need not be brought in to explain the creature differences, they offer an alternative explanation of the matter which is also disconstructed by AruNandi in this verse. In this alternative, the Lokayatas bring in the notions of TWO kinds of physical stuff that I call 'mental-stuff' and 'brute-stuff' and in this they might have been influenced by the notions of Suddha Maayai and Asuddha Maayai that has been noted in the Saiva classics. 

The understanding is that there is primordial Maayai, the stuff out of which all are generated and which differentiates into the Suddha Maayai, the Pure-Stuff and the Asuddha Maayai, the Impure or Brute stuff. It was understood that all mental phenomena are products of Suddha Maayai while all concretival products that of Asuddha Maayai, both arising as differentiation of Tuu Maayai. The use of the term 'maayai" here is quite different from that in Advaita Vedantic philosophies where it has probably the meaning of "magical" as in mayasakthi, a bewildering and incomprehensible power that fabricates as if by magic a bewildering variety of mental constructs and thus fascinates and imprisons the mind.

Lokayatas thesis that the differences arise due to the presence of different proportions of these two different kinds of stuff in the genesis of creatures bodies is disconstructed by noting that there must some kind of LAW or Niyati operating to account for these different proportions of these kinds of stuff. The process is NOT chaotic or haphazard or purely accidental but rather rule governed, and hence the need to acknowledge the workings of KARMA as such

44

pootamum melivaakiyum mali puutamaanavai kuudaliR
peetamodu peruttu udaRkaL ciRutta peRRimai enRidin
ootu udaR peritaanavunj ciRitaayidaa ciRitaanavunm
niitiyiR paritaayidaa munam uLLa tanmaiyil niidumee


Meaning:

Now the Lokayata continues to defend his view that Consciousness is a quality of the physical body. Within this notion the different body sizes and they not correlating with intelligence is explained thus: when in the genesis of a body if the percentage of intelligence-stuff or mental -stuff ( considered as a material evolute) is larger than the physical-stuff or brute-stuff then we have creatures with higher intelligence but small physical bodies. In the same manner when the converse happens then we have creatures with large bodies and lower intelligence. But this is problematic for there are no laws or some kind of causality underlying these differences. The creatures with large bodies do not on their own accord become creatures with small bodies. And also the converse. Underlying these changes there must be Karma that regulates these developments. And if there are such factors regulating the evolutionary developments, then all creatures will persist with the bodies they already have.

Notes:

The problem now shifts to the evolutionary dynamics of creatures, which according to Saiva Siddhanta requires the notion of Karma as that which regulates and because of which we have the differences in the kinds of intelligence and bodies that creatures enjoy. The Saivites understand that the psychic entities EVOLVE and this evolution into creatures of higher intelligence is something dependent on Karma, i.e. the deposits of action-outcomes in the present course of life. Thus creatures attain a higher kind of birth and hence cognitive mechanisms and bodies consistent with it as regulated by the traces of action-outcomes lodged in the deeper recesses of the psyche and which is termed as karma. We must note here the word "karu" means 'to do something, to effect something' as in the Sumerian "ilu gar-u" (set of lament), "gu gar-u" ( set up a cry ) and so forth. Each action effected elicits a set of mantra complexes and which become lodged in the deeper parts of the psyche and which contribute to the biological conditions of its next birth. BEING is postulated as the GROUND of all these and which are taken to function according to a NIYATI, a system of rules.


The Lokayata deny this view and provide explanation of the matter as follows:


There are TWO kinds of material stuff : the mental-stuff and physical-stuff and they can combine in various proportions and it is these differences in the proportions these two different kinds of stuff combine that determine the differences in the evolutionary developments


Now as an extension of this view we can reason along the following lines: creatures very primitive in evolutionary ladder like the single cell amoebae and so forth have small amounts of both say compared to ants and termites and such other creatures . And among the mammals it may be that the amount of mental-stuff may be more than the physical for man and the converse for elephants and so forth.

But the problems with this view as seen by AruNandi is with respect to the LAWS or some kind of PRINCIPLE underlying such evolutionary changes. The Lokayatas make it appear that these processes are UNREGULATED and haphazard, processes that happen as if purely by accidents with no principles involved at all. They make the natural processes that underlie the evolutionary mechanism of creatures completely arbitrary and chaotic with NO order or principle involved and which DENIES the observational truth that there is linkage between evolution and the actions that are effected by the creatures. Karma is postulated as the mediator of the changes in the evolution and actions effected and this explains better what prevails in the world.

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - C

 Arunandi's Disconstruction of Materialism -3

Lokayata's view that intelligence is NOT primordial and categorically different but rather a byproduct of the biophysical processes is disconstructed by pointing out that there is INTENTIONALITY and Temporality as a fabric of human ( also animal) consciousness and as such it cannot be just a byproduct of the physical but organic processes in the body. 

Intelligence is something not only ABOVE but also more primordial. The body is what a soul assumes, something like clothes people wear - we can discard the old and assume a new one. Of course the primary intention of the Lokayata is to DENY the reality of Karma first, karma understood here as the action-deposits lodged in the deep recesses of the mind some of which persist even when the body is dissolved and regulates the acquisition of a new body and other cognitive mechanisms during rebirth or regeneration (prapta karma).

But now another argument is put forward to circumvent the admission of Karma in the Deep Structure of the world processes underlying the reproductive mechanisms of the creature regeneration. Intelligence is seen as Gestaltic, something that emerges like the melodies of an orchestral performance, something that emerges when the body functions COLLECTIVELY and TOGETHER and hence at the disruption of which it is no more. This may be a Lokayata adaptation of the Camudaya Vada who were also positivists of a kind.

Arunandi brings to bear upon this, the EVOLUTIONARY differences among the creatures, an understanding that has been with the Tamils at least from the days of Tolkaapiyam and which has been well accommodated within Saivite thinking as seen in Manikkavasagar's CivapuraNam. This evolutionary notions may also be hidden in the VaishaNava notions of Tasavataaram, the ten fold Avatars that BEING-as-VISHNU assumes but all cloaked in mythological garb.

The point Arunandi at pains to make is that, the evolutionary differences among creatures which is an observable fact requires noting the presence of Karma in the deep structure as that which regulates creature evolution and hence the differences.

43.

aRivudaR kuNamennil aanaiyatu

aati antam eRumpataa

uRum udaR peritaanavaRril

utittidum peritaakavee

ciRuvudaR ceRi njaanamum ciRitaa

aayidum pariNaamamum

peRum udaR ciRitaavatu en peritu

aavatu en cila peecidee!

Meaning:

Now because of the incapacity (of the materialistic notions to explain the phenomenon of death at which point consciousness is totally absent and that of deep sleep or swoon in which, while there is breathing there is no self-consciousness) you Lokayata may say that Consciousness arises only because of the ORGANIZATION feature of the physical body of the creatures. Now this would mean that the creatures with large bodies like elephants and those with small bodies like the ants would have higher and lower kind of intelligence. The SIZE of the physical body must correlate with intelligence being more or less evolved but this NOT the case in the world. Furthermore the fact

that creatures have bodies of different sizes is also something that needs to be explained. Can you explain this (without recourse to the notion of Karma?)

NOTES:

The Hermeneutic perspective within which Arunandi operates enables him to disconstruct another view of the Lokayatas with respect to explaining the presence of intelligence in living creatures. The view that consciousness is a product of biophysical structure of the body was disconstructed by presenting the fact that at the point of death, something happens whereby there is NO MORE intelligence and hence consciousness while the biophysical organs may remain intact, at least in most cases of death. This led to noting intelligence as something arising because of psychophysical processes that are ultimately related to the breathing processes. But against this it was pointed out that while during deep sleep ( or in the state of swoon and so forth), the psychophysical processes particularly breathing while active there is nevertheless no consciousness.

Now emerges another candidate for the Lokayata, the materialists: the body as a whole that remains intact, while at the point of death there is disintegration as the WIND is no more while during deep sleep there is intelligence as the body as WHOLE is there.

Now Arunandi notes that this view creates problems with respect to the intelligence being higher and lower and this is NOT correlating well with size of the physical body. If intelligence is purely a matter of the WHOLENESS of the body and DIFFERENCES in intelligence is a matter purely related to the SIZE of the body, the materialists can get away with their view. However an examination of the intelligence of the creatures and body size show that this NOT always the case. In modern terms we may agree that the single-celled creatures may be very low in intelligence but when it comes to the mammals this is certainly not true. The human beings are capable of LANGUAGE and as such disclose a very high level of intelligence but their body in no way the largest among the mammals.

Now a modern lokayata may shift the body size to the size of the cranium or the brain and claim that intelligence is a matter of the size of the brain ( and its complicated internal structure) However in anticipation of such views Arunandi points that even if it is the case it DEMANDS an explanation, WHY the brain sizes differ and so forth.

Of course what is implied by this rhetorical thrust is that there is something like Karma, something

imperceptible but certainly active in the genesis of the physical body itself.

Written by,

ULLAGANAR.

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - B

 Arunandi's Disconstruction of Materialism - 2

One of the central principles of the materialists then as of now is the denial of the categorical distinction between the psychical and physical, the mental and the brutal. They practice a kind of REDUCTIONISM , that of reducing the mental to the physical and thereby denying also the truth of metaphysical experiences that constitutes the essence of religious life.

What can overcome this reductionism is the practice of science as Hermeneutic Science, the kind of sciences practised extensively in the Tamil country and perhaps also all over India within the Agamic or Tantric traditions. It may also be possible that it is the development of the Hermeneutic Sciences that is quite distinctive of Indian Civilization as a whole.

In the following verse AruNandi provides his disconstruction of the physicalistic view of the mental and reductionism that accompanies it by showing there is INTENTIONALITY and that because of that the anma is TEMPORAL , its understanding of historical with the attendant three ekstases of time (as noted by Heidegger), the past, present and future. 

Of particular importance here is the notion of KuRippuk Kaalam of Tolkaappiyar, the consciousness of TIME that comes along with INTENTIONALITY, also called the psychological time and so forth. Human understanding reaches OUTSIDE itself only because of this inherent intentionality and it is only because of this, there is the-tic consciousness, consciousness of things in terms of 'this' and 'that' thatr Meykandar calls cudduNarvu. This phenomena also shows that the anma is distinct and NOT to be confused with the product of the material processes.

The existence of the mental phenomena is a fact of life and the Lokayata's reduction amounts to explaining it away rather than explaining the phenomena, so contends AruNandi

42.

aRivu puutamatu ennil veeRu

puRattu aRintamai kaNdilam

ceRivu taan udalattu enil cava

maana pootu udal teerumoo

kuRikoLaatu udal vaayuvaanatu

kuudidaamaiyin ennin nii

piRitaraatu niRka njaanam

uRakkam en piRavaatatee?

Meaning:

Lokayata! You say that intelligence is just another one of physical products generated by the combination of the basic physical elements. Then how do you explain that living creatures are INTENTIONAL and in that they perceive something as a " that" and which is external to themselves? Now if you deny this externality and say that such mental processes are internal (biophysiological) and happen within the body , then how to you explain that at the point of death while the body is still intact there is no intelligence as such? Now if you say such consciousness related processes become unavailable because of the departure of the WIND, then how do you explain the fact that during deep sleep while there is still breathing but there is NO consciousness?

NOTES

This constitutes one of the fundamental objections of Arunandi to the materialism of the Lokayatas which is essentially REDUCTIONISTIC, the denying of the categorical and ontological difference between intelligence and non-intelligence, a distinction that is accommodated with the hermeneutical way of looking at things. The hermeneuts would see the living things as TEXTS in which the psychological would be seen as the Deep Structure and the biophysiological as the Surface Structure. While it is true that INTELLIGENCE as such cannot be understood as they are independent of the physical embodiments, categorically they are NOT the same. For the living creatures are characterized by INTENTIONALITY and they do not simply sense objects in the world but SEE them, a process that requires grasping as it is something outside themselves.

Of course such phenomena have biophysiological correlates -- brain processes of various kinds in which the information that reaches the brain through the five senses are processed and an object is recognized as such and such. But all such perceptions emerge as 'a tree over there', 'a pain in my foot " etc. A close examination of such processes indicate that perceiving is NOT simply translating the sensorial input into object identities. There is a SELECTION mechanism at work and unless such selections are operative there , the singling out and synthesizing a mass of sensory input into that as pertaining to a particular object will NOT take place. 

And when we look at the SELECTIVE mechanisms we can see that it is psychical, there is actually a psyche, a non-material spiritual thing which does all these. The INTENTIONALITY is that which makes the psychic entities go beyond the internal psychobiological processes and grasp an object in the world and as in the world and hence outside the internal cognitive processes that disclose its presence. That seeing as such is psychical and NOT merely psychobiological is shown by pointing out that when a person is dead, the body is there intact but seeing is no more and hence also perceiving. The dead person does not perceive despite the presence of all the biophysiological mechanisms.

 

Now Lokayata in admitting the presence of INTENTIONALITY, tries to explain it away by saying that it is simply the function of the WIND that which is the cause of the breathing processes, the inhaling and exhaling, the fundamental biophysiological processes that maintain LIFE as such. As against this, Arunandi notes that while during deep sleep while breathing goes on as usual , there is ABSENCE of conscious prehension, the functioning of INTENTIONALITY even as dreams. We have here a situation where there is breathing for the person is NOT dead but nevertheless is NOT conscious and hence experiencing anything INTENTIONAL including the dreaming which may indirectly be related to intentionality. This shows that the proposed correlation between breathing and consciousness does not hold.

written by, 

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

( Image from wikipedia, with thanks )

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - A

  Arunandi's Disconstruction of Materialism - Part 1

One of the elements that the Tamil philosophical tradition embodies and which is of universal interest is the HERMENEUTICAL principles it upholds in philosophic matters. 

While it is true of both the Saiva and Vaishanava traditions , it appears that beginning from the Civanjanabotham of Meykandar it became so well developed that metaphysics itself became transformed into a field of hermeneutic science. This notion was carried over by his foremost student Arunandi who wrote TWO classics in Tamil philosophy 'Irupa Irupatu' and the massive 'Civanjana Citiyaar'. 

The Citiyaar is divided into TWO parts the Parapakkam and Supakkam and the whole book is organized on the basis of disconstruction. The Parapakkam constitutes the darsanas that are disconstructible and the Supaakam that which cannot be disconstructed and within which is located Saiva Siddhanta.

Within Parapakkam, Arunandi takes up first and discontructs the Lokayatas who have been in the whole of India in various shades and from very ancient times. The Lokayata's view that, seeing is the same as sensing and that there are no interpretive movements of the mind where from the surface structures, the deep structures are inferred ( anumana) is being disconstructed here. What is interesting is that no authorities -- Vedic or Agamic -- are brought in to substantiate the view. Everything remains hermeneutical, matters concerned with UNDERSTANDING and hence something of universal application. It is shown that human understanding in general in being historical, is also temporal and that because of this, SEEING is different from sensing for seeing involves TEMPORALITY but not pure sensing.

In this there are some parallels between Heidegger and Arunandi. However while Saiva Siddhanta notes that anma is sat-asattu i.e. historical-ahistorical and hence with the possibility to become totally and completely ahistorical and hence atemporal, such a notion is absent in Heidegger.

In the following verse that is concerned about the genesis of njaanam that I have translated as Understanding, Arunandi argues that it is a product of INTERPRETIVE processes and hence in a way inferential. In this way he points out that in ordinary life we do infer and our thinking in general involves such interpretive movements of the mind and which in turn generate understanding. Understanding does not come to be there just because the senses meet the objects, there are many interpretive and hence inferential processes at work before something is understood as such and such.

35

kaaNdaloo anumaanam aavatum

kaadci munnatum kaadciyeel

puuNda puuta udambinuL ezu

pootam enkodu kaNadnai

maaNda vaayin manangkoL njaanam

uNarntatum anumaanam enRu

iiNdu puutam iyaintatu ivvudal

enpatu en piramaaNamee

Now while there is such a thing as historical understanding, the understanding of the past that the hermeneuts claim is after all sensorial, only that they are perceptions that have become a matter of the past, and hence there are no inferential processes over the sensorial-- thus says the Lokayata. However let me ask you: you have granted that there is such a thing as 'understanding' ; now tell me how do you come to this conclusion? My view is that it is through a process of induction, a species of the inferential. The physical stimuli that impinges upon the senses are processed by the cognitive mechanisms of the mind and because of which there is understanding and consciousness. Thus the notion that there is understanding even now is after all inferential, it is going beyond the sensory stimulations. So is also the case with the conclusions you have made about the physical bodies -- that they are generated from the five fold basic elements.

Notes:

The whole thrust of the disconstruction of the Lokayatas that Arunandi practices here presupposes hermeneutics in which the notions of understanding and interpretations are central. The Lokayatas have no choice but to accept the fact that our understanding is HISTORICAL, that it goes to the past from the present and PROJECTS into future on the basis of the understanding of the present. Within the framework of historical understanding such as this, the Lokayatas observe, the past is after all the perceived but which has become the past and hence there is no getting away from the fact that everything is sensorial and hence there is no necessity to bring in the inferential and so forth.

However Arunandi considers now the PRESENT that is also a part of the historical understanding and the basic fact that UNDERSTANDING as such is acknowledged even by the Lokayatas. The point Arunandi makes is that, the understanding that exists even now is NOT purely sensorial and that it is generated only because of the INTERPRETIVE processes of the mind. There are various kinds of stimuli that impinge upon the senses and they will remain purely physical stimuli unless they are PROCESSED as such and INTERPRETED as being this and that. Such interpretive processes are a species of the inferential or inductive as they involve going beyond the physically given.

The conclusion that there is such a thing as understanding and to which is related consciousness or njaanam and which is inductive and a kind of anumaanam, or inferential. It is also claimed that Lokayatas' central doctrine of Physicalism, that all bodies are ultimately generated from the four basic elements of earth, fire, water and wind, is also similar, something that presupposes inductive kind of thinking though the Lokayatas remain blind to it.

Ullaganar.

( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student Ari )