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 )