Werk:Plotin und der Orient - Aoristos dyas

angelegt 31.06.2021

Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas

Vishwa Adluri

One form it was previously, which again became fourfold ...

(Maha ̄bha ̄rata12.321.16c)1

In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry tells us that, at the age of twenty-seven, Plotinus was seized by a passion for philosophy. Plotinus searched long for a teacher until he finally met Ammonius in Alexandria:

From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians. As the Emperor Gordian was preparing to march against the Persians, he joined the army and went on the expedition; he was already in his thirty-ninth year, for he had stayed studying with Ammonius for eleven complete years. When Gordian was killed in Mesopotamia Plotinus escaped with difficulty and came safe to Antioch.

(Porphyry, Plot. 3.14–23)2

Scholars have long wished to investigate the relationship between Plotinus and the Indian system of thought, but such research was limited to historical research or philosophical speculation.³ Thus far, no specific Indian text has been suggested where such a “system” – one that bears the closest resemblance to Plotinian thought – could be found.⁴

In this chapter, I introduce such a text: the Nārāyanīya, found in the Moksadharmaparvan or the soteriological portion of the Indian epic, the Mahābhārata. In eighteen short chapters,⁵ this text contains a combination of elements that were also essential for Plotinus’ thought:

a soteriology oriented towards the One;⁶
difficulty of seeing and describing this One;
levels of Being;
intense erotic love and its relationship to the One;
an ontological hierarchy that serves upwards as a soteriology and downwards as a cosmology.

The entire discussion, moreover, displays a keen understanding of the properties of number, such as the completely transcendent one, the Indefinite Dyad, and the cosmological resonances of the numeric series 1, 2, 3 ...7 A more relevant “Plotinian” Indian text cannot be wished for, nor does one exist.

The method I follow in this chapter is straightforward. I will present the text,⁸ its basic structure and philosophical project, and argue for why the Nārāyanīya provides a good basis for Plotinian–Indian comparative study. My discussion is divided into six sections. I first introduce the Nārāyanīya and then discuss relevant aspects of number in Greek philosophy from Pythagoras to Plotinus; thereafter, I return to philosophy of number in the Nārāyanīya.⁹ In two concluding sections, I then address the question of Plotinus’ Orientalism. The first of these reviews Bréhier’s claims – made in his 1928 classic work La philosophie de Plotin, translated into English as The Philosophy of Plotinus (1958) – for attributing Oriental influences to certain aspects of Plotinus’ thought; the second then examines Bréhier’s sources for making these claims.¹⁰ Finally, I return to the question of Plotinian–Indian comparisons in the conclusion.

THE NĀRĀYANĪYA

The Nārāyanīya occurs in the Śāntiparvan, the twelfth major book of the Mahābhārata. The Śāntiparvan contains three sections: the Rājadharmaparvan (on the law of kingship), the Āpaddharmaparvan (on the law of emergencies) and the Mok ̣sadharmaparvan (on the praxis of salvation). The Nārāyan ̣īya appears in the last of these sections and marks the culmination of the epic’s cosmological, soteriological and literary programme.

The immediate context of the Nārāyan ̣īya is an extended dialogue between the fallen Kuru patriarch Bhīshma and the victorious king Yudhiṣṭhira regarding the various forms of dharma.¹¹ This text is distinguished by the glorification of Nārāyana¹² as the supreme reality (Anmerk. supreme being). It includes the divine sage Nārada’s visit to the mystical island Śvetadvīpa (or the “White Island”) where Nārāyan. a reveals himself in his universal form (viśvarūpa, 12.326.1c). The text is interesting as it provides not only a well-developed theology, but also philosophical discussions on ontology, cosmology, etymology, divinity and ritual. A summary of the various descents of the One Being (ekam ̇ puru ̣sam, 12.326.31c) Nārāyan. a into the cosmos can be found here¹³ – a theme that is richly developed in later sectarian texts, the Purānas.

Although a spate of philological scholars have insisted that the doctrine of Nārāyana was introduced into the text by later dogmatic philosophico-religious interpolators,¹⁴ and that the text is nothing more than a transparent attempt to import “theology” into the Mahābhārata, a closer view reveals matters to be much more complex. The Nārāyanīya articulates a sophisticated philosophy of number, which, to be sure, is oriented towards the One Being called Nārāyana here, but the text is anything but dogmatic. The difficulty in conceiving the one reality, the difficulty of articulating it and achieving it are problems the text struggles to articulate. These difficulties – along with the difficulties the very conception of one reality creates for cosmology in terms of how, then, such a plurality (as is implied in the idea of cosmology) can exist – are exposed in this text. To be sure, the text does recommend certain practices conducive to this vision, but I am chiefly concerned here with the philosophical problem of the One and its relation to the many. Although Nārāyan. a is said to be this One, owing to his infinity, this conception appears with all the attendant philosophical problems. Nārāyana must be the One, but also the several levels between the One and the many. Thus: a dyad, a doubling, a pair, a fourfold. These are the emanations of the One (note that this series always proceeds through doubling). At the head of the many is a series of numbers: one, two, three (eka, dvi, tri). The One of the former progression (that is, of the series which proceeds through ontological doubling) and the one of the numerical series are quite different. Throughout, the text attempts to hold together these two senses of “one” in their irreducible difference.¹⁵ The dyad, moreover, appears to be assigned a liminal role between the simple One and the many.¹⁶

This brief overview of the text already shows that number is the key concept in terms of which the Nārāyanīya must be understood. Before we look more closely at the Nārāyanīya, however, it is pertinent to recall the significance of number in Plotinian thought.

SIGNIFICANCE OF MULTIPLICITY FROM PYTHAGORAS TO PLATO

PHILOSOPHY OF NUMBER IN THE NĀRĀYANĪYA

PLOTINUS’ ORIENTALISM

BRÉHIER’S SOURCES

CONCLUSION

The question of Plotinus’ Orientalism thus cannot be settled by geographic or historical investigations, because the question is fundamentally not a positive question. It is a conceptual question inasmuch as it pertains to our definitions of “Occidental” (or “Greek” or “Western”) and “Oriental”. And these are terms, as Gregorios rightly sees, that are not defined in terms of geographic boundaries, but in terms of intellectual, cultural and political identities.⁵⁴ But, as I have shown in the positive portion of my chapter, there is another way to read Indian philosophy: one that begins not with a priori ideas of philosophy and narratives of historical decline, but with an enquiring, philosophical mind.

Although the field of Mahābhārata studies is not without its own problems,⁵⁵ there is much to be gained by a philosophical comparison of Plotinian thought with the Indian epic. Hitherto, the majority of scholars have focused on the different schools of Vedānta, but these philosophical schools are highly systematic and technical, responding to various internal dialogues and debates. The Mahābhārata, in contrast, undertakes a fresh and highly original response to the problem of the One and the many. Further, whereas the Upanisads were esoteric texts, and thus guarded within a lineage of pedagogical succession, the Mahābhārata was freely circulated and actively propagated. Its popular form makes it a much more likely candidate than the Upanisads for discussion in ports such as Alexandria. The epic therefore offers us a fresh perspective for investigating the question of Plotinus’ relationship to Indian thought. The Nārāyanīya, in particular, does not merely offer a “parallel” to Plotinus’ work, one that can serve as a locus for further research. In presenting these dyadic beings, the Nārāyanīya, as I have shown, provides a way for us to understand a very obscure component of Neoplatonist philosophy: the Indefinite Dyad. By focusing on substantive philosophical topics and on specific texts, we make much greater headway than when we rely on broad crosscultural comparisons and jingostic prejudices.

What emerges, then, once we set aside our prejudices regarding Indian thought, is that a philosophical reflection on number appears to encounter similar kinds of problems in both Plotinus and the Indian text. These problems, which now need to be taken up in future research, may be summarized as follows:

The One as the ultimate archē or principle.
The unity of the One is a problem, closely tied to cosmogony and cosmology and thus multiplicity.
The unity of the One is also essential, as it offers the very rationale for a soteriology.
Both in the Greek and in the Indian texts discussed here, cosmogony is the exact obverse of a soteriological ascent.
Multiplicity is conceived of primarily as capacity for division, and secondarily as numeric progression.
The Dyad as the first tremor (!) in the One is a complex, obscure but inescapable step in the relationship between the One and the many.
Gender as an ontological category that allows us to conceptualize the relation of the One and the many in their unity and difference.

Finally, it bears repeating that studies of Indian and Neoplatonic thought, even if comparative, cannot simply rely on the presentations of traditions found in the work of the doxographers. Even when doxographers are not motivated by the kinds of ideological agendas as Oldenberg and the entire German text-historical school (for instance, Paul Hacker) were, their work is insufficient to penetrating the philosophical proximity of these traditions. It has been well said by Abrams that, Characteristic concepts and patterns of Romantic philosophy and literature are a displaced and reconstituted theology, or else a secularized form of devotional experience, that is, because we still live in what is essentially, although in derivative rather than direct manifestations, a Biblical culture, and readily mistake our hereditary ways of organizing experience for conditions of reality and the universal forms of thought. (1973: 65)

Nowhere is this perhaps as true as in philosophy, where nineteenth-century prejudices still impair our ability to enter into dialogue with the ancients. From Garbe to Oldenberg and Hacker, the history of Indological writing on Indian philosophy has been a history of error, where Kantian systematic philosophy was made normative for philosophy in general and all Indian schools evaluated and arranged as they approximated or failed to approximate this ideal.⁵⁶ But if we begin again, with Parmenides and Plato (and Plotinus) rather than with the nineteenth-century philologist-historians, we find that the two philosophical cultures are closer than they initially appear. It is in this sense that I wish to describe the relationship of Plotinus to the Orient in terms of the aoristos dyas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Joydeep Bagchee for his assistance with the research into Bréhier’s sources, especially his translations of Oldenberg. I also wish to thank the editors of the volume, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin and Pauliina Remes, for their careful reading and philosophically inspiring comments.

NOTES

My translation; the numbers refer to the Critical Edition text by Sukthankar (1933–66); thus, “12” refers to the parvan or major book (the Śāntiparvan), “321” to the adhyāya or chapter in that book (in this case, the first chapter of the Nārāyan ̣īya, which occurs from chapter 321 to 339 in the Śāntiparvan), “16” to the verse in that chapter and “c” to the hemistich.
All translations of Plotinus heareafter are taken from Armstrong (1966–88).
For a recentand fairly balanced view, see Lacrosse (2001). Older treatments, especially of the basic points of philosophical proximity identified by scholars, can be found in Wolters (1982) and Tripathi (1982).
Among the candidates proposed have been the Upanisads (either individually or as a group), the Bhagavadgītā, Buddhist texts such as the Uttaratantra or Ratnagotravibhāga, and Abhidharma literature; for general discussion, see Hatab; for the Upanisads as source of influence, see Rosán (1982) and also Armstrong & Ravindra (1982); for the Bhagavadgītā as source of influence, see Sharma (1982); for the Uttaratantra or Ratnagotravibhāga as source of influence, see Wallis; and on Abhidharma literature, see Rodier (1982). All are in Baine Harris (1982). However, discussions of these texts rely on broad compari- sons of the two traditions or on finding specific parallels between Neoplatonism and one or more texts.
A rigorously Plotinian text in terms of its structure has not been proposed as yet.
As Hiltebeitel (2011a) notes, the number eighteen is significant. The Mahābhārataand the Bhagavadgītā are both divided into eighteen sections, either books (as in the case of the Mahābhārata) or chapters (as in the case of the Bhagavadgītā). Further, the great war lasts eighteen days and eighteen armies are said to take part in it. The number eighteen has canonical significance in the Northern Recension, which organizes the epic into eighteen parvans; the Southern Recension, by contrast, features twenty-four parvans. In the Northern Recension texts, the Bhagavadgītā, which occurs in Book Six of the epic (the Bhī ̣smaparvan), and the Nārāyanīya, which occurs in Book Twelve (the Śāntiparvan), divide the text into three sections of six books each. This triadic division, as I have argued elsewhere, is significant: the Bhagavadgītā represents the apex of the pravrtti or cosmological narrative of the epic, the Nārāyan ̣īya the culmination of its nivrtti or soteriological trajectory.

Plotinus, Enn. V.3[49]. 17 and Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1 both attest to this quest for simplicity as the dominant concern of the philosophical enterprise.
The Nārāyan ̣īyadoesnotusetheterm “Indefinite Dyad”, of course.But, as I demonstrate in the course of this chapter, it is clearly acquainted with the concept of the dyad as a stage intermediate to the One and a true plurality. In any case, what is essential for us here is not the question of primacy, whether historical or intellectual, but to learn to see the philosophical problems the two texts or traditions are struggling with. In this, reading the Nārāyan ̣īya alongside the Enneads and the Enneads alongside the Nārāyan ̣īya can be a way of illuminating both.
Nārāyanīya, Mahābhārata chapters 12.321–39; an English translation (of the Vulgate) can be found in Ganguli (1891); a more recent French translation (also of the Vulgate) is available in Esnoul (1979). I am currently completing a translation of Nārāyan ̣īya based on the text of the Critical Edition. All translations in this chapter are my own.
There have been relatively few studies on number as compared to other Plotinian topics. Here I rely on the work of Slaveva-Griffin (2009) and Radke (2003) for making number central to my enquiry.
We should take Bréhier’s work seriously, because, as Wolters shows in his article (see note 3 above), the thesis of Oriental influence on Plotinus goes back to Bréhier. Bréhier first articulated the thesis in his 1921–2 lectures at the Sorbonne and publicized it in 1928 (English trans. 1958). Wolters notes that, prior to Bréhier’s work, “every leading Plotinus scholar of the twentieth century downplay[ed] any but Greek factors in accounting for the development of Plotinus’s thought” (Wolters 1982: 296). Thus, the question of Bréhier’s sources for making these claims plays a not insignificant role in how we approach the question of Plotinus’ Orientalism.
The term dharma (variously translated as “law”, “ordinance”, “duty”, “virtue”, etc., see Monier-Williams 1899, s.v. “dharma”) refers primarily to prescribed duties, obligations and/or laws within a definite social order. However, it is also hypostatized to an abstract concept, to Law or Justice personified, and, ultimately, into a cosmic principle and a deity. But here what Yudhis.t.hira specifically has in mind is the dharma of the four classes and that appropriate to each of the four stages of life (student, householder, forest dweller and renunciate) or varn ̣āśramadharma. The question concerns the duties and actions proper to each stage of life so as to attain the final good.
Nārāyan ̣a first appears as a name of the Purus ̣a (the Primal Being or the Primal Man) in Śatapatha Brāhman ̣a 12.3.4.1 and 13.6.1.1 (Purus ̣a Nārāyan ̣a). Biardeau traces the name to Purus ̣āyan ̣a in the Praśna Upani ̣sad (6.4) based on the synonym of nara and puru ̣sa which permits the substitution of one by the other; the term may then mean “made of those who direct themselves toward Nara/Purus ̣a”. In the Mahābhārata, Nārāyan ̣a is often used, doubtless because of its etymological and philosophical richness, as the name of the Supreme Being and two etymologies are proposed for the name. One etymology links him to the primeval waters on which Vis ̣n ̣u/Nārāyan ̣a is said to sleep during the stage of cosmic reabsorb- tion (cf. Mahābhārata 3.187.3: āpo nārā iti proktāh ̣ sam ̇ jñānāma k ̣rtam ̇ mayā / tena nārāyan ̣o ’smy ukto mama tad dhy ayanam ̇ sadā); the other, to mortal man of whom he is the refuge or shelter (Mahābhārata 12.328.35ab: narān ̣ām ayanam ̇ khyātam aham ekah ̣ sanātanah ̣ and see also 12.328.35c–e linking both notions). See Biardeau (1991) and, on the notion of periodic periods of emission and absorption of the universe from the One, see note 29 below.
The text discusses two types of manifestations, which have become famous in later literature as the four vyūhas (caturvyūha) and the ten avatāras (daśāvatāra). The Nārāyan ̣īya contains the earliest reference to the caturvyūha doctrine, although the text does not refer to Nārāyan ̣a’s forms by this name (with the exception of 12.336.53, where Vaiśam ̇ pāyana mentions that some worship Nārāyan ̣a as having one form, others as having two, others as having three, and yet others as having four forms [caturvyūha, 53d]). Rather, Nārāyan ̣a is spoken of as being of quadruple form (caturmūrtih ̣, 12.321.8a; cf. also12.326.67c and 12.327.95c); although of one form previously, he has become fourfold (ekā mūrtir iyam ̇ pūrvam ̇ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c; cf. also 12.326.93a: caturmūrtidharo hy aham). These forms are referred to as his Vāsudeva, Sam ̇ kars ̣an ̣a, Pradyumna, and Anniruddha forms and identified with the k ̣setrajña (the knower of the field), jīva (soul), manas (mind), and aham ̇ kāra (ego), respectively. Collectively, these entities are referred to as his fourfold form (mūrticatu ̣s ̣tayam, 12.326.43e). The caturvyūha doctrine becomes famous in later texts and iconography, especially those attributed (I believe, mistakenly) to the Pāñcarātra sect. (Because references to Nārāyan ̣a’s fourfold forms in the Nārāyan ̣īya often occur in conjunction with root bhū plus the prefix prādur meaning “to become manifest,” it is also common to refer to the manifestations as Nārāyan ̣a’s prādurbhāvās and the doctrine as the prādurbhāvā doctrine.) However, there is no doubt that the intellectual roots of the later practice of depicting Vāsudeva in fourfold form can be traced back to the Nārāyan ̣īya, see Srinivasan (1979). The Nārāyan ̣īya again provides us with the earliest list of the ten incarnations of Nārāyan ̣a, but whereas the vyūhas have a role in cosmogenesis (at the end of the fourfold division of Nārāyan ̣a, Brahmā the creator appears and, acting under Nārāyan ̣a’s direction, creates the universe), the incarnations are intracosmic events. This difference in status is also reflected in the word “avatāra” which is derived from avataran ̣a meaning,“descending, alighting” (from avat ̣r ̄ meaning, “to descend”), see Kuiper (1979).
See the articles in Schreiner (1997). For my criticisms of this approach, see Adluri (forthcoming).
Indian philosophy knows of severa lsenses of“one”. Brahman is said to beekame vaadvitīyam (one only, without a second; Chāndogya Up. 6.2.1); in the Purus ̣a Sūkta hymn of the R ̣g Veda, we find a reference to “that One” (tad ekam, R ̣V 10.9.3), who is prior to the distinction between being and non-being; R ̣V 1.164.46 also refers to truth being one only (ekam sat). Likewise, the Nārāyan ̣īya is rich in usages of “one”, including references to Nārāyan ̣a as ekam ̇ puru ̣sam ̇ (12.326.31c), to Rudra and Nārāyan ̣a as “one being manifesting as two” (sattvam ekam ̇ dvidhāk ̣rtam, 12.328.24a), and to Nārāyan ̣a as the One (ekam ̇, 12.328.35c, 12.339.9c).
In chapter 3, the three sages Ekata, Dvita and Trita (whose names literally mean “Oneness”,“Twoness” and “Threeness”) are unable to see the One, but they are told that the One Being is seen through the dyadic beings of Śvetadvīpa being seen (12.327.47c); likewise, when Nārada returns to the Bādari hermitage, having seen Nārāyan ̣a in his universal aspect, Nara-Nārāyan ̣a, who were formally a pair, now appear to have the characteristics of the Śvetadvīpa dyadic beings (12.331.25c–30a).
Slaveva-Griffin (2009: 3–4): “From the sixth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E., from the early Presocratics to the late Neoplatonists, every philosophical school has striven to explain the tangible order of multiplicity ... The understanding of the universe as a unity of one and many begins with the early Presocratics’ search for the primary originative substance (archē) as the source and the unifying element of physical reality. Next, the Pythagoreans postulate that numbers organize the universe in one harmonious unity, which is interwoven by unlimited (apeira) and limiting (perainonta) elements.”
The Nārāyan ̣īya refers to these two aspects of reality as prav ̣rttiandniv ̣rttidharmas. The question of their interrelation is a major theme not only of this text, but also of the Sanskrit epic as a whole.
For an interesting solution to this problem, see Miller (1986). Miller argues that the “contradiction” in fact calls for a philosophical “decision.”
Simplicius, in Metaph. 187a; translated and cited in Slaveva-Griffin (2009: 6, n. 16).
Although nowhere in the Parmenides is the aoristos dyas mentioned, this has not prevented scholars from seeking to associate the term with Plato. Slezák (2010) reviews the evidence for ascribing a Platonic origin to the term, including the testimony of ancient authors.
Merlan(1953:98–140) argues that chapter 4 of this work is a fragment of Speusippus; his claim has been widely accepted (the exception being Tarán) (for Dillon’s defence of Merlan against Tarán, see (1984; 2003: 41–2).
Rist (1965: 332), and see ibid.: 331: “If we enquire into the precise reason for the positing of the Dyad, we are faced with at least apparent difficulties. Merlan points out that in Apuleius and Plutarch passages can be found which suggest that some Platonists were asking themselves, What is the principle of differentiation within the Ideal World? and, under Aristotelian influence, were giving the answer, Matter. But this was not apparently Plato’s reason for introducing the Dyad in the first place. The problem of the distinction between Ideas seems to have caused him little inconvenience; although as early as the Protagoras he was concerned about the relation of various virtues with one another (329D–333B). The difficulty which Plato seems rather to have wished to solve is the old Parmenidean one about the origin of plurality itself. The first hypothesis of the second part of the Parmenides shows that if Unity be understood in the strict Parmenidean sense and be considered entirely in isolation, then nothing whatever can be said of it. Presumably, therefore, in the world of reality as well as the world of λόγοι, if the Platonic Good, or One, be considered by itself, then for all that it is the source of Being in some sense (Republic 509), yet no other Beings (Forms) can exist unless there is some kind of substrate or ἐκμαγεῖον (Met. 988AI), or what you will, in the intelligible world, in which or on which the One can impose itself as Limit upon the Unlimited. Aristotle’s whole account of the Idea-Numbers depends on the assumption that Plato expects that by positing the One and the Dyad he can account for the existence of more than one Form. He does not deal with the question: What is the difference between Forms? He contents himself with explaining that there is a difference between Forms, that there are, say, two Forms, the Ideal Two and the Ideal Three, and that these are not merely two different names referring to the same thing.”
Plotinus was also interested in this problem and proposes a solution along the lines of the Nārāyan ̣īyain Enn. VI.6[34].9 where the problem of the confusion between the arithmetical and ontological conception of the Indefinite Dyad is clarified and solved by introducing a distinction between substantial and monadic number. I thank the editors for this clarification.
Incidentally, this solution was already suggested by some Middle Platonists (Eudorus,Pythagoreansapud Sextus Empiricus, Math. 10). I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

See Plutarch, de An. Procr. 1012d–1013b and de Def. Orac. 409e; cf. Dillon (2003).
This is important for us, because unimpeded by a masculine Biblical monotheism, Indian thought fully exploits the distinction, enantiomorphism and unified dualism of gender. The male-male pair of Nara and Nārāyan ̣a already sits in dynamic tension with the Purus ̣a-Prakrti male female pair in the cosmogony of the Nārāyanīya. But once the One is gendered in relation to the many, and moreover deified, how is the One, as simple and untouched by predicates, to be described? Indian texts provide two solutions. First is the identification of the One as feminine. This ascendancy of the feminine is seen in a later text known as the Devī Purān ̣a, where the One is primarily female. Second, in the more abstract philosophical systems, the One is de facto male, and matter is considered subordinate and feminine. While one simplistically attributes the empirical malfeasance of gender, seen across all cultures, to ontology, the reality depicted in texts shows an unmistakable playfulness regarding gender, deploying its uses in ontology with utmost seriousness. Thus, we already have a gender reversal in the Nārāyan ̣īya. Arjuna and Kr ̣s ̣n ̣a, manifestations of Nara and Nārāyan ̣a, also “switch” genders in the epic; Arjuna in the Virā ̣taparvan and Nārāyan ̣a in the Ādiparvan.
Indian thought traditionally divides social functions into four varnas (literally,“colours”, but used with the general meanings of “kind, sort, character, nature, quality”): royal (military), sacerdotal, commercial or agricultural, and the menial classes. The varna scheme is crossed with a second social division, āśrama or the articulation of life according to age, to produce the concept of varn ̣āśramadharma. For a good survey of the concept, see Klostermaier (2007: 288–97); a comprehensive treatment can be found in Kane (1941).
These two concerns are ultimately one for Indian thought for, asBiardeau (1968:39) has shown, cosmology is but the reverse of the process of reabsorption by which a yogin absorbs the sensory world into himself. In Indian thought, the Purus ̣a himself is conceived of as a yogin, specifically “un yogin cosmique, un mahāyogin” who lets the world emerge periodically from himself by turning outward. One consequence of this conception, as Biardeau correctly noted (1968: 109), is that “individual salvation [now] has to be integrated into this rhythm [of the periodic emission and reabsorption of the universe by the Purus ̣a] and must also translate in its own way the hierarchy of the values which the successive levels of the cosmogony brought to light”. Cosmology and soteriology are thus intimately connected in the Nārāyan ̣īya, just as, in Plotinus, the soul’s ascent cannot be understood independently of the process of emanation by which it descends.
When Nārada initially asks Nārāyan ̣a about whom he sacrifices to, Nārāyan ̣a responds that this topic is not to be revealed (avācyam), the secret of the eternal self (ātmaguhyam ̇ sanātanam, 12.321.27a). It is said to be subtle (sūk ̣smam), inconceivable (avijñeyam), unmanifest (avyaktam), immovable (acalam ̇), permanent (dhruvam, 12.321.28a), and transcending the senses and the primordial elements (indriyair indriyārthaiś ca sarvabhūtaiś ca varjitam, 12.321.28c). Earlier, Bhīs ̣ma had said that this secret could not be stated by logic alone (na hy e ̣sa tarkayā śakyo vaktum ̇, 12.321.5c), but was to be had through divine grace (devaprasādād, 6a) alone. Nārāyan ̣a, too, confirms that it can be revealed only to one of devoted mind (bhaktimatah ̣, 12.321.27c).
The demonstration of the unity of being is ultimately based on the principle of non-contradiction, and is a well-known aspect of Mahābhārata ontology. See Gītā 2.16: nāsato vidyate bhāvo.
The Nārāyan ̣īya sees knowledge of the One not only as the ultimate import of this text, but explicitly as the goal of all previous texts, including the Vedas (see lines 12.321.41a–42c). Thus, there is good reason to take the Nārāyan ̣īya not as an isolated example, but as the fulfilment of a long tradition of a philosophical ontology, whose roots are to be found in the monistic speculations of the Vedas, especially the Puru ̣sa Sūkta and Nāsadīya Sūkta hymns of the R ̣g Veda (R ̣V 10.90 and 10.129) and, of course, the Upani ̣sads.
The exact passage reads: “From him [Purus ̣a] has arisen the Unmanifest, composed of the three gun ̣as, O best of the twice-born / She who is unmanifest, established in manifest forms, is Prak ̣riti unchanging / Know her to be the womb of us both. He who is the soul of all subtle and corporeal being / Is worshipped