Philosophie der Zahlen in der Nārāyanīya
angelegt 31.06.2021
Philosophy of Number in the Nārāyanīya
Although the Nārāyan īya appears to propound a number of doctrines, giving it a very diverse appearance, the text is actually held together by a very small number of philosophical themes. Key among these is the relation of the One to the many, as it ultimately contains the solution to King Yudhisthira’s incipient question regarding “infallible heaven”: since all of Becoming is subject to passing-away, this will require an ascent, in the intellect, to the One. Let us see how. The text opens with a question concerning the highest divinity; King Yudhisthira asks:
A householder or a student, a hermit or a mendicant,
If one wishes to obtain perfection, what god ought he adore?
How indeed can he obtain infallible heaven and [beyond it,] the ultimate good?
By following which injunction ought he to sacrifice to the gods and ancestors?
When liberated, where does one go?
And what is the nature of liberation?
Having attained to heaven, what must one do so as not to fall?
Which god is the god of gods and the ancestor of ancestors?
And what transcends even him?
Tell me all this, O grandfather!
(Mahābhārata 12.321.1–4, my trans.)
This question inaugurates a set of themes that inform the structure of the Nārāyan īya. Yudhisthira’s question circumscribes an area of philosophical enquiry. Part of the question is critical; it wants to separate the subject from āśramas, stages of life, and by implication varnāśrama dharma, the articulation of life according to one’s social function and age.28 Moreover, the question also separates out the attainment of heaven, and with it, all finite goals, however lofty they may be. Specifically, the question is one of transcendence beyond heaven; it is what I have elsewhere called double transcendence, where heaven constitutes the first transcendence (see Adluri 2012a).
̇The question is one of perfection (siddhim āsthātum icchet, 1c), ultimacy (nih śreyasam ̇ param, 2a) and also permanence articulated by concerns with stability (dhruvam, 2a) and immunity to fall (na cyavate, 3c). This set of ultimate concerns is posited in a twofold theoretical perspective, which can be named “cosmological–soteriological”.29 The cosmological aspect is the enquiry into the “god of gods” and the ancestor of ancestors and what goes beyond even that. Thus the question will seek a stepwise progression up to the creator god, and beyond that to the ontological concept of the “One”. This manifold question requires a manifold answer, but the essence of the question and the purport of the answer remain the ineffable One.30 The unity of the Nārāyanīya is the problem of the One.31 Thus, although Bhīsma in his response touches upon many themes (including a visit by the divine sage Nārada to the mystical island Śvetadvīpa to view the One Being, here called Nārāyana), these all pertain to the central and abiding question of this text: what is the relationship of the One to the many? It is this that makes the Nārāyanīya the paradigmatic text for studying the relationship of Neoplatonism to Indian thought.32
In response to Yudhisthira’s enquiry, Bhīsma states that the questions the king has raised concern a great mystery, but he knows of an ancient narrative (itihāsam ̇ purātanam, 12.321.7a) concerning a conversation between sage Nārada and Nārāyan ̣ a. Sage Nārada, realizing that the highest Being has become four (ekā mūrtir iyam ̇ pūrvam ̇ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c), goes to seek out two of these four, Nara and Nārāyana. These two are a pair. When he reaches their retreat, he is surprised to find them engaged in worship. Surprised, Nārada asks Nārāyana about the deity to whom he sacrifices: “You are the unborn, eternal creator and mother, immortality, and the highest being ...To whom today do you sacrifice? – which god or which ancestor – we know not!” (12.321.24–6). Nārāyana tells Nārada about a still higher form of his, known as Ksetrajña (the Knower of the Field) or as Purusa (the Person or the Self). From this masculine Being proceeds the Unmanifest, Prakrti, the womb of all beings.33 Nārāyana tells the sage that they worship Prakrti as “both deity and parent”, and, beyond her, the Self. This Self, however, is not attainable except through intense intellectual effort (jñānayoga).34 Through this practice, unified souls (ekāntins) reach their goal of entering into the Self.35
Learning that the One is higher than the four, Nārada sets out to behold that highest Being. He describes his preparation (purification, austerity, truthfulness, study of the Vedas, devotion to God, and one-pointedness) and then sets out, via Gandhamādana, to Mount Meru.36 From the summit, he spies a wondrous site: Śvetadvīpa, or the “White Island”, a luminous abode inhabited by beings that are “Without senses or sustenance ... unblinking and fragrant ... With tongues and faces turned in every direction, they lick up the illumination of the sun” (12.322.8–12). But the most interesting thing about these beings is that they are dyadic. For example, each of these radiant beings is endowed with four testicles, sixty-four teeth, and one hundred lines on the soles of their feet. A clear numerology is being worked out here (with the usual number of testicles, teeth, etc. being doubled).
The text then tells us how, before Nārada arrived there, the three sons of the Creator, Ekata, Dvita and Trita, had previously come there to view the One Being. In spite of their askesis they failed, because they lacked intense love or bhakti. Literally translated, the names Ekata, Dvita and Trita mean Oneness, Twoness and Threeness. Nārada is luckier, but the vision he is granted of the One is a multiplicity, a vision of the “form of all beings”: viśvarūpa. This One Being, surprisingly, shimmers in various colours and is glorified with numerous names. The simple One, he is told, is beyond this cosmic form and is ineffable and incomprehensible. But the discourse that follows insists that cosmology and soteriology are intimately linked, and that the One being is to be experienced (rather than viewed) through exclusive and unwavering love or bhakti, and a philosophical system for this is expounded.
Even though scholars have long argued that bhakti is nothing more than a cult-emotive phenomenon, it is important to note that the Nārāyanīya does not so much recommend the practice of bhakti as it presents a philosophical argument for bhakti as a cognitive, epistemological-ontological stance towards the One.37 More importantly for my thesis here is to see that love or bhakti represents the soteriological “way up” from the many to the One corresponding to the cosmogonic “way down” from the One to the many. The significance of bhakti for our topic can be seen from the way bhakti relates to the project of the Nārāyanīya of universalizing the soteriological philosophy of the Upanisads. Biardeau has argued that bhakti does not simply replace sacrificial and Upanisadic values, but “englobes”38 these within a hierarchy of values.39 Thus, instead of seeing bhakti as a dogmatic, irrational element in the text, we must see it as central to the Nārāyanīya’s ontological, philosophical and numerological concerns.
Within the Nārāyan ̣īya’s philosophical ontology, bhakti plays a crucial role in the soteriological ascent. This is evident from the way Nārada, whose role as Nārāyan ̣a’s pre-eminent bhakta is well established from an early phase of Indian thought, becomes the paradigmatic figure of the narrative of ascent. Nārada’s journey to the White Island follows strict numeric order. He goes from the many beings to the One, guided by the question of who that highest Being is. First, he is introduced in the text as someone who has “wandered all the worlds” (nāradah ̣ sumahad bhūtam ̇ lokān sarvān acīcarat, 12.321.14a) and, when he arrives at the Bādari hermitage, he also wonders, “this is the complete abode in which all the worlds are established, / With the devas, asuras, gandharvas, rsis, kinnaras, and the snakes” (12.321.15c–16a). Then, thinking, “One form it was previously, which again became four-fold” (ekā mūrtir iyam ̇ pūrvam ̇ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c), he desires to know who that highest Being is, whom the pair Nara-Nārāyana worship. Thereafter, he goes from the pair to the dyadic beings of the White Island. When he arrives at the island, he is initially unable to view the One, as we might well expect. But the problem of the impossibility of actually “viewing the One” is elegantly side-stepped in the myth because when the One Being indeed manifests to him, it is precisely in the form of the universe! The emphasis here is on the ascending path of salvation and the numeric leap between the many and One, with special emphasis on the dyad. The accomplished dyadic beings are able to constantly behold the One, and salvation, in their case, seems to be a clear understanding of the dyadic nature of being an individual and being One.40
Not only the way up to One (soteriology) but also the way down from the One to the many (cosmology) is mythically inscribed in the narrative of the journey to the White Island.41 But whereas the way up is singular, the way down is of two kinds: the series of number denoting procession, and the second series, which denotes multiplicity.
The universe progresses according to the numeric order of one, two, three. But the same cannot be said of the One, which is nevertheless reflected in the multiplicity of the universe. Thus, the text refers to two additional series of “descent” of the One: the first is the vyūhas or hypostases of the One, the second his avatāras or incarnations. The logic of the reflection of the One in the universe is, as is the case of all reflections, one of duplication.42 The text mythically sets up the following steps for such a “descending reflection” of the One in the many:
1. Nārāyanais, first, the “eternal Soul of the universe”, that is, one without a second.
2. Along with Nara, he forms a pair, that is, the one of a pair.
3. Nārāyana is one of the fourfold of division, which is still not the same as the one of the numerical series (note that the number three, which constitutes the first genuine multiplicity, does not occur here).
There is no doubt here that the One is proceeding not through a numerical progression of the One to two and then to three. The fourfold form unambiguously points to doubling: one, two, four. The distinction we made earlier between duplication and numeric progression is borne out, the latter belonging exclusively to a cosmology. This fourfold duplication via the dyad is called the vyūha doctrine. But when the One manifests theistically in the universe, Nārāyana takes on a soteriological form as Hari or Krsna and these descents are then listed as incarnations or avatāras. Thus, the way up is bhakti, while the way down is cosmogonic procession for the universe and the One is reflected in it as the vȳuhas and somehow theistically descends into the cosmos as avatāra. If we lay this out schematically, then we see that there are three senses of one, each heading a different series, as shown in Table 6.1.
This dyadic logic has parallels in Neoplatonic thought. Although Rist has argued that once Plato grants the Dyad he abandons his commitment to a philosophical monism, matters are obviously much more complex. The Dyad seems to function in an entirely different ontology than in the numeric series of one, two, three. In the Nārāyanīya, when Nārada returns from viewing the One on Śvetadvīpa, Nara-Nārāyana, who were formally a pair, now appear to him as a dyad. But the crucial experience he has undergone in the meantime has been divine grace, the complement to bhakti, and it is this that enabled him to see the One.43 The dyad, then, is not a merely logical and theoretical construction in the scheme of procession from the One to the many, but, it seems, a necessary step to preserve the relationship of the One to the many, thus making the soteriological goal of the system of emanation feasible.44
| Table 6.1 The three series of “one” in Nārāyan ̣īya’s philosophical ontology. | ||
| Procession | Vyūha doctrine | Cosmology |
| ONE | one (as Vāsudeva) | MANY |
| One: Nārāyana | Pradyumna | One: Ekata |
| Double: Nara-Nārāyan ̣a pair | Samkarasana | Two: Dvita |
| Fourfold: Nara-Nārāyana plus Hari and Krsna | Aniruddha | Three: Trita |
In contrast, the sons of the Creator are said to have failed to see the One because they lacked the necessary bhakti. Although we could interpret this theistically as a doctrinal commitment to “devotion”, such an interpretation risks missing out on the philosophical and ontological significance of the concept. (Namerkg. they dont understand the spiritual way ist as being a spiritual being, third eye or more) Although usually translated as “devotion” or “love”, bhakti derives from the root bhaj which has a rich range of semantic meanings including “to divide”, “to distribute”, “to allot or apportion to”, but also “to grant”, “to bestow”, “to furnish”, “to supply” and “to obtain as one’s share”, “to receive as”, “to partake of ”, “to enjoy” and “to possess” (Monier-Williams 1899, s.v. “bhaj”). It is thus implied in the very act of the reversal of the process of exteriorization through which the fall away from the One occurs.45 Rather than bespeaking merely the loving relation of the devotee to his or her god, bhakti, then, becomes a basic term for explicating the relationship of the One to the many. More importantly, we should note that bhakti is placed entirely on the side of the series that proceeds by ontological doubling (the leftmost column of Table 6.1). The cosmological series (the rightmost column) is cut off from the One not because it is a multiplicity, but because it is unable to intuit the One in this multiplicity. Nārada’s bhakti precisely consists in seeing the One even when the vision he is granted is that of all forms (viśvarūpa). On returning to the Bādarī hermitage, he is questioned by Nara-Nārāyan ̣a about whether he was able to see the One and he tells them that, when he saw the One, he also saw the two of them by the god’s side (12.331.38a). Thereupon Nara and Nārāyana, in turn, reveal to Nārada that he was beheld by them on Śvetadvīpa (12.332.22a)! Thus, it is not just Nārada who beheld a multiplicity in the body of the One, but that multiplicity existed and was part of the One. But in the meantime, the vision of the One in its numeric possibilities has had the effect of rendering Nārada single minded (12.331.51c) and he declares his intent to spend his days in askesis at the hermitage of the two gods and they worship him in turn.46
.It is thus clear that we should be on our guard against easy dismissals of the Nārāyanīya as a theological work without any philosophical significance. In spite of its mythological presentation, the text does not simply recommend a form of ritual or worship of a particular sectarian deity. Rather, in the very depictions of Nārada’s journey, the vision of the One, and its complex quartets and triads of beings the text is struggling to articulate deeper ontological, cosmological, anthropological and ethical concerns. Thus, Greek thought is more theological than we are comfortable with, and Indian theology is more philosophical than we are accustomed to believe.