Category Archives: philosophy of religion

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Sarvagatatva in Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika: ātman, aether and materiality (mūrtatva)

The Sanskrit philosophical school called Vaiśeṣika is the one most directly dealing with ontology. Its fundamental text is the Vaiśeṣikasūtra, which is commented upon by Prāśastapada in the Pādarthadharmasaṅgraha (from now one PDhS) (the following is a summary of Padārthadharmasaṅgraha ad 8.7).

The school distinguishes substances and qualities. The first group includes four types of atoms (earth, water, fire, air) and then aether, time, space, ātmans and internal organs (manas). The latter are needed as a separate category, because they are point-sized and therefore not made of atoms, unlike the external sense faculties.
Among the 17 qualities, it recognises parimāṇa or `dimension’. This encompasses at first two possibilities, namely atomic (aṇu), or extended (mahat). The former covers partless entities that have allegedly no spatial dimension, like points in Euclidean geometry and atoms themselves. These are considered to be without extension and permanent through time (nitya). The latter is subdivided into mahat and paramahat. The first covers all objects one encounters in normal life, from triads of atoms (imagined to be of the size of a particle of dust, the first level of atomic structure to be extended) to the biggest mountain. These entities have parts and extension and have an origin and an end in time. The second subdivision covers special substances, listed as ākāśa `aether’, space, time and ātmans, which need to be imagined to be present at each location. Such entities are also imagined to be nitya, that is permanent through time. In other words, they are present at each location of time and space.
The above also implies that entities considered to be permanent through time can only be either atomic or all-pervasive.

However, space, time, aether and selves (ātman) are present at all locations in different ways.

About aether, to begin with, texts like Jayanta’s Nyāyamañjarī say that it needs to be accepted as a fifth substance in order to justify the diffusion of sound across multiple media. Texts of the Vaiśeṣika school, and of the allied school of Nyāya specify that aether does not occupy all locations, but rather is in contact with each individual atom):

[The aether’s] all-pervasiveness consists in the fact that it is in contact with each corporal (mūrta) substance.
(sarvamūrtadravyasaṃyogitvam vibhutvam (Tarkasaṃgrahadīpikā ad 14).)

This means that aether does not pervade atoms, but is in contact (saṃyoga) with each one of them.

This point is already explicit in the allied school of Nyāya, the Nyāyabhāṣya, and is needed because of the point-sized nature of atoms. If these were pervaded by aether, then they would have parts, and thus not be permanent. These undesired consequences are examined in the following:

This is impossible, because of the penetration through aether || NS 4.2.18 ||

It is impossible for an atom [to be] partless and permanent. Why? Because of the penetration through ether, that is, because an atom, if it were permeated, that is `penetrated’ by aether, within and outside, then, because of this penetration it would have parts, and due to having parts it would be impermanent.

Or, the aether is not all-located} || 4.2.19 ||

Alternatively, we don’t accept that. There is no aether within the atoms and therefore aether ends up not being all-located

(ākāśavyatibhedāt tadanupapattiḥ || 4.2.18 ||
tasyāṇor niravayasya nityasyānupapattiḥ. kasmāt. ākāśavyatibhedāt. antarbahiścāṇur ākāśena samāviṣṭo vyatibhinno vyatibhedāt sāvayavaḥ sāvayavatvād anitya iti.
ākāśāsarvagatatvaṃ vā || 4.2.19 ||
athaitan neṣyate paramāṇor antar nāsty ākāśam ity asarvagatatvaṃ prasajyeta iti.)

Aether is postulated as a substrate of sound (which can move through solids, liquids and air, thus proving that it has neither earth, nor water, nor air as substrate). Thus, it needs to be unitary (multiple aethers would not explain the propagation of sound, sound would stop at the end of the respective aether) and it needs to be present at all locations (for the same reason). More in detail: Only because of the unitary nature of aether is it possible for sound to travel between different loci. Otherwise, one would have to posit some mechanism to explain how the sound encountered in one aether travels to another one. Instead, the simpler solution is to posit that aether is necessarily both single (eka) and present at all locations (vibhu).

As for ātman, the self is by definition permanent (otherwise, no afterlife nor cycle of rebirths would be possible). It cannot be atomic, though, because the ātman is the principle of awareness and people become aware of things potentially everywhere. The fact that they don’t become perceptually aware of things being, e.g., behind a wall, by contrast, is only due to the fact that the ātman needs to be in touch (via the internal sense organ, manas, which is believed to be atomic and to move quickly from one to the other sense-faculty) to the sense faculties (indriya) in order for perceptual awareness to take place. Yogins are able to perceive things their bodies are not in contact with because their ātmans are omnipresent, like our ātman, and are able, unlike our ātman, to connect with other bodies’ sense faculties.
Within Sanskrit philosophy, Jaina philosophers suggested that the ātman is co-extensive with the body, since it can experience whatever the body can experience. Vaiśeṣika and other non-Jaina authors disagree, because this would lead to the absurd consequence of an ātman changing in size through one’s life.

A further element to be taken into account with regard to theories of location, and in particular while adjudicating whether they are about occupation or non-occupation is materiality.
Occupation of space seems to occur only from the level of atomic triads up to big, but not all-located, objects. Atoms are said to be mūrta and mūrta is usually translated as `material’, but taken in isolations, atom do not have parts and are only point-sized. In this sense, their being mūrta refers more about their being fundamental for material entities, rather than being material if taken in isolation. The distinction is theoretically relevant, but less evident at the pragmatic level, given that atoms are never found in isolation. Being mūrta is attributed to atoms of the four elements (not to aether) as well as to the inner sense organ (Nyāyakośa, s.v.), but not to ātman neither to aether.

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Conference on “Spiritual exercises, self-transformation and liberation in philosophy, theology and religion”

Pawel Odyniec, who is among the foremost experts on Vedānta and on K.C. Bhattacharya, organised a conference that looks extremely thought-provoking on May 22nd–24th. Please read more about the participants (among which Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, James Madaio, Jessica Frazier, Karl-Stephan Bouthilette…) and the program, and how to register at the link below:
https://konferens.ht.lu.se/spiritual-exercises

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Individuality in Vaikuṇṭha

Do the inhabitants of Vaikuṇṭha have desires (or only God’s ones)? Veṅkaṭanātha’s Nyāyasiddhāñjana 174–6 seems to suggest that they can will:

In the same way, Ananta and Garuḍa and the other (permanently liberated souls) and the liberated souls assume this or that form based on their will.

(tathā anantagaruḍādīnāṃ muktānāñ ca icchākṛtatattadrūpam).

But their will, is it an individual will or the same will repeated for each of them? Possibly the latter. Let me explain by elaborating on a different topic, namely that of tedium in heaven.

Christopher M. Brown (Brown 2021) suggests that “our experience of boredom in this life is in fact reflective either of the timeboundedness of the goods that are central to human experience in this life […] or the nature of time as we experience it in this life” (p. 420). This is probably true, which tells us that the experience of superhuman beings in heaven is radically incomparable with ours. Can it be nonetheless desirable?

Brown does not address this concern directly, but tries to make examples of goods that could be experienced in heaven and that we can conceive as being goods, thus implicitly suggesting that heaven can be desirable. For instance, he speaks of “the natural human desire for knowledge of creatures is perfected in the greatest way logically possible” (p. 421). But is knowledge desirable per se? Don’t we prefer to gain knowledge? Don’t we enjoy the process of learning and discovering? Thus, the example of knowledge does not make sense as a case of a pleasure human beings can analogically relate to. Rather, it is a case of participating in God’s nature. And happiness in heaven is “excessive” according to Brown, who is here quoting Thomas Aquinas (who, in turn, seems to be pointing to something similar to what Veṅkaṭanātha had in mind). But if this all applies, people in Vaikuṇṭha or heaven are necessarily very different than people on earth (who had specific desires and limited knowledge). In which sense could they be said to retain their “personality”? And if this is not retained, how desirable can heaven be, for us, who are attached to our personalities? Brown addresses this concern indirectly (pp. 424–425) by suggesting that there can be radical changes in one’s personality while retaining one’s numerical identity with oneself (as in the case of Augustine’s conversion or in the case of people surviving a suicidal attempt and desiring to live). Brown then goes on interpreting Thomas as saying that grace does not destroy human nature, but perfects it, preserving personal identity through the transformation. At the end of the process, human beings (who cooperate with the action of grace) in heaven will be a deified nature and deified rational powers of intellect and will. Brown thinks that ordinary human beings can have a foreshadow of this experience through contemplation, that leads to a sort of timeless experience. A further evidence of this possibility is the life of saints, who seem to have experienced this sort of experiences within their earthly life. In other words, if many of us think that heaven (or Vaikuṇṭha) is unappealing, this might mean just that we are unprepared for it. Fortunately, this unpreparedness can be addressed (through a further rebirth or through purgatory). Should not it be possible to continue improving even in Heaven/Vaikuṇṭha? That would surely be an antidote to boredom, but it appears to clash with the idea of heaven/Vaikuṇṭha being a perfect world, a kingdom of ends.

As for Vaikuṇṭha and the risk of getting boring, possible solutions are:

1. Being in nityakaiṅkārya `perpetual service to God’ is your nature and this is intrinsically appeasing, so, there is no way it can ever get boring.

2. You share sābhogya `same experience’ with God, so there is dynamism implied (since you continue having interesting experiences).

Joining this with Brown’s discussion of tedium, the solution to the problem of boredom can consist in any of the following ones:

a. Ability to help others (including God Himself, as in 1. above)

b. Loss of identity (as implied by 2. above)

c. Gradual transformation of identity (as in Brown)

b. and c. are very relevant for us here. Even if people can retain their numerical identity with their lives on earth, are they still qualitatively distinguishable from each other? Are their thoughts distinguishable? Them not having distinguishable thoughts offers a neat explanation of their being perfect devotees and is completely compatible with omniscience. The risk of tedium would be eliminated through the fact that such perfect beings would have no independent desires and thus no independent feelings, including no boredom.

Summing up, one possibility is (with hypothesis b.) that boredom is impossible because there is no one experiencing it (but is it really something one can aspire to? and, more relevant, this cancels the possibility of service, which is clearly a building block of Vaikuṇṭha according to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta authors).

A different possibility needs retaining the variety of personalities even among liberated souls: the infinite variety of sensations (as in 1.). Would not they themselves become boring? No, if they are shared with dear people (hence the importance of a community in Vaikuṇṭha) and if one serves (since serving is one’s true destiny and since one is never bored of helping). Hence, again, the importance of a community and hence explained the insistence on other people welcoming one to Vaikuṇṭha. One will oneself soon be part of that group.

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Veṅkaṭanātha on the pedagogy of emotions

Veṅkaṭanātha recognises two soteriological paths, namely bhakti (restricted to only few eligible people) and prapatti (being the only one accessible to normal people). In both cases, how can one get there?

Prapatti, to begin with, cannot be sought for independently, because one only becomes eligible for prapatti only after having become aware of one’s desperation because one cannot ever be eligible for bhakti (not to speak of karma- and jñānamārga). Thus, one’s only way to reach prapatti is by means of trying to achieve bhakti and becoming aware of one’s inability to do so and therefore deciding to just surrender to God or His spouse.

Bhakti, in turn, has an intellectual aspect and an emotional one. On the one hand, it is defined by Rāmānuja as a continuous meditation on the real nature of God, and therefore needs a preliminary ascertainment of what this nature could be. On the other, it is based on a surplus of loving affection, one that will never be satiated, not even in Vaikuṇṭha. Therefore, since the time of Rāmānuja’s Śaraṇāgatigadya, Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta authors have engaged in a pedagogy of emotions, one enhancing one’s raw emotions and transforming them into soteriologically-relevant ones. The former are temporary and might be about the wrong topic, the latter focus on God, and are able to last forever and become more intense with time. Veṅkaṭanātha tries to reach this level through his learned religious poetry, which is made to be listened/read, re-listened/re-read and pondered upon for a long time, since its many layers of theological meanings can only reveal themselves through a long perusal.

For instance, the detailed descriptions from head to toe (anubhava) of God’s body in various poems by Veṅkaṭanātha are meant to show how one can train one’s sense faculties to relish always more in their object, rather than being satiated by it. The same poems also underline the poet’s unworthiness, possibly so that the listener/reader can get a chance to contemplate their own unworthiness (for some beautifully translated poems by Veṅkaṭanātha, see Hopkins 2007).

Do you agree that emotions come at the end of one’s soteriological journey for Veṅkaṭanātha?

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Preliminary thoughts on divine omnipresence

Within the paradigm of rational theology (in my jargon, God-as-Lord or Īśvara), can God have a form and a body?… Do They need one?

Possible arguments in favour of Their having a body: 

—Yes! They need it to exercise Their will on matter (and, as Kumārila explained, matter does not obey abstract will)

—Yes! They need it so that we can revere Them.

The second argument does not count (it’s part of the God-as-Thou level), but the first seems powerful enough. If God did not have a body, They would have no influence on the world. Do They need a body in order to be omnipresent? And which kind of body? Surely not a limited one (as a deity could have it), since this would limit Their action (They could act only where the body is). Instead, They need to be omnipresent.

Which kind of body could be omnipresent? What would this entail?

In fact, most rational theologians I am aware of speak of God as being omnipresent, in a non-material way, but still as being able to interact with matter at will (so Udayana). Thus, as typical of the God-as-Lord, God is more-than-human, but very close to humans.

However, time and again theologians came to a different solution to God’s body, one which brings them close to the third concept of God, the impersonal Absolute. These theologians think of God’s body as omnipresent and yet material, because it is all that exists.

This all brings me to a more general question: Can there be omnipresence without a (limited) body?

This seems to demand from us a category jump. Because we need to put together presence in space (usually connected with extended bodies) and absence of a body (if conceived as extended in a limited space). 

I can think of at least three solutions:

1. space does not exist for God and is just a category conscious beings superimpose on the word (e.g., Kant, I am not aware of this solution prior to Kant)

2. pantheist version (God is the world) (e.g., Spinoza, Bruno, Rāmānuja)

3. God has something akin to a subtle body, which is omni-pervasive (vibhū) (Nyāya) 

The third case is often said to be a characteristic shared by God and souls (Augustine, Nyāya).

Yet, the souls’ omnipresence seems to be very different from God’s one (possibly because of some additional limitations due to their embodiment, the original sin etc.) 

What else can we say about Their omnipresence? It needs to be complete in each instance. God cannot be present for, e.g., 1/1.000.000.000.000 in the tree in front of my window, since this would entail the risk of Them exercising only a small amount of power on the tree. Moreover, They would be “more” present in bigger objects and less present in small ones! Thus, God needs to be completely present in each atom though being at the same time distributively present in the whole sum of all atoms. This again, calls for a category jump and not just a more-than-human body, since even a subtle matter extending all over the space will not be at the same time completely present in each atom. 

Thoughts and comments are welcome. Please bear with me if I am late in reading comments after the term starts again, on Monday.

The theology of Vaikuṇṭha: Why should you want to be in heaven?

We all know so many clever jokes about how hell should be preferred “because of the good company” and about how boring should heaven be. Let me take the chance to focus on the Śrīvaiṣṇava heaven, i.e., Vaikuṇṭha, and see whether they apply also to it.

First, some history of the concept (move to next paragraph if not interested):
The name Vaikuṇṭha is used for both a particular form of Viṣṇu (with four faces) and for the Vaiṣṇava heaven. Please notice that we are not talking of one among many heavens, but the only and upmost one, where God’s bhaktas can live with Him. The first usage seemingly predates the other (since it is attested in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and in the KauśUp for Indra and in MBh and Harivaṃśa for Viṣṇu). Vaikuṇṭha for the place is attested in the Bhāgavata and in the works of the Āḻvārs.
Did the two usages influenced each other? Possibly, but I could not yet reconstruct the missing links (any help is appreciated).

Vaikuṇṭha is mentioned just once in the early three Tiruvantātis of the Divyaprabandha (or Tivyappirapantam), namely by the Āḻvār called Pēyāḻvār. The text is translated as follows by Eva Wilden (with Marcus Schmücker):

“As in all earlier times Vēṅkaṭam, the milk ocean [and] Vaikuntam were the temples for him who took [them and] dwelled there, [so now is] Kaṭikai, with lush flowers in long groves where a wealth of bees rises, the heavenly city for the young prince.”

In Tamil (separation among words and breaking of some sandhis mine, based on the book’s transcription):

பண்டெல்லாம் வேங்கடம் பாற் கடல் வைகுந்தங்
கொண்டங்கு உறைவார்க்குக் கோயில் போல் —வண்டு
வளங் கிளரும் நீள் சோலை வண் பூங் கடிகை
யிளங் குமரன் தன் விண் நகர். (2342)

Conceptually it is interesting to notice that Vaikuṇṭha is mentioned as the place in which Viṣṇu resided, like the milk-ocean and Vēṅkaṭam. Now, unless I am wrong, there is no (Skt or Tamil) mention of the devotees of God being able to reside in Vēṅkaṭam or in the milk ocean, so this first mention of Vaikuṇṭha seems to list only places of Viṣṇu, with no hint of the fact that one of them will become also the heavenly abode of His devotees.

A possible alternative reading is suggested by Eva Wilden herself, who, based on a linguistic problem, writes in a footnote:

“Slightly disconcerting in this verse is that we have one designation for the lord in line 2 which makes use of the honorific form (uṟaivārkku), while line 4 refers to him as a prince in masculine singular (kumaraṉ). We might consider reading uṟaivārkku instead as a slightly elliptical reference to his devotees who take (perceive; koṇṭu) Vēṅkaṭam, the milk ocean and Vaikuntam as his abodes and dwell there to do worship, but that, while working nicely for Vēṅkaṭam, is somewhat more difficult to imagine for the latter two places.”

I am not completely sure I can follow Wilden’s argument here, since I would imagine that the ideal place for the devotees to dwell and do worship were Vaikuṇṭam, but anyway, the suggestion is interesting, since it points to the possibility of reading the first part of the verse as describing the places in which the devotees visualise Viṣṇu.

Later on, the Āḻvārs discuss of Vaikuṇṭha as if it were the only place one might want to reach –no mention of liberation, either as an alternative (and possibly lower) goal or as identical with Vaikuṇṭha.

Why exactly is Vaikuṇṭha such a great place? As pointed out already, for the Āḻvārs the main reason seems to be that one is in the same world with one’s beloved One. Veṅkaṭanātha adds some more theology to it, speaking of the fact that one does not only share sālokya ‘being in the same world [with God]’, but also paramasāmya ‘supreme identity [with God]’. This last state seems to violate exactly the residual dualism necessary in order to allow for love and service to God, and it is possible that Veṅkaṭanātha only included it because of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad passage about it (nirañjanaḥ paramam sāmyam upaiti, 3.1.3). Therefore, Veṅkaṭanātha explains that this paramasāmya is not tādātmya (as for the Advaitins), but rather sādharmya ‘having the same characteristics’. Still, the person having attained sādharmya is not equal to God in every respect. For instance, they cannot create the world. So, the sādharmya regards other aspects, most notably bhogasāmya ‘equality of enjoyment’. In other words, one enjoys all the blessing experiences of God in Vaikuṇṭha, although one does not have the same level of independent agency (but still a lot of freedom, according to Tattvamuktākalāpa 2.63).

The idea of equal enjoyment with God raises the problem of embodiment, since it seems difficult to imagine enjoyment without a body. Veṅkaṭanātha in the TMK says that in fact the soul can at their own will get a body, which is not determined by karman and is therefore not a vehicle of bondage.

Within the sādharmya there is also the attainment of omniscience, which in fact was the natural condition of the soul but was temporarily blocked by karman. (So, in Vaikuṇṭha you will finally be able to understand perfectly Tamil and Sanskrit and solve any philosophical puzzle you wondered about!)

Why should it not get boring at a certain point? Veṅkaṭanātha does not directly address this question, but his Rahasyatrayasāra seems to point to the idea that one would be busy with a continuous flow of beautiful experiences, all connected with the fact that one is with nice people (the other liberated ones) and especially with the object of one’s love, Viṣṇu.

Does it sound convincing? Or would one still eventually get bored?
Eternity is long… Yes, but one might also speculate that during cosmic dissolutions everything is reabsorbed in Viṣṇu, so that eternity is long but always interrupted. I will get back to this in future posts.

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The book I mentioned above on the Tivyappirapantam is available here.

I was prompted to write this post by a remark of Helen De Cruz.

(cross-posted on the Indian Philosophy Blog)

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Inert and alive substances: Alternative classifications in Veṅkaṭanātha

In the Nyāyasiddhāñjana and the Nyāyapariśuddhi, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses some fundamental ontological topics in order to distinguish his positions from the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika position.

The Nyāyasūtra proposes a fundamental division of realities into dravya ‘substances’, guṇa ‘qualities’, and karman ‘actions’,1 with the former as the substrate of the latter two. This leads to two difficulties for Veṅkaṭanātha’s agenda. On the one hand, the radical distinction between substance and attribute means that Nyāya authors imagine liberation to be the end of the connection of the ātman ‘self’ to all attributes, from sufferance to consciousness. By contrast, Veṅkaṭanātha, would never accept consciousness to be separated from the individual soul and even less from God. The other difficulty regards the theology of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. Since the beginnings of Pañcarātra, one of its chief doctrines has been that of the manifestations (vibhūti) of Viṣṇu, which are dependent on Him but co-eternal with Him and in this sense are unexplainable according to the division of substances into eternal and transient.

To that, Veṅkaṭanātha opposes more than one classification, so that it is clear that Veṅkaṭanātha’s main point is addressing the above-mentioned problems with the Nyāya ontology, rather than establishing in full detail a distinct ontology. For an instance of alternative classifications see, e.g., Nyāyasiddhāñjana, jaḍadravyapariccheda:

dvedhā jaḍājaḍatayā pratyak taditaratayāpi vā dravyam | ṣoḍhā triguṇānehojīveśvarabhogabhūtimatibhedāt || dhīkālabhogabhūtīravivakṣitvā guṇādirūpatvāt | jīvātmeśabhidārthaṃ tredhā tattvaṃ viviñcate kecit || (Nyayasiddhanjana 1966, p. 33).

“Substance is of two types, [according to this classification:] inert or alive, or [according to this other classification:] innerly [luminous] or what is its opposite. [Furthermore,] it is of six types, according to the division in [natura naturans having] three qualities, time (anehas) individual souls, God, the ground for [God’s] enjoyment (bhogabhūti) and [His] cognition. Some distinguish reality as of three types, in order to distinguish the Lord, the individual soul, and the self (as the material cause of the universe) because they do not want to include (lit. express) cognition, time and the ground for [God’s] enjoyment, since these have the nature of qualities”.

Bhogabhūti must mean, out of context, the same as vibhūti. My interpretation of ātman in jīvātmeśabhidartham is also based on context. Alternative suggestions are, as usual, welcome!

  1. There are in fact further categories, namely sāmānya ‘universal’, viśeṣa ‘individual’, and samavāya ‘inherence’. See for the fact that these latter categories have been added at a later stage of the evolution of the school. The Navya Nyāya school adds also abhāva to the categories. (see Eli Franco and Karin Preisendanz, “Nyāya-Vaiśeịṣika”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)↩︎

(Aadam Aziz tries to pray again after his returnal from Germany to Kashmir, but memories of his friends keep on popping up in his mind:)

‘… You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help…’ –so here he was, despite their presence in his head, attempting to re-unite himself with an earlier self which ignored their influence but knew everything it ought to have known […] And my grandfather, lurching upright, made a resolve. Stood. Rolled cheroot. Stared across the lake. And was knocked forever into that middle place, unable to worship a God in whose existence he could not wholly disbelieve. Permanent alteration: a hole.

Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children (Picador, 1981), 11--12
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From the problem of theodicy to the problem of evil

The problem of theodicy is at its basis the problem of evil. How can there be a God who is both benevolent and able to alleviate or avoid our sufferings, given that such sufferings are still there?

How can He exist, given that also infants and animals suffer, i.e., also creatures suffer, who cannot have deserved it? The role of karman cannot really solve the issue. In fact, if God cannot remove karman, than He is not omnipotent and Mīmāṃsā authors might be right in insisting that we should use only karman to explain present sufferings and avoid God altogether. If God could change one’s karman, but usually decides not to do so, then how can He avoid the accusation of being cruel?

Whereas the topic of theodicy is one of the major Leitmotivs running throughout the whole history of modern European and Euro-American theology and philosophy of religion, it is not formulated as a distinct topic in Sanskrit philosophy (for the similar case of free will, see
Freschi, ”Free Will in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: Rāmānuja, Sudarśana Sūri and Veṅkaṭanātha”, Religion Compass). Why so?

Part of the reason is linked to an accidental fact, namely the genius of Gottfried Leibniz, who wrote a Causa Dei `Trial of God’ and coined the term théodicée. Apart from that, the main reason for the relative absence of the problem of the contradiction between the presence of evil and the existence of God lies most probably in the fact that theism is a late-comer in the history of South Asian philosophy. In fact, in order to put God on trial for the presence of evil in the world, one needs the philosophical concept of an omnipotent and benevolent God, as it is found in Europe within rational theology. This is the kind of concept of God defended by some Nyāya authors, most typically by Udayana, and attacked by Mīmāṃsā authors, typically by Kumārila.

In fact, Kumārila’s attacks are the ones even later theists will have to be able to defeat. Kumārila shows that the idea of a God who is at the same time all-mighty and benevolent is self-contradictory, since if the Lord where really all-might, he would avoid evil, and if he tolerates it, then he is cruel. If one says that evil is due to karman or other causes, Kumārila continues, then this shows that there is no need to add the Lord at all as a further cause and that everything can be explained just on the basis of karman or any other cause.

The discussion on evil in the Ślokavārttika is prompted by a discussion on God’s creation. Kumārila asks why God would create the world:

prāṇināṃ prāyaduḥkhā ca sisṛkṣāsya na yujyate || 49 ||

The desire to create a world which is mostly painful for the living beings does not suit God || 49 ||

To the possible argument that God creates the world out of compassion, Kumārila replies as follows:

abhāvāc cānukampyānāṃ nānukampāsya jāyate |\\
sṛjec ca śubham evaikam anukampāprayojitaḥ || 52 ||

Given the absence of people to have compassion of [prior to creation], He could not have compassion |\\
And, if He were prompted by compassion, He would create only a splendid [world] || 52 ||

The next move of Kumārila’s opponent is found also in some Christian theologians, namely the claim that evil is not completely avoidable:

athāśubhād vinā sṛṣṭiḥ sthitir vā nopapadyate |\\
ātmādhīnābhyupāye hi bhavet kiṃ nāma duṣkaram || 53 ||\\
tathā cāpekṣamāṇasya svātantryaṃ pratihanyate |

[Obj:] Without evil, the world could not be created nor continue to exist |

[R:] Why would this be impossible, given that the instrument [to make it possible] depends on God Himself? || 53 ||
And if you were to say that He also underlies some limitations, than His autonomy would be destroyed |

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Emotions in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: the role of poems

As discussed in previous posts, emotions are intrinsic to the soul according to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and will therefore remain with them forever, including in the state of liberation. Moreover, emotions are also instrumental to reach liberation. Therefore, emotions are also part of an emotional pedagogy which is instrumental to the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta soteriology. How can this happen? Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophical treatises can speak about the importance of loving God, feeling desparate about one’s condition, etc., but this is not enough to induce such emotions. Therefore, at this point key authors of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta change role and start using poetry. Poetry is meant to induce, e.g., awe and love, for instance, through detailed descriptions of the beautiful body of God. In this sense, poetry is not a substitution of philosophy, but a continuation of philosophy on a level which would not be reached by philosophy.