The Darkness of Ignorance (Part 3)

*** Read Part 2 ***

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.2.1

Absence

What is ‘absence’? It is simply a word we use to refer to the fact that something is not here. Suppose that the teacher realizes that little Johnny is not in the class again. He reports this to the head who says: “His absence has been noted”. What does this mean exactly?

Does it simply refer to whatever the headmaster has written in his little black book? Is it something belonging to Johnny that he ought to get rid of or leave at home when he comes into school? Presumably he cannot bring it with him to school because then he would no longer have it!

Obviously ‘absence’ in this context refers to Johnny himself. If Johnny’s absence is noted at the school, then clearly Johnny himself is not there. The two are mutually exclusive.

But all of this simply relates to the often baffling way in which language develops. All that we are talking about is whether or not Johnny is present at the school. When he isn’t there, we use this catch-all word to refer to the situation. The way in which we use it is as an adjective describing Johnny – ‘absent Johnny’ (again). We cannot use it as a non-qualified noun and say ‘there is absence’, because no one would know what we were talking about. It has to be connected to a noun and simply refers to the ‘non-presence’ of that noun.

We might conceivably invent another noun here. If Johnny is absent most days and we get tired of telling the head, we could agree that ‘J Lo’ means that he is absent (his second name is Lowry). Then, when the teacher passes the head in the corridor, he could just say “J Lo” and the head would note it with resignation.

And this, I suggest, provides an explanation for the role of the words ‘darkness’ and ‘ignorance’. Light and knowledge are so important in our lives that their absence merited specific words of their own. “J Lo”, on the other hand, doesn’t (or maybe it is already used elsewhere).

Existence of an ‘Absence’

Some (just a few) of the Sanskrit terms used by those who attempt to pin down the finest logical details of this topic and, in doing so, confuse the hell out of us mere mortals, are as follows:

. bhāvarūpa – really existing, real, actual
. abhāva – absence, non-existence
. tamas – darkness
. prakāśa – light
. triguṇātmaka – composed of (ātmaka) the three guṇa-s (triguṇa)

Abhāva, non-existence, itself has numerous variants. Prāgabhāva refers to the ‘prior non-existence of an object before it is created; e.g. the pot before the potter makes it. Anyonyābhāva means ‘mutual non-existence’; e.g. the non-existence of a pot in a cloth and the cloth in the pot.  Ghaṭābhāva is used to refer to the absence of an object in a certain place; e.g. a pot on the table.

Ghaṭa was a large, earthenware jug used for holding water. Śaṅkara uses this example in his ‘ghaṭa bhāṣya’, understood as ‘pot commentary’. It occurs in Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.2.1. Here, Śaṅkara effectively claims that ‘pot absence’ is a real entity. This dialog is referred to by those who argue that darkness is a real entity.

The ‘bottom line’ is that, if absence were truly non-existent, we would not be able to talk about it and make statements such as “there is no pot here”. In this way, the ‘absence’ exists in a sense, because it is an ‘object of knowledge’. This is obviously not in the same way that we can say that a chair exists in the room, but it is undeniable that it has a kind of empirical reality.

To return to the concept of ‘darkness’, we can say that it is the word we use to refer to an absence of light and, since we all know what we mean when we speak of ‘darkness’, in that sense we can consider that it ‘exists’ for the purpose of conversation and arguments with Nyāya philosophers! Darkness does not have any independent existence; it has a ‘relational’ existence with the actually existent light in the same way that ‘pot absence’ has a relational existence with the actual pot.

Background and Argument of Ghaṭa bhāṣya

In this section of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, Śaṅkara is principally addressing the claim (of the Nyāya philosopher) that the universe did not exist before its creation – asatkārya vāda, meaning that the effect does not pre-exist in the cause. They believed in the ‘prior non-existence’ (prāgabhāva) of the world. Śaṅkara wants to establish the opposite (satkārya vāda) – the world pre-exists in an ‘unmanifest’ state. Otherwise, all of the teaching about karma etc. cannot hold. (E.g. merit and sin from past actions have to carry over to future lives even through the end of one ‘creation’ and the beginning of the next.)

The Nyāya belief is that an effect does not exist in its cause; e.g. the pot does not in any sense exist in the clay prior to its production but Śaṅkara refutes this, arguing that it cannot come out of nothing. In the case of the pot, it must pre-exist in some form in the clay. Otherwise, it might equally well emerge from milk, for example.

Subsidiarily, Śaṅkara refutes the belief of the Yogācāra or Vijñāna Vāda Buddhists. These are also called Kṣaṇika Vādins, which means that they believe that consciousness is ‘momentary’ (kṣaṇika), or that everything is ‘new in every moment’. Śaṅkara is concerned with showing them that this idea does not make any sense. In fact, if there is no continuity or causality, their belief equates to the nihilism of the Ṥūnyavāda Buddhist. There would be no explanation for, for example, a seed developing into a sprout and tree.

Śaṅkara maintains that the effect ‘pre-exists’ in the cause. The pot’s form is effectively present in an unmanifest form in the clay. A ring or necklace is effectively present in unmanifest form in the gold. Implicitly, the world is effectively present in unmanifest form in Brahman, prior to ‘creation’.

He argues this by reference to the two ‘categories’ of non-existence described earlier – anyonyābhāva, ‘mutual non-existence’ and prāgabhāva, ‘prior non-existence. If, as the objector claims, the pot comes into existence from nothing, then it will not have any relationship with the clay. But we can actually watch the potter making it; we know that the pot is a ‘modification’ of the clay. Therefore the clay and pot do not have anyonyabhāva.

The pot is certainly in a state of ‘prior non-existence’ before it is made but if it is absolutely non-existent, then the potter might make it out of some substance entirely other than clay. The fact that he only makes it out of clay means that it must, in a sense, be pre-existent there, just not in the precise form. The pot does not appear out of nothing but has clay as its material cause (and the potter as its efficient cause).

In this manner, Śaṅkara refutes the theory of asatkārya vāda and supports satkārya vāda. There is no doubt that the ghaṭa bhāṣya is a logical discussion with the other philosophers. It is not directly concerned with the ideas of darkness and ignorance. He mentions darkness briefly as something that can conceal the pot, in the same way that a wall could conceal it if it was in another room. This is in order to point out that the pot is also in a sense ‘concealed’ when its form-to-be is in the lump of clay that the potter will use to make it. He says that, when you bring a lamp so that you can see the pot when it is dark, you are not simply ‘removing the darkness’ but making the pot a ‘lighted’ pot. A pot which is not lit cannot be seen. Here, it would seem that he is acknowledging that it is light that it is the really existent entity, rather than darkness.

***** Go to Part 4 *****

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