*** Read Part 3 ***
Observations triggered by Ghaṭa bhāṣya
If X is ‘bhāvarūpa’ – really existing, that ought to mean that it exists ‘in all three periods of time’. I would have said that, by that definition, like every other worldly perception or conception, darkness is not real. Every perception or conception is ‘mithyā’, neither ‘real’ (sat), nor ‘unreal’ (asat).
When Śaṅkara talks about ‘pot-absence’, it is obvious that he doesn’t mean that it is a really existing thing, in the way that a chair in the room ‘really exists’. What he means is that, in a discussion in a particular context such as this, we can treat something as ‘effectively existing’ when we both know what we are talking about and there is no confusion.
Suppose that you and I are having an argument about the pot that we believe to be on the table in room X of the museum. Suppose a third person comes in and tells us he has seen this pot on the table in room Y. This being the case, if I go into room X, I could say that I become aware of the absence of the pot. In that sense, it has a sort of meaning to say that the pot-absence exists in room X. But why anyone would want to talk in this way eludes me. I would just say that the pot isn’t in room X so I am prepared to accept the third person’s claim that it is in room Y.
In a manner such as this, we could say that the ‘absence of light’ ‘exists’, but this would be meaningful only in the context of a discussion such as the example I give here. It is only the thing that we are actually talking about (i.e. pot or light) that has real (mithyā) existence. The ‘pot-absence’ or ‘darkness’ are just convenient words to help our discussion. Of course, a word such as ‘darkness’ has come to have such common usage that it is easy for people to think that it actually refers to something in its own right – which is why we have a problem.
Furthermore, darkness has mithyā existence as a concept, but not as a percept. We don’t ‘see’ darkness; when it is dark, we fail to see anything; we give this ‘absence of light’ the name ‘darkness’ simply for convenience.
When we are talking about a pot, made from clay, it clearly ‘exists’ when it is actually in the form of a pot, because we can pour water into it and then drink out of it. But what about before the potter has actually made it? And if we drop it on the floor and it breaks, what then? (Note that we are not talking here about ‘real’ versus ‘mithyā’, as in the gold versus ring metaphor. That is entirely another topic.)
In his ghaṭa bhāṣya, Śaṅkara says that, because we can meaningfully talk about it in both these situations, there is a sense in which we can consider that it has an empirical existence even then. He uses the words bhāvātmakam abhāvam, which can be translated as “absence having the nature of existence.” He says that seeing that ‘there is no pot here’ is a valid cognition. If the ‘pot absence’ were non-existent, we would not be able to make this observation. He is using this metaphor in order to show that the world, too, has an effective ‘existence’ before it is created.
In the context of the idea of ‘darkness’, I would say that what it means is that darkness is the word we use to refer to an absence of light. Since we all know what we mean when we speak of ‘darkness’, in that sense (alone) it can be considered to ‘exist’. Darkness is not a substance or entity in itself, just as ‘pot absence’ is not a physical object but a way of describing the lack of a pot in a particular place.
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka is possibly the oldest Upaniṣad and is couched in a more traditionally ‘religious’ language, with Gods and their machinations. The context of verse 1.2.1 (in which the ghaṭa bhāṣya occurs) is the creation of the world and Śaṅkara’s commentary mirrors the format of the text. Specifically, this verse speaks about the ‘conditions’ that existed prior to creation. And Śaṅkara certainly does say that darkness is a real entity:
tamasas tu bhāvavattva-śravaṇāt, na prāgabhāvavat, tasya ca sattvāntargatatvāt, tattvato ‘bhāvānupapatteḥ.
But darkness is a real entity, for it is heard to be such; it is not like prior non-existence. Since it is included in existence, its absolute non-existence is untenable.
If the world is real, and is created, there has to be something out of which it is created – a cause for the world effect. And many Upaniṣads speak about creation. The idea of the world being created (sṛṣṭi), existing for a while (sthiti) and then being ‘dissolved’ back into unmanifest form, (laya) is fundamental to the early teaching of Advaita. That-out-of-which the world is born is called tamas here – darkness. Tamas is said to be a modification of prakṛti, the ‘primordial’ material cause. The unmanifest cause is called avyākṛta.
But we must never forget that the way that Advaita is taught is by presenting an initial, easy-to-accept, explanation first, and then later withdrawing this and giving a more sophisticated explanation. We climb the ladder of understanding one rung at a time. It is called adhyaropa-apavāda. Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara (if he was the commentator – there is some doubt about this) negate the very notion of causality in the kārikā-s on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, and the conclusion is made very clearly – there is not really any creation. Nothing has ever been born – ajāti vāda. This is the final understanding.
Locus of Darkness
When considering the real topic of ‘Ignorance’ (as opposed to the metaphorical one of ‘Darkness’), the question of where it resides, or ‘Who has it?’ is a major one. I devote an entire section to this in ‘Confusions Vol. 2’. The subject is discussed in various places in the Advaita literature, but it was raised specifically by Rāmānuja, the teacher who ‘holds the reins’ for Viśiṣṭādvaita, in the way that Śaṅkara is recognized as the ‘father’ of Advaita. He formally objected to Advaita with his ‘Seven Great Untenables’, which pointed out key logical inconsistencies in the philosophy relating to ignorance. The one relating to the locus is called āśraya anupapatti – the failure of proof regarding the ‘resting place’ (of ignorance). I will look briefly (and simply) at the principal issues relating to ignorance in the ‘Mining’ book, but here I just want to look specifically at the problem of locating darkness.
We have looked at the question of the absence of a pot on a table in a room. These three are actually-existing objects and there is no problem in our knowing what we are talking about. But suppose that we are now considering the darkness in a cave.
- It would seem almost too obvious to say that the locus of the darkness is the cave.
- We might well say that we cannot perceive any locus, since it is dark and we cannot see anything. But, if asked where it is that we cannot see anything, we would probably say ‘in the cave’ again.
- But I think it really points to the fact that we cannot treat darkness in precisely the same way as we treat either the pot itself or the pot-absence. We know what the pot looks like and we can see the table and that the pot isn’t on it. But, whilst we know what absence of light is like, we don’t really ‘see’ darkness and we never actually ‘see’ light itself. We don’t see anything when it is dark, and light is what enables us to see. The two examples just do not seem to be comparable.
***** Read Part 5 *****