vetaketu in the following words:The word “metaphysics,” meaning “beyond physics,” came to be used for a discipline or inquiry simply by a historical accident. When Aristotle’s works were compiled, one of his untitled works was called by his compilers “Metaphysics,” since this was the one he wrote after writing the “Physics.” The name has been used ever since to designate an inquiry and a subject matter; namely, that which is beyond nature, which physics studies. In his book, Aristotle defined his concern (and so “metaphysics”) as the science of being qua being. This famous definition came to be understood—again following Aristotle’s suggestions—in various ways. It was taken to be:
the science of the most general predicates of any being or entity whatsoever;
the science of the primary entity or substance;
the science of the most perfect being (or God); and
the science of the “meaning” of “being.”
In the first of the above senses, metaphysics becomes the science of the categories. The categories are the most general concepts that can be predicated of any entity whatsoever. Aristotle’s list includes such concepts as substance, quality, rest, motion, one, and many.
Of these, substance is being, in a preeminent sense. It alone is being in the primary sense; it alone is independent. Substance is that on which everything is predicated, but it is not predicated on anything. As the science of the most perfect being, metaphysics becomes the science of God and so theology. It is only in recent times that the question of the meaning of being has come to the forefront in the thought of Heidegger.
Metaphysics seeks to comprehend the beingness (ousia) of beings. For Plato, this is “idea”; for Aristotle, it is energia.
Aristotle’s world is one of progress, in which the potential becomes actual. Before Aristotle, Parmenides, who had discovered for Western thought the concept of being, had already denied all change and becoming. In the earliest introduction of the question of being, Parmenides distinguished between: (1) the way of truth which is the way of being, of what is; and (2) the way of becoming which is the way of opinion or doxa. According to Parmenides, being necessarily excludes non-being. Non-being cannot possibly be known; to represent non-being is impossible. Whatever is known is known as being, which is changeless; change is mere appearance. Being is also undifferentiated and one; difference and plurality are only names. Things are not what they seem to be. However, Parmenides did not give a good account of why people posit, besides being, a separate world of appearances. Since Aristotle emphasized that “being” has many senses, he could not, like Parmenides, say that “being” stands for one thing. Yet he did see that the different beings did form a unity, by being related to a single primary substance.
By the time Parmenides introduced the question of being in Western thought (fifth century B.C.E.), the Nāsadīyasūkta of the Ṛg Veda and many of the Upaniṣads had posed the same question. The famous hymn to creation included in this text discusses the origin of the existents. The hymn opens in the time before creation, when there was nothing: neither being nor non-being, no midspace, no trace of air or heaven; even the moon and the sun did not exist so that one could differentiate between the day and night, days and months. The One, which was enveloped by emptiness, came into being by its own fervor, desire arose giving rise to thought; thus, existence somehow arose out of non-existence. At this juncture, the poet realizes that he has gone too far; to claim that existence arises out of non-existence goes against the verdict of experience. Thus, after presumably describing the origin of things, the last two verses ask whether anyone truly knows what is really the origin of the existents. Even the gods cannot answer this question, because they were created along with the world. Thus, the poet concludes that the origin of the existents is inexplicable; it is an enigma, a riddle.
The hymns from the Atharva Veda, on the other hand, articulate time as the one ontological reality; it is the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe. The Sanskrit term “kāla,” derived from the root √kal, means “to collect,” “to count.” Time, in these hymns, is taken to be the collector or the gatherer of everything past, present, and future. Time is compared to a perfectly trained horse upon which a jar filled to the brim with water is placed; time runs like a horse without spilling even a single drop. Everything—earth and the heavens beyond, the shining of the sun, thought, breath, the blowing of the wind—originates in time. It is not an exaggeration to say that time is both the Prajāpati and the brahman of the Atharva Veda. The significance of these hymns must not be minimized; they underscore the fact that conceptions of time in the Indian context date back to the Atharva Veda, thereby refuting the general Western perception that Indian philosophy does not take time into account and that the conceptions of time are strictly limited to the Western context.
Some of the Upaniṣads also echo the same concern for the origin of things. Uddālaka Āruṇi in Chāndogya Upaniṣad teaches his son vetaketu in the following words:
In the beginning, my dear, this world was just being, one only, without a second. Some say that in the beginning this was non-being alone, one only, without a second. Being was produced from that non-being. But how could being be produced from non-being? (VI. 2. 1–2)
Thus the concept of being oscillates between a purely theoretical concept (the pure is, asti) and a practical concept (“from non-being, asat, lead me to being, sat”). Śaṃkara’s nondualistic Vedānta develops the former; the brahman is mere being, sanmātra—but also consciousness and bliss.
While the question about the origin of all things is raised both in the Vedic hymns and in the Upaniṣads, the latter also provide a definite answer to this question. This answer, it is important to note, determined much of subsequent Indian thought. After raising the question in the above Upaniṣad, Uddālaka Āruṇi informs his son as follows:
In the beginning there was being alone, one only without a second. . . . He, the One, thought to himself; “let me be many; let me grow forth.” Thus, he out of himself projected the universe. And having projected this a universe out of himself; he entered into every being. That being alone is the essence of all beings. All things have being as their abode, being as their support.
That which is the subtle essence, this whole world has that for its self. That is the true self. That thou art, Śvetaketu. (VI. 2. 2; VI. 8. 6–7)
Thus the Upaniṣads identify a single being, a fundamental principle, which underlies everything and explicates everything. The most typical designation for this is the “brahman.” This objective principle is also the core of each individual and this core has been designated as the “ātman,” the “self,” the life-force independent of physical body. In the language of the Upaniṣads, the brahman, the first principle, is discovered within the ātman; or conversely, the secret of the ātman, the foundational reality of the individual self, lies in the first principle, the root of all existence. In other words, the ātman, (the subjective) and the brahman (the objective) are identical. Through an analysis of the nature of the self, an individual realizes that the brahman and the ātman, the objective and the subjective, are identical. This theme of identity has been reiterated in the Upaniṣads in different ways. Thus it is not an exaggeration to say that each Upaniṣadic teaching stresses the coherence and final unity of all things.
The selections from the Īṡa Upaniṣad describe the brahman in paradoxical terms. The entire poem employs paradoxes and antinomies to explain the all comprehensiveness of the One reality. For example, verse 4 describes the One, the fundamental principle of things, at once as “unmoving, yet swifter than the mind.” It is unmoving insofar as it is eternal; it is swifter than the mind because it is inconceivable. Verse 5 articulates the One as something that moves and does not move, as far and near, and as within and outside of all things. The point that is being made is that the One encompasses everything; it signifies the totality of things. The brahman is both the unmanifested beyond and the manifest phenomena, implying it is both one and many; it is also the self, the seer, and the thinker.
The Kena Upaniṣad, as the title indicates, raises the question, By whom?—that is, who is the real power behind the universe? Since neither the mind, nor the sense organs, nor speech can perform their roles without (their foundation in) the self; the self is the basis of all knowledge, the single unitary power. It is important to remember that the self, though it makes knowledge possible, is not itself an object of knowledge. The self cannot be known like another physical object—say, a pitcher. It is different from the objects known. Therefore, it cannot be known in the manner in which objects are known. The self is not knowable by any empirical means of knowledge. In fact, it is other than the known and the unknown. Kena Upaniṣad II. 3 explains this theme as follows: to whom the self is not known, to him it is known; to whom it is known, he does not know it. It is unknown to those who think they understand it; it is known to those who know they do not understand it. In concrete terms, it amounts to saying that the brahman or the self is not an object of knowledge: if one thinks that one knows the self and can describe it as an object perceived in the ordinary world then he does not know it. On the other hand, those who are convinced that the self is not an object of knowledge do indeed know it. The self cannot be comprehended by the senses and logic, but only by intuitive realization. The self, in other words, is other than the known (as an object) and the unknown (anyad eva tad viditād atho aviditād adhi).
At this point, the question may be raised, if the self is never an object, how can objects and their properties be superimposed upon it? Śaṃkara states that the self (pure consciousness) is apprehended as an object when one becomes aware of oneself as “I am.” The “I” which is the referent of the self-consciousness of the empirical individual is bound by the limitations of the body, the mind, and the senses. Thus, beginningless superimposition, in the form of the multiplicity of names and forms, results, conjuring up the notions of agency and enjoyer which empirical individuals experience. The superimposition of the self on the senses, intellect, and so on endows the empirical individual with consciousness, while the superimposition of the intellect on the ātman endows the empirical individual with the notion that he or she is the doer of actions and the enjoyer of the fruits of actions. This notion of superimposition forms the subject matter of the selection contained in this text from Śaṃkara. The selection is taken from Śaṃkara’s “Introduction” to his commentary on the Brahmasūtra 1.1.1. This introduction is, in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, called “Adhyāsabhāsya” i.e., the (part of the) commentary devoted to the theme of adhyāsa or superimposition. However, before we discuss Śaṃkara’s notion of superimposition, let us briefly review the fundamental tenets of Śaṃkara’s philosophy.
For Śaṃkara, the brahman is the only reality. The multiplicity of names and forms experienced at the phenomenal level, the level where philosophical inquiry transpires, is real only from an empirical/practical standpoint. Śaṃkara’s realistic epistemology contends that every cognition points to an objective referent, regardless of its veridicality or falsity. So the issue is: how real are the things that we experience in the phenomenal realm? Plurality is real as long as one remains in the empirical world. Reality is never contradicted; it is never sublated (bādhita). It was, is, and will be real. In the order of discovery, in the order of knowing things, appearance comes first. In the order of existence, however, the brahman comes first. The former is the epistemic order, which explains why Śaṃkara begins his investigation in his commentary on the Brahmasūtra with the idea of superimposition. For Śaṃkara, superimposition gives rise to “I-ness” (aḥam), resulting in a confusion between this (idam) and not-this (anidam). Pure consciousness, when superimposed, becomes an “I.” Accordingly, one makes a distinction among many “I’s” (aḥams). In fact, the distinctions between the knower, the known, and the means of knowledge are the result of the mutual superimpositions of the self and the not-self. This mutual superimposition is the subject matter of the selection in the text.
The self and the not-self, two fundamental components of human experience, opposed to each other as light and darkness, are yet confused with each other—as a result of which properties of the one are (wrongly) ascribed to the other. The self can never become the not-self and vice versa; nor can the properties of the one be superimposed on the other. However, our everyday experience revolves around a beginningless confounding between the two, in the forms “I am this,” and “This is mine.” In the first form, the distinction between the self and the body is forgotten. In the latter form, however, the distinction between the self and the body is not forgotten, though the attributes of the two are mixed up. The former can assume either of these two forms: (a) “I am this body,” or (b) “This body is I.” In (a) the body per se is superimposed on the self, whereas in (b) the self is superimposed on the body.
Śaṃkara adduces numerous examples to demonstrate the varieties of superimposition: it may be the superimposition of (a) the body on the self, e.g., “I am a man,” “I am a woman”; (b) the properties of the body on the self, e.g., “I am fat,” “I am thin”; (c) mental states, such as desires, doubt, pleasure, pain, on the self, e.g., “I am happy,” “I am virtuous”; and (d) the properties of the sense organs on the self, e.g., “I am blind,” “I am deaf.” Thus the superimposition not only assumes the form of the “I” but also of the “mine.” The former is the superimposition of the substance (dharmī), the latter of the attribute (dharma). The reciprocal superimposition of the self and the not-self, and of the properties of the one on the other, results in the bondage of the empirical self. The empirical self acts and enjoys because of erroneous identification of the inner self with the inner sense (antaḥkaraṇa). The goal of Vedānta is to remove this ignorance by making knowledge of the self possible.
Lao Tzu’s Tao is, in many respects, close to the concept of the Brahman of the Upaniṣads. It is beyond name and form, the nameless source of all things, it is beyond all oppositions, it is described in paradoxical terms. Compare Lao Tzu’s “We look at it and do not see it. . . . We listen to it and do not hear it” with “That which is not seen by the eye, but by which the eyes are seen. . . . That which is not heard by the ear, but by which this ear is heard.” There are, however, differences that the careful reader will not fail to note. The practical consequences of the two metaphysical theories are not far apart: contrast the Bhagavadgītā’s prescription of “attaining true inaction by acting” with Lao Tzu’s “Do nothing.”
This hint at a possible comparison between Lao Tzu and the Upaniṣads is only one way of entering into the concept of Tao. The enormous complexity of this concept is brought out in the essay by Charles Fu. Most important, Tao is not an entity or a substance. One may ask: is Brahman-Ātman an entity or a substance? Positively, Fu brings out six aspects of Tao: Tao as Reality, as Origin, as Principle, as Function, as Virtue, and as Technique. It may be suggested that while the first three are true of Brahman, the last three are not.
No tradition, it should be emphasized, is monolithic. In the Indian tradition, there are the materialistic and naturalistic philosophies, such as the Lokāyāta and the Ājīvikas. As contrasted with Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, Chinese philosophy also has a place for Chang Tsai (or Zhang Zai, 1020–1077 C.E.), a neo-Confucian no doubt, but also a materialist. For him the Great Ultimate is material Force. The original material Force is one, although its manifestations are many; it is the unity of nature and consciousness. Clearly, such a position is not reductionist. The selection included is from his work Hsi Ming or Western Inscription, which owes its name to the fact that it was inscribed on the west wall of the Hall in which he lectured. The universe is characterized as the Great Harmony of opposites, united as one family; it is the Tao. The Great Harmony arises out of the Great Vacuity. Li is the principle of its operation. The Confucian virtue of love/humanheartedness (jen) is derived from this metaphysical principle.
As an example of a philosophical school that critiques all metaphysical positions and itself claims to be none, one has to read Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamādhyamikakārikā. Born sometime between the first and the second centuries C.E., Nāgārjuna is one of the most famous philosophers of India, and certainly the most famous Buddhist philosopher. Following a middle path, he rejects metaphysical alternatives: no entity arises out of itself, nor from another, nor from both, nor from neither. Things do not have their own essence; they are fully relational. Yet nothing can be explained either in terms of itself or in terms of other things. Identity and Difference, whole and part, cause and effect, rest and motion, permanence and change; each of these implies the other, and cannot be understood without the other. All of this leads Nāgārjuna to the thesis that all things are empty (śūnya) i.e., essenceless, all concepts are incoherent; language refers not to things but to itself. This emptiness itself is empty, i.e., need not be reified into an entity. Truth is ineffable. Philosophical wisdom lets things be what they are.
Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of śūnyatā is the original inspiration for Zen Buddhism, and Kitarō Nishida (1870–1945) is the most famous interpreter of Zen in terms of Western philosophy. Founder of the Kyoto school, Nishida influenced such philosophers as Hajime Tanabe and Keiji Nishitani. Nishida, in “The True Nature of Reality,” begins by asking: “What is direct knowledge that we cannot even begin to doubt?” In a Cartesian fashion, he holds that if we free ourselves of all assumptions, we shall find such a firm basis in “intuition” which underlies all of our intellectual constructions. It stands beyond the opposition between subject and object, as the unity of knowledge, feeling, and volition, as what he calls “pure experience,” which is then regarded by Nishida as the true reality. Clearly, the exposition is a modern understanding of Zen by one who was well-versed in Western philosophy, and also in Zen practice. This essay represents Nishida’s early philosophy. This concept of pure experience is subsequently developed by him into the idea of “self-awakening,” which again led him to his idea of “absolute free will.” In the final phase, he develops his more well-known concept of basho as the “absolute nothingness,” which provides the “place” or the “ground” that alone lets everything be itself.