Pāṇini

“ Surely so important a fact as that, a novelty so transcendently memorable, would not have passed without remark. One would seem compelled, in the absence of any such chronicle, to accept the alternative theory—known to us Aryan students as a fact—that writing and writing materials were, as above remarked, known to the Brahmans in an antiquity inconceivably remote—many centuries before the epoch made illustrious by Panini. ”

“ I still have in my possession a portion of Pânini’s Vedic grammar translated by him. I put by the side of it my own translation, and he openly acknowledged that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda, was right. There was no humbug about Wilson. He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember his saying to me more than once, “You see, I am not a scholar, I am a gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and that is all.” He certainly did like Sanskrit, and he knew it better than many a professor, but in his own way. ”

“ It is pure Monism, matter being but a manifestation of the Supreme Energy, the Supreme Soul, the Supreme Self which comprises all things, holds all things, is all things.
So much for the speculative thought of this remarkable age. But when we turn to other subjects, we find the same truly marvellous acumen displayed in almost every field of enquiry.
Panini, whom Max Muller called the greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, lived in the middle of this millennium, and by resolving Sanskrit to its simple roots, paved the way for the Science of Languages. ”

“ For a comprehensive grasp of linguistic facts, and a penetrating insight into the structure of the vernacular language, this work stands probably unrivalled in the literature of any nation—though few other languages, it is true, afford such facilities as the Sanskrit for a scientific analysis. Pāṇini's system of arrangement differs entirely from that usually adopted in our grammars, viz. according to the so-called parts of speech. As the work is composed in aphorisms intended to be learnt by heart, economy of memory-matter was the author's paramount consideration. ”

“ The style, too, excepting the two old epics, is in Sanskrit poetry made more artificial by the frequent use of long compounds, as well as by the application of the elaborate rules of poetics, while the language is regulated by the grammar of Pāṇini. Thus classical Sanskrit literature, teeming as it does with fantastic and exaggerated ideas, while bound by the strictest rules of form, is like a tropical garden full of luxuriant and rank growth, in which, however, many a fair flower of true poetry may be culled. ”

“ It is important to notice that in the trend of Hindu literature through so many ages there has been no upward movement, but rather a decline. Nowhere do we find hymns of so pure and lofty a tone as in the early Vedas. No philosophy of the later times has equalled that of the Upanishads and the six Darsanas. No law-giver like Manu has appeared for twenty-four centuries. No Sanskrit scholarship has equalled that of the great grammarian Panini, who lived in the fourth century B.C. And although no end of poetry has succeeded the great Epics, it has shown deterioration. ”

“ Patañjali.We have also another alchemist in Patañjali, who is better known as the commentator of Pánini. He probably lived in the 2nd century B. C. [3] Sivadása, in his commentary of Chakrapáni, quotes him as an authority on Lohasástra, or the "Science of Iron," and Chakrapáni himself speaks of him as the redactor of Charaka (see p. xv) . Bhoja in his Nyáyavártika speaks of Patañjali, as a physician both to the mind and to the body. [4] The moksha (salvation) , as taught in the Yoga system of Pátañjali, is also connected with alchemy. ”

“ Sampradâna means giving (δοτική) , but Pâṇini uses it here as a technical term, and assigns to it the definite meaning of “he whom one looks to by any act” (not only the act of giving, as the commentators imply) . It is therefore what we should call “the remote object.” Ex. Brâhmaṇâya dhanam dadâti, he gives wealth to the Brâhman. This is afterwards extended by several rules explaining that the 49 Sampradâna comes in after verbs expressive of pleasure caused to somebody (I. 4, 33) ”

“ Occasionally we even find shadowed forth the pantheistic idea of a deity representing not only all the gods, but Nature as well. Thus the goddess Aditi is identified with all the deities, with men, with all that has been and shall be born, with air, and heaven (i. 89) ; and in a cosmogonic hymn (x. 121) the Creator is not only described as the one god above all gods, but is said [1] to embrace all things. This germ of pantheism developed through the later Vedic literature till it assumed its final shape in the Vedānta philosophy, still the most popular system of the Hindus. ”

“ Another difference between ancient Pantheists and ourselves was the absence in their case of any religious creed, sanctioned by supernatural authority and embodied in a definite form, like that of the three Anglican creeds, or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Not that those ancients supposed themselves to be without a revelation. For the Vedas, at least, were considered to be of divine authority, and their words, metres, and grammar were regarded with a superstitious awe, such as reminds us of what has been called the "bibliolatry" of the Jewish Rabbis. ”

“ But the existence of all sects and priesthoods depends on their power to satisfy the religious instinct with ceremonial or some better method of putting the soul in communication with the divine. On the other hand pantheism in India is not a philosophical speculation, it is a habit of mind: it is not enough for the Hindu that his God is lord of all things: he must be all things and the soul in its endeavour to reach God must obtain deliverance from the fetters not only of matter but of individuality. ”

“ It does not seem to me justifiable to say that through Pantheism the Indian mind can approach the thought of Christ the Son of Man and the Son of God. But pantheism, with its allied doctrine of transmigration, may encourage the thought that our Lord was a great jogi or religious devotee, the last climax of many upward transmigrations, and that Christ had attained to the goal of illumination of the jogi, namely, identity of consciousness with deity, when he felt "I and the Father are one." That statement about Our Lord is sometimes made in India. ”

“ A wide field is here opened to the future research and critical enquiries of Indian scholars.
This Vedanta philosophy is in its general tendency, a complete system of Pantheism; but not the rigid, mathematical, abstract, negative Pantheism of some modern thinkers; for such a total denial of all Personality in God, and of all freedom in man, is incompatible with the attachment which the Vedanta philosophy professes for sacred tradition and ancient mythology; and accordingly a modified, poetical, and half-mythological system of Pantheism may here naturally be expected, and actually exists. ”

“ Can it be that thou art that holy Paphnutius, celebrated for so many works that it was supposed he would some day equal the great Anthony himself? Most venerable, it was thou who convertedst to God the courtesan, Thais, and who, raised upon a high column, was carried away by the seraphs. Those who watched by night, at the foot of the pillar, saw thy blessed assumption. The wings of the angels encircled thee in a white cloud, and with thy right hand extended thou didst bless the dwellings of man. ”

“ This view reduces us to the impossible theory that the division of parties refers to the audience. Apart from all questions of regard for the Sanskrit language, which Patañjali should be assumed capable of writing, the ludicrous result is achieved that among a pious audience of Kṛṣṇa adorers we are to suppose that there were many who favoured Kaṅsa, the cruel uncle whose vices are redeemed by not a single virtue, and for whose fate Sanskrit literature, pious and devout, shows not a sign of regret. ”

“ India finds polytheism no more satisfying than it does pantheism. There is no more assurance of comfort in worshipping 330,000,000 gods, whose multitude not only bewilders but also carries in itself refutation to the claim of any one to be supreme, than there is in the yearning after an absolute, ineffable Being which cruelly evades human [pg 084] thought and definition. It is no wonder therefore that the growth of the Hindu pantheon is constant, and both follows, and bears testimony to, the craving of the human soul for a God who can satisfy its wants and realize its deepest longings. ”

“ Through the Sutras of the first book, Patanjali is concerned with the first great problem, the emergence of the spiritual man from the veils and meshes of the psychic nature, the moods and vestures of the mental and emotional man. Later will come the consideration of the nature and powers of the spiritual man, once he stands clear of the psychic veils and trammels, and a view of the realms in which these new spiritual powers are to be revealed. ”

“ In retired corners, young men played dice or other games, and old men followed prostitutes. Above all these rose the solitary, unchanging column; the head with the cow’s horns gazed into the shadow, and above it Paphnutius watched between heaven and earth. All at once the moon rose over the Nile, like the bare shoulder of a goddess. The hills gleamed with blue light, and Paphnutius thought he saw the body of Thais shinning in the glimmer of the waters amidst the sapphire night. ”

“ From the expressions made use of by the Burmese translator, the writer is inclined to believe that a direct allusion is made to pantheistic opinions. We know that most of the Indian schools of philosophy have based their various systems of metaphysics upon that most erroneous foundation. According to pantheists, this world is not distinct from the essence of God; all that exists is but a manifestation or a development of the substance of God. This world is not the work of God, existing as distinct from its Maker, but it is God manifesting Himself substantially in all things. ”

“ To appreciate the testimony of the Text-book, we must enter more fully into the orthodox Hindu theological position. Pantheism, or the doctrine that God is all and all is God—what does it imply? Pantheism is a theory of creation, that God is all, that there are in truth no creatures, but only unreal phantasies appearing to darkened human minds, because darkened and half-blind. As such, its nearest Christian analogue would be the thought that in every phenomenon we have God's fiat and God's reason, and that "in Him we live and move and have our being." ”

“ This would also point to about the fifth century B.C. To the next stage, in which the epic, handed down by rhapsodists, swelled to a length of about 20,000 çlokas, belongs the representation of the victorious Pāṇḍus in a favourable light, and the introduction on a level with Brahmā of the two other great gods, Çiva, and especially Vishṇu, of whom Kṛishṇa appears as an incarnation. ”

“ While led through the religious instincts implanted in human nature to recognize the existence of a Being or Beings who hear and answer prayer, they were unable to separate the idea of mind, as a causal power, from the aspects of external nature. Accordingly, the shadowy divinities of the Vedic Pantheon, Indra, Agni, Varuna, can hardly be regarded as distinct personalities, holding definite relations to each other, or to their worshippers. ”

“ A Pandit whose conception of the nature of language is derived from his acquaintance with Sanskrit, devotes his life to the study of old Telugu and attempts to reproduce the older forms in his writings; he therefore inculcates the belief that a literary language ought to be as uniform as Sanskrit for all time. That some of the graduates of the modern universities follow the doctrines of the Pandit indicates that the study of the science of language is not what it ought to be. ”

“ But this is not the quasi-monotheism of the Hindu, to whom the other gods were real and potent factors, individually distinct from the one supreme god, who represents the All-god, but is at once abstract and concrete.
Pantheism in the Rig Veda comes out clearly only in one or two passages: "The priests represent in many ways the (sun) bird that is one"; and (cited above) "They speak of him as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, ... that which is but one they call variously." ”

“ By mistake we think that we are impure, that we are limited, that we are separate. The real man is the One Unit Existence." Such is the logical and the actual outcome of pantheism in regard to the idea of sin, and such is the standpoint of Hindu philosophy. ”

“ Of far greater importance is the Bālacarita,12 which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. ”

“ The following is a stanza of this kind from the Panchatantra:—
In fortune and calamity The great ever remain the same: The sun is at its rising red, Red also when about to set. Collected in the ethico-didactic works which have been described in this chapter, and scattered throughout the rest of the literature, the notions held by the Brahmans in the sphere of moral philosophy have never received a methodical treatment, as in the Pāli literature of Buddhism. In the orthodox systems of Hindu philosophy, to which we now turn, they find no place. ”