Startseite Philosophie “It is Distant, it is Near” – Vedāntic Hindu Visions of Divine Contradictions
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“It is Distant, it is Near” – Vedāntic Hindu Visions of Divine Contradictions

  • Ankur Barua
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Contradiction and the Absolute
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Contradiction and the Absolute

Abstract

In articulating the relation between the spatiotemporal world and the divine reality (brahman), Hindu religious traditions often work with metaphors, analogies, and narratives. By employing parabolic idioms, in the light of scriptural texts such as the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-Gītā, the developers of these worldviews have characterised brahman in somewhat different ways. In their attempts to express or indicate brahman with conceptual categories, they have to negotiate various conceptual paradoxes. If brahman is the transcendental foundation of the world, will not the world’s mutability render brahman too mutable? If brahman is ultimately one, how can the world’s divisibility be contained within its indivisible root? If brahman can be named (even if only with the Sanskrit word brahman), it seems the transcendence of brahman is lost; and yet, if brahman is radically ineffable, no devotional reciprocity between humanity and divinity would seem to be possible. In this chapter, we will discuss three Vedāntic ways of grappling with such cosmological questions – Advaita, as systematized by Śaṃkara (c. 700 CE), and certain theistic styles of devotional love centred in the teachings of Vallabha (1479–1531 CE) and Caitanya (1486–1534 CE). Some Advaita thinkers project an enigmatic principle called māyā – somehow māyā animates the world of multiplicity while māyā is itself, ultimately speaking, not-a-thing. So, māyā both is and is not, and only Brahman is unqualifiedly real. In contrast, some commentators in the Vallabha and the Caitanya traditions argue that brahman, who is God Kṛṣṇa, has the marvellous māyā-power to “accomplish what cannot be accomplished” and is the abode (āśraya) of contradictory or opposed (viruddha, virodha) attributes.

Abstract

In articulating the relation between the spatiotemporal world and the divine reality (brahman), Hindu religious traditions often work with metaphors, analogies, and narratives. By employing parabolic idioms, in the light of scriptural texts such as the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-Gītā, the developers of these worldviews have characterised brahman in somewhat different ways. In their attempts to express or indicate brahman with conceptual categories, they have to negotiate various conceptual paradoxes. If brahman is the transcendental foundation of the world, will not the world’s mutability render brahman too mutable? If brahman is ultimately one, how can the world’s divisibility be contained within its indivisible root? If brahman can be named (even if only with the Sanskrit word brahman), it seems the transcendence of brahman is lost; and yet, if brahman is radically ineffable, no devotional reciprocity between humanity and divinity would seem to be possible. In this chapter, we will discuss three Vedāntic ways of grappling with such cosmological questions – Advaita, as systematized by Śaṃkara (c. 700 CE), and certain theistic styles of devotional love centred in the teachings of Vallabha (1479–1531 CE) and Caitanya (1486–1534 CE). Some Advaita thinkers project an enigmatic principle called māyā – somehow māyā animates the world of multiplicity while māyā is itself, ultimately speaking, not-a-thing. So, māyā both is and is not, and only Brahman is unqualifiedly real. In contrast, some commentators in the Vallabha and the Caitanya traditions argue that brahman, who is God Kṛṣṇa, has the marvellous māyā-power to “accomplish what cannot be accomplished” and is the abode (āśraya) of contradictory or opposed (viruddha, virodha) attributes.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Dedication V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Introduction: Facing Contradiction in the Absolute 1
  5. Part I : Asian Philosophy
  6. Transcendental Contradictions: The Spectre of Non-Being in Early to Middle Brāhmanic-Hindu Thought-System 9
  7. “It is Distant, it is Near” – Vedāntic Hindu Visions of Divine Contradictions 39
  8. Contradictions and Certainty: The Mīmāṃsā Defense of the Authorless Veda 61
  9. Buddhism, Emptiness, and Paradox 77
  10. All in One Mind. Huayan’s Holistic Panbuddhism 89
  11. Heidegger and Dōgen on the Ineffable 105
  12. Part II : Christian Philosophy
  13. Contradiction and God Between Neoplatonism and the Byzantine Tradition: Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Nicholas of Methone 137
  14. The Ways God Overcomes Contradictions in Human Understanding: Nicholas of Cusa 169
  15. Identity and non-Identity of the Human Soul with God in Meister Eckhart’s Metaphysical Mysticism 185
  16. Hegel’s Absolute from a Logical Point of View 211
  17. The One, the Many, and the Trinity: A Dialetheist Response to the Trinitarian Contradiction 221
  18. Part III: Jewish and Islamic Philosophy
  19. “Laud and praise Him justly and uprightly, not by attributing to Him exaggerations and absurdities”: God and logic in Jewish thought 249
  20. On Ayin, or the Divine Nothing 269
  21. Transcendence vs. Immanence in Jewish Philosophy and Poetry 289
  22. God’s attributes; Are aḥwāl contradictory? 297
  23. God and Impossibility: A Classical Ashʿarī Perspective 311
  24. Is Being Contradictory? — Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Principle of Non-Contradiction 347
  25. Contributors
  26. Names Index
  27. Topic Index
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111369983-003

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Dedication V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Introduction: Facing Contradiction in the Absolute 1
  5. Part I : Asian Philosophy
  6. Transcendental Contradictions: The Spectre of Non-Being in Early to Middle Brāhmanic-Hindu Thought-System 9
  7. “It is Distant, it is Near” – Vedāntic Hindu Visions of Divine Contradictions 39
  8. Contradictions and Certainty: The Mīmāṃsā Defense of the Authorless Veda 61
  9. Buddhism, Emptiness, and Paradox 77
  10. All in One Mind. Huayan’s Holistic Panbuddhism 89
  11. Heidegger and Dōgen on the Ineffable 105
  12. Part II : Christian Philosophy
  13. Contradiction and God Between Neoplatonism and the Byzantine Tradition: Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Nicholas of Methone 137
  14. The Ways God Overcomes Contradictions in Human Understanding: Nicholas of Cusa 169
  15. Identity and non-Identity of the Human Soul with God in Meister Eckhart’s Metaphysical Mysticism 185
  16. Hegel’s Absolute from a Logical Point of View 211
  17. The One, the Many, and the Trinity: A Dialetheist Response to the Trinitarian Contradiction 221
  18. Part III: Jewish and Islamic Philosophy
  19. “Laud and praise Him justly and uprightly, not by attributing to Him exaggerations and absurdities”: God and logic in Jewish thought 249
  20. On Ayin, or the Divine Nothing 269
  21. Transcendence vs. Immanence in Jewish Philosophy and Poetry 289
  22. God’s attributes; Are aḥwāl contradictory? 297
  23. God and Impossibility: A Classical Ashʿarī Perspective 311
  24. Is Being Contradictory? — Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Principle of Non-Contradiction 347
  25. Contributors
  26. Names Index
  27. Topic Index
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