Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – I

Please welcome guest writer Bibek Debroy, who scarcely needs an introduction.* Bibek has kindly agreed to write a monthly column on concepts relating to Hinduism on this blog. He kicks off the series with some searching thoughts about the correspondence (or rather the lack of it) between the religio-philosophical lexicon of Western thought and Hinduism. For an enduring comprehension, it is critical to  understand a system or a concept in its cultural, linguistic and historical context, and Bibek sets the scene for just such an understanding in this introductory piece. 

I hope to write this series once a month and I have chosen to call it dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa.  Those aren’t terms I will talk about in this first piece. They will come later. I often meet people who say they are atheists or agnostics.  I feel uncomfortable with those terms, because I don’t know what they mean. Take the word “atheism”. It comes from a Greek word “atheos” meaning without “theos”. “Theos” is god. Therefore, atheism or atheist is a negative word. I don’t understand what atheism/atheist means unless people who use it tell me which god this is with reference to.  Whose existence is being negated?  

The word agnostic is no different. Actually, one should say “agnostos,” which is the original word, a+gnostos. Gnostos means something that can be known.  Therefore, a+gnostos actually means to be against knowledge. That’s not logically tenable, is it? How can anyone be against knowledge?  It is a different matter that atheist came to be interpreted as someone who didn’t believe in god, theist as someone who believed in god and agnostic as someone who believed that god could neither be shown to exist, nor not to exist.  The background of agnostic was the gnostic movement that existed within the Christian church.  All these terms, atheist, theist, agnostic are with reference to a context, and that happens to be Western. I would strongly advise against using them in the context of Hinduism.

Agnostic has no real Sanskrit counterpart.  The best we can probably do is निरीश्वरवादिन्  (nirīśvaravādin) But as the term itself indicates, it is more atheism.  We have several Sanskrit words for atheism, नास्तिक (nāstika), अनीश्वरवादिन् (anīrśvaravādin), करट (karaṭa), लोकायत (lokāyata) वेदनिन्दक (vedanindaka), सौगतिक (saugatika).  There are a few more, but we can ignore those.  

Let’s think of the word “Philosophy,” again closely allied with another Western word, “religion”.  How will you translate the word philosophy in Sanskrit?  Philosophy means the love of wisdom, or love of knowledge. The Sanskrit word दर्शन (darśana) is so much better.  It carries the nuance of sight.  Traditionally, there were six schools of Hindu philosophy – sāṃkhya, yoga, nyāya, vaiśeṣika, mimāmsā and vedānta.  There were further divisions later.  If you ignore the later divisions, did any of these believe in a god in a Western sense?  With the exception of  Vedānta (where you can both say yes and no), the answer is not really.  Hence, आस्तिक (āstika) in an Indian दर्शन (darśana) cannot and should not be interpreted as belief in a god. By the same token, नास्तिक does not mean disbelief in god.  

As those terms I have given for atheism indicate, it was more about not believing in the Vedas.  Let me leave aside Buddhism and Jainism.  I don’t have sufficient knowledge about either.  In addition to those six schools, we also had the ājīvika and lokāyata schools, the latter associated with cārvāka.  These are described as नास्तिक (nāstika) and again the reference is essentially to non-belief in the Vedas.  We will return to these issues later.  For the moment, when I am asked “Do you believe in god?”, I don’t know what to answer.  And my problem is not that such a question is asked by Westerners.  That I can accept.  My problem is that I am also asked such questions by Hindus who have accepted a Western discourse.  Let’s stick to our discourse and stop asking and answering such questions.

When confronted with questions about religion, there is another English word I have a lot of discomfort with and that is “proof”.  The best Sanskrit word for proof is प्रमाण (pramāṇa).  The nyāya school had quite a bit about logic.  Don’t worry.  I have no intention of getting into details about what each of these schools proposed.  For the moment, in the process of getting proof or प्रमाण, the nyāya texts talked about four different methods –प्रत्यक्ष (perception), अनुमान (inference), उपमान (comparison) and शब्द (testimony from those you can trust). Perhaps one should say a little bit more about प्रत्यक्ष.  Those nyāya texts divided perception into two types, the first being लौकिक (laukika) or साधारण (sādhāraṇa).  This is essentially what we perceive through the senses.  The second type is अलौकिक (alaukika) or असाधारण (asādhāraṇa).  We look at everything through the lens of science now.

We demand proof.  But when we demand proof, we really mean proof based on the senses.  Let me leave you with some thoughts to ponder.  First, while we pretend in our beliefs that everything is based on sensory proof, is that really true?  Or do we quite often depend on inference, comparison and testimony from others? Second, are our senses infallible?  Third, science also often depends on measuring instruments, not on human senses, precisely because human senses are fallible.  The accuracy of measuring instruments varies and improves over time.  Has science itself not been wrong on several counts, several times?  I will recommend a book to you. It is by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons and it is titled “The Invisible Gorilla” (2010).**  This is about how our cognitive senses often go wrong.  Therefore, this series is about being less arrogant about knowledge based on our physical senses.  Arrogance, in any form, is against knowledge.  Next time, be a little careful before saying that you are an atheistic or agnostic, or that you do not believe in god.  I have deliberately left the expression “Hinduism” dangling.  But this is only the first of a series.

* More information about Bibek Debroy can be found here: 

http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/bibek-debroy

and here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibek_Debroy

**Chabris & Simon's book can explored here: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/