First, Bhishma introduces Sulabha’s response with the
following words: “ Although rebuked by the king with harsh words, Sulabha was
not perturbed. She replied with the following words which were more handsome
than her person”.
Sulabha starts with the fundamentals of proper speech. She says that “a speech should
be free of nine verbal faults and nine faults of judgment. It should also
possess 18 merits. What are they? It should not be ambiguous. Faults and merits
of premise and conclusion should be ascertained. The relative strengths of
those merits and faults should be defined. The conclusion must be stated
clearly. The conclusion has to be arrived at by persuasive reasoning”. Classical
logic was not defined better than this even by Aristotle and Gotama (of Nyaya
Sastra)
“There are several
ways of interpreting words. Based on their merits and faults in context, one
may have to make tentative meanings. Proper sequence of words in a sentence
will have to be taken into account. The tentative meaning has to be related to
the conclusion arrived at and also compared with the conclusion of others. Then
there is the purpose”. That is Semantics.
“What I am about to say will be sensible, free from
ambiguity, logical, free from tautology, agreeable, sweet, truthful, agreeable
to virtue, wealth and pleasure and with specific objective. I shall not say
anything prompted by desire or fear, deceit or shame or pride. For the meaning
to come out clearly the speaker, the hearer and the words have to be agreeable
and be congruent. If the speaker uses words whose meaning is known to only
himself, they are of no use however good they are. So are words that elicit
erroneous impression in the mind of the hearer. Hear now to what I say without
those errors in speaking”.
“You asked who I am and where I come from. Just as dust and
water exist when brought together, so do all creatures exist”. Sulabha means to
say that everything in this world are made of the same five elements (pancha bhuta). It is the same
consciousness (chit) which pervades
the five great elements and all creatures. This implies that Janaka does not
understand this basic fact by asking the questions he asked, since both he and
she are made of the same substance and endowed with the same consciousness. To think
they are different is not worthy of one who claims true knowledge.
Then Sulabha
describes the elements of Samkhya philosophy in detail. She lists the
five sense organs, five senses of action and the mind first (total 11). The
mind creates doubts. Then comes understanding (buddhi) to settle the doubts. Sattwa is the thirteenth element
followed by ahamkara (not arrogance;
but identification of self as opposed to the other). The fifteenth element is
desire (kama) and then avidya (spiritual ignorance). Prakriti
(maya, illusion) and vyakti (clarity) follow. The world of opposites (birth and
death; gain and loss; likes and dislikes) come next. The all important Time (kaala) which determines births and death
is the 20th principle. All these 20 elements exist together, says
Sulabha.
She adds few more principles and points out that the
“atheistic” Samkhya system considers that all these elements evolve out of
Prakriti, whereas the Vaiseshika system of Kanada considers all these to come
out of atoms. Whatever the interpretations, she says: “Myself, you the monarch
and all others came out of that Prakriti. We first get formed as embryo called
“kalala”, then into “budbuda” (bubble),and then reach the
stage of “pesi”. Later still appear
the limbs with nails and hair. Only when the child is born do we
know the sex. Things keep moving and the body keeps changing as the baby goes
through childhood and adult life into old age. Each part of the body of every creature changes every moment but are so minute that they cannot be noticed. Can one see the changes taking
place in the flame of a burning lamp? When that which is called body is
changing all the time how can you ask where I come from, to
whom I belong?”
“You can see your body and can see your soul? (If you have
truly attained knowledge as you claim), how come you do not see your body and your
soul in the bodies and souls of others? If you do truly have reached a state
when you see yourself in others and others in yourself, why do you ask who I
am? If you have really conquered the idea of duality and gone past the stage of
identifying things as mine and that of others, why do you ask who I belong to?
You pretend to be emancipated and you are unworthy of it since you do not truly understand and practice higher knowledge.” (to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment