Introduction
The theological basis of Vedanta philosophy is grounded in the Upanishadic literature, embedded in the Vedic Samhita schools as appendages. Of these have emerged the schools of Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita led by Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhava respectively (notwithstanding several other schools). The three philosophical positions differ considerably on the issue of relation between Isvara/Brahman (Supreme) on one hand and the Jiva/Atman (individual being) on the other. Advaita, led by Shankara focuses on the equality of the Jiva with Brahmana, both qualitatively and quantitatively, asserting the presence of ‘Ekam Advitiyam’ or “One without second”. This is fiercely opposed by the Dvaita school of Madhava which asserts on the contrary absolute difference between the two. Other philosophers including Ramanuja tread the middle path.
The concept of Mahavakyas (great sayings) was popularised by Adi Shankara in his commentaries (Bhashyas) and philosophical works though he did not invent the concept as it is found in the Paingala Upanishad, which we will refer ahead. One of the four Mahavakyas is ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ or ‘That Thou Art’. The Mahavakya can be decomposed into ‘Tat’ or That, ‘Tvam’ or You and ‘Asi’ or are. In simple terms it implies ‘That You Are’. The Mahavakya is found in the Chhandogya Upanishad (6th Adhyaya) in the teachings of Aruni Uddalaka to his son, Svetaketu. The exact statement reads,
स य एषोऽणिमैतदात्म्यमिदं सर्वं तत्सत्यं स आत्मा तत्त्वमसि श्वेतकेतो इति भूय एव मा भगवान्विज्ञापयत्विति तथा सोम्येति होवाच ॥ ६.१०.३ ॥॥ इति दशमः खण्डः ॥
sa ya eṣo’ṇimaitadātmyamidaṃ sarvaṃ tatsatyaṃ sa ātmā tattvamasi śvetaketo iti bhūya eva mā bhagavānvijñāpayatviti tathā somyeti hovāca || 6.10.3 |||| iti daśamaḥ khaṇḍaḥ ||3.
‘That which is the subtlest of all is the Self of all this. It is the Truth. It is the Self. That thou art, O Śvetaketu.’ [Śvetaketu then said,] ‘Sir, please explain this to me again.’ ‘Yes, Somya, I will explain it again,’ replied his father. (Transl. Lokeswaranand)
This statement appears nine times in the adhyaya, highlighting it’s importance as Aruni Uddalaka stresses it again and again, leading to the importance of debate on the meaning of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ in the context of Vedanta.
Interpretations by Philosophers
Shankara, in his commentary as well as Ramanuja takes the statement as it is, without any grammatical jugglery. This is consistent with the approach of Occam’s razor or of the simplest interpretation as it is, if the interpretation yields a meaningful result. Shankara takes it to mean the individual is the same as Brahman or ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ implying ‘You are That Brahman’. This assertion finds support in the context of the teachings of Aruni Uddalaka (where he refers to the example of rivers merging into the sea, mixing of juice of all flowers into honey by bees, dissolution of salt into water) etc. Ramanuja takes a different interpretation, taking ‘Tat’ to be Brahman and ‘Tvam’ to be the inner dweller of the body, in consistence with his qualified dualism concept. However, he keeps the statement intact grammatically. The same approach is followed by Nimbarka and Vallabha with Vallabha leaning towards the Shankarite with, except for his denial of absolute non difference.
Madhava, disagrees with all other philosophers and engages in grammatical play to interpret the statement. He takes the entire statement as ‘sa ātmā tattvamasi’ and then breaks ‘atma tattvamasi’ into ‘atma atattvamasi’, converting ‘tat’ to ‘atat’ or ‘that’ to ‘not that’. This ingenious device is permissible in Sanskrit grammar (we shall not go into the details), hence though taking a very laborious route, Madhava tries to make the statement conducive to his philosophy of absolute difference. The statement then becomes ‘You are NOT that’ or the individual is not Brahman. There is no grammatical criticism possible or warranted here.
Criticism of Madhva’s interpretation on logical and contexual lines
A neutral observer would immediately question the need for such ingenious grammatical jugglery in the seemingly straightforward statement. The words that is atma, you are that’ does not seem to sound cryptic or requiring manipulation to make sense for even a lay reader. Perhaps seeing so, no philosopher except Madhva found it necessary to attempt a rephrasing and went with the original statement.
The second important objection is the need of asserting an obvious truth (if Madhva’s idea be taken as correct). For most theists, who are not initiated into a Vedantic sect, the default idea is one of God and the person. There is hardly any scope of even the idea of unity between God and self, unless explicitly told. For an atheist, the question of atma and jiva is immaterial and hence the conversation becomes meaningless. For a statement to be asserted so vehemently with myraid examples in an esoteric setting by a sage, should have great depth and meaning, formerly unknown to the recipients of the knowledge. Infact, the traditional idea of ‘Vidya’ is secret knowledge, amply illustrated in the Upanishads (sometimes even zealously guarded as in Madhu Vidya of Dadhyan and Asvins etc.). The literal interpretation of the statement fits into this category, for the knowledge of unity of the individual self and the cosmic supreme, even in the Vishishtadvaita sense (qualitatively) seems to be wondrous and breaking the conventional understanding (the one in the Advaitic sense absolutely transcends logic).
However, Madhava’s interpretation merely re-asserts what common knowledge and primitive understanding of God and man is, that is both are different. No person, before diving into Vedic philosophy considers himself as God or the supreme essence and sees one as merely a meager creature on the earth. There is nothing that seems to warrant a Vedic sage of the caliber and fame of Aruni Uddalaka to repeat the same mundane understanding that ‘You are NOT Brahman/God’ nine times with unique examples as a special teaching for that mundane understanding is inherent in almost all men of theistic disposition.
A final refutation on purely logical lines is one of context. The story that precedes Uddalaka’s teachings is that of Svetaketu being proud that he had ‘mastered the scriptures’. However, Uddalaka breaks his pride by asking him whether even after reading all the scriptures, he had acquired that teaching, the one of Brahman by which “what is never heard becomes heard, what is never thought of becomes thought of, what is never known becomes known?”. Had the teaching Uddalaka refers to, been the mundane idea of “You are NOT Brahman/Supreme”, Svetaketu would have laughed at the end of the conversation as to ‘is this what you wanted me to know? everyone knows it’. Hence it has to be something unheard and unknown of. That will break Svetaketu’s pride by the fact that even after studying everything, there are things beyond his comprehension that exist. Again, Uddalaka’s utterance of ‘what is never known becomes known’ hints at the knowledge he is about to impart is something unknown, a secret he will reveal. And to know this secret, he gives as a prelude, “for a lump of clay, the earth is known, from a lump of gold, gold is known, such is this knowledge” indicating it has something to do with the inherent unity of the creation and the creator. Again, Svetaketu remarks, “O father, surely my teachers(at Gurukul) did not know this secret and never taught me”. This is the final nail on the idea that the knowledge is one of difference for the fact that “You are NOT the supreme” is something even a lay person would have told him, forget his teachers.
Scriptural Challenge to Madhva’s Assertion:- Paingala Upanishad
Paingala Upanishad (which has been cited earlier), elaborates extensively on the mention of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ when discussing Mahavakyas. The first important point to be noted is that Paingala writes ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ in it’s direct form, leaving no scope for grammatical jugglery.
The Mahavakya appears as ‘याज्ञवल्क्यस्तत्त्वमसि’ and ‘तत्त्वमसीत्यहं’ (not preceded by anything here) and hence cannot be grammatically interpreted as anything but directly ‘Tat Tvam Asi’.
याज्ञवल्क्यस्तत्त्वमसि त्वं तदसि त्वं ब्रह्मास्यहं ब्रह्मास्मीत्यनुसन्धानं कुर्यात् says Paingala Upanishad (Third Chapter) which translates into “One should scrutinise (the sacred sentences), Tattvamasi (That art thou), Tvamtadasi (Thou art That), Twambrahmasi (Thou art Brahman) and Ahambrahmāsmi (I am Brahman)”. Hence Paingala mentions ‘Tvamtadasi’ as a variant of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ again to emphasise on the Mahavakya.
Further, Paingala elaborates on the Mahavakya as ‘परजीवोपाधिमायाविद्ये विहाय तत्त्वम्पदलक्ष्यं प्रत्यगभिन्नं ब्रह्म । ‘ as simply ‘Tat and Tvam are but the same undifferentiated Brahman. This leaves no room for the interpretation given by Madhva. The only liberty given is in Chapter II where it is asserted that the Mahavakya is applicable only in the ‘Paramarthik’ or absolute reality and not the apparent reality. Hence Dvaita may exist in the apparent/created world but will not exist in the true nature of things at the absolutely level.
Madhva’s Defence and Fragilities
Apart from the fact that the interpretation as ‘Atat Tvam Asi’ supported Madhva’s Dvait philosophy, there is an interesting defence given that the interpretation ‘Atat Tvam Asi’ appears in the Sama Samhita (not to be confused with Samaveda or its Samhita).
The primary problem with the defence arises in the identification of Sama Samhita itself. There is no extant text known as Sama Samhita in the entire Hindu textual corpus! We might meet with a counter argument that there was a text by the name of Sama Samhita which was extant at some point of time and is no longer available. The challenge to this counter is that there is no reference to any text by the name of Sama Samhita in any extant Hindu text or the commentary of any other person except Madhva and two of his disciples. Hence even if such a text existed, nobody except Madhva or his disciples knew about it in history.
Madhva quotes only two verses and alludes them to the Sama Samhita. Surprisingly, both references only appear in his commentary on Chhandogya Upanishad and nowhere else. More interestingly, they perfectly address and support the exact position Madhva takes, verbatim.
We start with the one that supports ‘Atat Tvam Asi’. Madhva quotes the Samasamhita telling the exact Upanishadic episode, even mentioning the times Tat Tvam Asi is written in Chhandogya (‘Uddalaka said Atattvamasi to Svetaketu 9 times’- In Samasamhita as per Madhva). In another instance, the quote from Samasamhita jumps to expounding Pancharatra doctrine. Hence Samasamhita seems to be a scripture that somehow contains all the incidents of Chandogya Upanishad along with Pancharatra doctrines and perfectly aligns with whatever Madhva has to assert in the simplest language possible.
All we have in defence of Madhva’s position is a mysterious text that has never been quoted before and never found later than Madhva. The text has definitely never been seen by other philosopher because it tells how to interpret Chandogya Upanishad and that is exactly contrary to how Shankara, Ramanuja, Bhaskara ie. all pre-Madhva scholars interpret it. We do not know what class of text it is (going by the nomenclature, it can be a Pancharatra text but Upanishad references in Pancharatra texts are unheard of). The author or attributes of the text is unknown.
To solve this riddle, we turn to whether the Samasamhita is a unique phenomenon of Madhva’s works? The answer, not surprisingly turns out to be no. And therein starts the biggest controversy surrounding Madhva, his unknown sources. Roque Mesquita (UVienna), in his work “Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources” lists down over 400 unknown texts and 1400 unknown quotes! This is an unparalleled phenomenon in the history of Indian philosophy. Accounting for even lost texts, Shankara’s and Ramanuja’s works (which predate Madhva) have hardly 2-3 lost references.
This observation is not new in Mesquita’s works for the same is noticed and vehemently criticised in the works of Indian philosophers while commenting on Madhva. The controversy starts with a near contemporary of Madhva, Venkatanatha. Venkatanatha or Vedanta Desikan, a highly famed scholar of the Ramanuja sect, cryptically attacks Madhva as per Mesquita, accusing him of interpolating and quoting non existent texts. Appaya Dikshitar, a Shaiva Advaitin, in one of his work attacking Madhva’s philosophy, claims that Madhva’s references are ‘svamatrakalpita’ or ‘written/imagined by himself’.
Madhva’s followers themselves does not shy from this aspect, claiming Madhva to have recovered several lost texts. The biggest example of this is the Mahabharata Tatparya Nirnaya of Madhva, a voluminous work claiming to be a collection of several lost manuscripts of Mahabharata and not surprisingly, all those lost manuscripts defend Madhva’s philosophy and even elevate him to an avatar of Vayu. As to what happened to the recovered texts by Madhva, the sect’s tradition claims, they were all burnt in a fire or hidden in an inaccessible location and not a single surviving specimen was ever recovered!
Concluding Remarks
To summarize, Madhva’s interpretation of ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ as ‘Atat Tvam Asi’ does not pass the tests of either logical deduction, contextual interpretation or scriptural cross reference. On the contrary, it is opposed by another Upanishadic text, making the position of Madhva, highly untenable. The only defence to provided validate his interpretation is mired in controversy both by traditional Indian and western scholarship and has been a source of constant attack by his philosophical opponents and does not pass the tests of historical or scriptural authority.
There is no reason for a person not belonging to a Madhvite school to accept the novel interpretation given by Madhva, which will also amount to rejection of the philosophical interpretations by all other Advaitic as well as non-Advaitic scholars.
