THE SOUL, WORKS AND EMANICIPATION contd...

His argument is as follows:
Moksha is for one who is bound, and the bond is ignorance and transgression of the moral law (ajnana and adharma). The Vedantic idea that the soul is never born nor does it ever die, nor is it bound nor desires to remove bondage, and being ever free, moksha has no meaning for it; is discarded by Dayanand. In this respect he approaches the Buddhist concept that refuses to grant any eternality or unchangeability to the soul. The soul is not the witness of deeds (sakshi) but the actor taking part in works and suffering their consequences. The soul is not the reflection of Brahman. The soul is indeed bound by its deeds, and this relation between the soul and work is an eternal one.

Emancipation can be got by right actions alone. These consist of carrying out God's commands; remaining removed from evil company, evil desires, evildoers, adharma and ignorance; speaking the truth, doing good to others, acquiring knowledge, being equal-minded and just and furthering dharma; prayer, singing God's praises, and yoga; increasing knowledge and education; and following noble practices which are just and without prejudice. Since moksha is only a change in the soul's condition effected by human works, works can also undo it. It is a kind of gift, which can also be withdrawn. Moksha is therefore limited in time. There is no eternal bliss for the finite soul. Even in the state of moksha, the taint of sin can cause the soul to return to the earth. God only administers the law of karma, he cannot transcend it.

Despite Dayanand's condemnation of Buddhism, in his view about karma and moksha, he follows very much the same ideal. Buddhism did not deny the existence of the gods, but at the same time held that, like all mankind they too are governed by the law of karma. They did not create the world-order, nor can they destroy it. Brahman is all right as an impersonal principle, but only as the world soul. There is no affinity between it and the human soul. 'Void is the world' the Buddhist holds 'of self or aught of that nature'. There is, according to him, no unchanging spectator, agent or seer, as the Vedantist believed. The Samangala-vilasini says: 'Anything whatever within the soul, who sees, who moves the limhs etc., there is not'. No outside force incites one to good or evil. Pain automatically follows immoral living, and pleasure moral living. This natural law of justice cannot be suspended even by God.

Dayanand believed that the soul can never be equated with God. This as we have discussed, negates the Vedantic concept of the identity of Brahman and atman. He says: 'God is eternal, and having power, he cannot be bound by ignorance and by the bonds of sorrow. The jiva, even when emancipated, is of limited knowledge and qualitites, and it can never be like God'. When the imaginary questioner asks that if emancipation too is like birth and rebirth, what is the point in labouring for it, Dayanand puts his view thus: 'Emancipation is not like birth and death, because it is the soul remaining free of sorrows,which enjoys the bliss of moksha till creation and destruction does not take place 36000 times. Is this of no consequence? When you have enough to eat, why do you not still arrange for where withal to cook a meal, thinking you will need to eat in the future? When you consider it necessary to arrange for hunger and thirst, money, land, repute, wife, sons etc., then why shouldn't you try for emancipation. When one knows death to be certain, yet he makes arrangements for living, so too, even if you have to come back from the state of emancipation to the world, to make an effort for it [moksha] is essential.'

There appears to be some change in this view of Dayanand from the usual concept as contained in Hinduism about swarga. According to the traditional Hindu cosmogony, there are different lokas, or divisions, of the universe, for example, bhur-loka (the earth), bhuvar-loka the space between the earth and the sun (where munis and siddhas live), swar-loka (the heaven of Indra, between the sun and the polar star), mahar-loka (the abode of Bhrigu and other saints who are believed to be co-existent with Brahma), jana-loka (the abode of Brahma's sons, Sanaka, Sananda and sanat-kumara), tapar-loka where the deities called vairagis live, and satya-loka or brahma-loka (the abode of Brahma) from which there is no rebirth.

There are various other divisions. Dayanand, however, as we have seen, did not believe in the existence of heaven or hell. Heaven or hell was here on earth and implied joy and suffering. In the place of swarga we have the Swami's idea of 'limited' moksha where the soul enjoys bliss till its return to earth at the end of a cycle. But apparently this enjoyment is not like the pleasure other religions have to offer. The Satyarthaprakasha draws a distinction between the concept of limited moksha for a cosmic cycle and the Jain concept of enjoyment in Shivapur; the Christian one of residence of the soul in the fourth heaven along with 'marriage', musical instruments, clothes etc.', the Mohammedan heaven on the seventh firmament, the Shripur of Vama-margis, Kailasha of ahaivites; the Vaikuntha of vaishnvas; Goloka tc., of the Gokuliya-gosains, where they enjoy beautiful women, food, clothes, residence and so forth; and the Pauranikas who enjoy proximity with God. Dayanand criticises these concepts in the part of Satyarthaprakash which deals with these religions.

As regards rebirth, Dayanand seems to agree with the Hindu view. The soul undergoes many repeated births on the earth, as Lord Krishna says in the Gita 'As the soul passes in this body through childhood, youth and age, even so is its taking on of another body', and many are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna. In the Satyarthaprakasha, when the hypothetical questioner asks pointedly if there is one birth or several the reply is, many births. Dayanand also considers the related question of man's first sin.

According to the Christians man's first sin was to break the Lord's commandment. After God had created Adam and Eve 'They were both naked and were not ashamed'. God had asked Adam not to eat 'of the tree of knowledge of good and evil'. Eve, tempted by Satan in the shape of the serpent, broke God's command and ate the fruit of the tree, and also gave it to Adam to eat. That opened their eyes and they discovered that they were naked. For their sin, God drove them out of Paradise inflicting punishment on the serpent, Eve and Adam all of whom had partaken of the sin of breaking his commandment. 'Unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.' To Adam, the Lord said: 'Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'

Dayanand, of course, scoffs at the idea of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and devil, being a sin. It is queer, he says, that knowing the difference between good and evil should be counted as evil, when it is the mark of wisdom. In the Satyarthaprakasha a similar point is taken up. Why should people suffer for past works without having knowledge of them? The soul is incapable of knowing what deeds were done by it in past lives. He says: ' The jiva has limited knowledge and cannot have knowledge of the past, present and future, so it can't remember its past deeds. Also the mind cannot have knowledge of two things simultaneously. Leave alone events of past lives, why can't the jiva remember events from the time of birth to when the child was five years old? Also why cannot it remember in deep sleep, all its experiences in the sleeping and the waking state? And suppose one were to ask you [the hypothetical questioner] what you did at one minute past ten on the ninth day of the fifth month of your thirteenth year; what was the position at that instant of your face, hands, ears, eyes and body, and what was your mind thinking of ? [Can you tell?] When this is so in this very life then to speak of past lives is mere childishness.

'And, in fact, the jiva is happy just because it cannot recollect its past deeds. Otherwise knowing the sorrows of past lives it would not be able to bear them, and the man would die. Even if one wants to know the events of the life before and past lives, he can't because the knowledge and nature of the jiva is limited. God can know them, but not man'.

The questioner then goes on the question which an obvious corollary of this 'When one has no knowledge of one's past deeds, and God punishes him for them, this cannot act as a corrective, for when he knows that he had done such and such a deed and this is the punishment for that deed, then only can he realise his fault'.

Dayanand's answer to this does not really convince. He explains punishment and reward for past deeds on the basis of incompatibility between human beings in regard to wealth and poverty, ignorance and knowledge, but one can obviously not thereby conclude that the incompatibility is due to acts done in past lives. How much of it is God-made and how much man made, is anybody's guess. The questioner goes on to argue that placing any restriction on God's power would not make him supreme. As a gardener plants small and big trees in his garden and of these some he tends, others he cuts or uproots; so too the person to whom a thing belongs may keep it as he likes.

There is no one above God, so why should he fear {i.e. be restricted}. In reply Dayanand says 'God does as seems just to him. He is never unjust. That is why he is worth adoration and is great. If he acted unjustly he would not be God. As a gardener is a fault if he plants trees without adequate space and approach, cuts those trees, which are useful, and tends the useless ones; so also if God acts unreasonably, he would be at fault. God is by nature pure and just, so he must act justly. If he were arbitrary without reason, he would be worse and more dishonourable than a human judge. Is he not to be condemned in this world who does not reward one who does good work and punishes an evildoer? Therefore God does no injustice, and that is why he fears no one.'

The accident, or destiny of birth has been explained by Hindu philosophers as springing from works done in previous lives. How else, they say, can one explain why one is born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth and another in abject poverty. No one bothers to consider such differences man-made. There is also the very significant factor of human endeavour. Without effort nothing is possible, and as the Bhagavadgita says one cannot even exist without working: sharirayatra' pi cha te na prasidhyed akarmanah. However, Dayanand falls in line with other Hindu thinkers in attributing differences of birth to the good or evil works performed in previous lives. In the Satyarthaprakash he says: 'See one child is born from the womb of the queen of a learned, virtuous king and another from that of a very poor grass-cutter's wife. One gets happiness always, the other sorrow.... Secondly, if these things were not governed by karma, there need not have been hell and heaven thereafter. For, if we believe God gives happiness and sorrow arbitrarily not according to one's deeds, then he can send anyone to hell or heaven as he chooses at his own will. This will lead to all beings becoming shorn of dharma, for what will then be the incentive for good works? They will doubt if there will be no fear of retribution for immoral works. Sin will increase in the world and dharma will be extinct'.

As regards the question whether there is the same soul in all living creatures or different ones Dayanand says the soul is the same but it is sin or virtue, which creates the differences. The sinful soul falls, while the virtuous one rises.