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(continued from Part 7)
-------------------------------------------------------

Type 4: "Asuram-bhAvam-AsritAh"

The fourth type of Ignorant Man the Gita describes as
"Asuram-bhAvam-AsritAh":

"na mAm dush-krutinO mUdAh: prapadyantE narAdhamAh:
mAyayA-apahruta-gnyAnA aasuram bhAvamAsritAh:" 
(VII.15)

The phrase "Asuram-bhAvam-AsritAh" is pregnant with
deep meaning and fine nuance. In most translations of
the Gita, the word "Asura" is translated as either
"godless" or "atheist". Both terms are correct but too
mild and far too bare. It would be more appropriate to
say the English equivalent of "Asura" is "antagonist
of God" -- ("bhagavath-dvEshi") -- and this expression
has, as we shall soon see below, very many colourful
shades and deep layers of meaning. 

***********

This term 'aasuram bhAvamAsritAh:' always makes me at
once recollect the late Sri E.V.Ramaswamy Naicker
(well known in South India as "periyAr", the
charismatic leader of the Rationalist Movement in
India and the founder of the atheistic political party
"Dravida Kazhagam" of Tamil Nadu). 

In the holy town of Kanchipuram, South India, the
followers of "periyAr", after his death, built a small
statuette of their leader right in front of the
Sankara-Mutt -- and the mosque adjacent to it as well.
Across the street from the doorway of the Kanchi Mutt
or the mosque, one can see even today the little
stone-figure of the bearded 'periyAr' glaring
contemptuously and disapprovingly at all the poor
believers and worshippers going in and coming out the
place of God -- the God whom 'periyAr' vehemently
denied all his life. Just underneath the statuette
there is also a stone plaque on which are inscribed
the famous words 'periyAr' had given to his followers
-- an "upadEsa-mantra" of sorts in Tamil:

"There is no God.
He who believes in God is a fool".

The above words -- the clarion call of one of the
best-known rationalists and atheists of India -- those
mocking words stare even today at every visitor to the
Kanchi Sankara Mutt or the neighbouring 'masjid'. 

************

Actually, for someone who swore by Rationality all his
life, the language in which "periyAr's" message is
couched does not sound logical at all. It is in fact
very self-contradictory.

Let's take the first statement, "There is no God". By
itself, this is a statement of subjective conviction
rather than objective truth. It says: "I have used my
rational powers to the best of my ability in order to
investigate if there is God, and Reason tells me there
is none". If 'periyAr' had confined himself to this
first statement, he would have been regarded by
posterity as a philosopher of Rationality -- a
philosopher of limited vision, perhaps, but a
philosopher nonetheless. (In the Western world there
were in fact many similar philosophers of the
Rationalist school who were eminent thinkers -- the
name of Bertrand Russel, for instance, comes to mind
instantly; he is the author of the famously atheistic
but nonetheless thought-provoking book, "Why I am not
a Christian").

Unfortunately for him, 'periyAr' also went on to make
the second statement "He who believes in God is a
fool", which was unbecoming of a philosopher. It was
this statement that sealed 'periyAr's' place in
history as more of a rabble-rousing social-activist of
his times than as serious thinker. Now, this second
statement is also what logicians would call a
"non-sequitor" -- an untenable conclusion drawn from
flimsy premises. It is this second statement that
exposes the profound Ignorance of 'periyAr's' stated
position on the subject of God. If his argument, as it
stands articulated in those famous words of his, were
to be reconstructed in strictly syllogistic terms, it
would read as absurdly as follows:

All men have Reason;
God cannot be known through Reason;
Some men say they know God;
Therefore, all such men have no Reason. 
(And so they're all fools, Amen!)

The famous words of 'periyAr', and his illogical
argument above, reminds me of a great passage from the
Upanishad:

"asannEva sa bhavati
asad-brahmEti vEda chEth;
asti brahmEti chEdh vEda
santamEnam tathO viduriti..." 
(Taittiriya Upanishad: "anandavalli")

"If a person takes Brahman for unreal,
Truly he becomes himself unreal;
If he understands Brahman is existent and real,
In consequence thereof, the truly wise ones
of this world
Consider him right and good..."

Sri PeriyAr, being the firm atheist he was until the
very end of his life, most certainly would never have
appreciated the profundity of the Upanishad 'vAkya'
above. "In denying God's existence", says the
Taittiriyam, "we must beware we will be denying our
own. If we are keen to cancel all that is divine
within us, and denounce every trace of spirituality
latent in us, then what will be left in us? Who shall
we then be? If divinity shall not reside within us
what shall we replace it with? Mere earthly dust?
Rotten flesh? If I am not to be of the same divine
nature as God, then what shall I aspire to be?" 

The same lofty sentiments of the Upanishad were echoed
too by the mystical call of the great Tamil saint and
yogi, NammAzhwAr:

"uLarUm illai allaraay
uLaraay illai aagiyE
uLar em oruvar; avar vandu en
uLLatthULLey uraiginraar;" 
("tiruvoimOzhi": 8.8.10)

"He is
for he cannot not be
for his men

for others he is
as if he is not

our lord 
is here
he lives here in me..." 
(translation: A.K.Ramanujan's "Hymns for the
Drowning")

To say that every man on earth who believes in God is
a fool presupposes that 'periyAr' himself was somehow
'all-knowing' or omniscient! Periyar, in effect, was
'playing God Almighty'! He knew everything going on
inside the minds of all God-believers of the world,
past, present and future! And out of such God-like
"omniscience" he concludes "all who believe in God are
fools". 

What Sri.'periyAr' did not realize was that in going
about denying God's existence the way he did, he was
in a way acknowledging Him. He was being an atheist
aspiring to be God! Little did he realize that the
claim to 'omniscience' was essentially, in part, a
religious aspiration, for omniscience
("sarvagnyAtva"), everyone knows, is a God-like
quality pursued by God-seekers too.

Exactly as the Upanishad 'vAkya' in the Taitirriyam
implies, when man seeks to deny God, he often ends up
without knowing it even, and in some way or the other,
affirming Him ... Or, as NammAzhwAr put it: "uLarUm
illai allaraay, uLaraay illai aagiyE..".

***********
(to be continued)

Regards,

dAsan,
Sudarshan


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