Hermeneutics and metaphysics 26-30
Essays by Dr K.Loganathan

[26. Sivayoga and Overcoming Sexual Morbidity; 27. AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism 128. AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism 2; 29. AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism 3; 30. AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism 4]



 

Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

26: Sivayoga and Overcoming Sexual Morbidity

Saivism posses within itself a very deep analysis of human psychodynamics and in this in some ways  anticipating the important features of Freudian  Psychoanalysis. It is not an accident that C.G Jung has subjected Yoga to an in-depth analysis along psychoanalytical lines in many of his writings. In the studies of Tamil Siddhas from Thirumular to recent times we  also find also very deep analysis of this and the identification of psychosis neurosis and so forth and prescription of rituals and yoga practices by way curing them and which constitutes the central impulse in Siddha medical system though only the herbal and pharmacological aspects are widely known.

One of the fundamental contributions coming from the Tamil Siddhas is the concept Naadi , which over and above the meaning of pulse beat also has the meaning that "which establishes naaddam", the seeking out something, desires that is stubborn. They classify them into Pingkalai Idakali Suzimunai and finally Guru Naadi. The word " guru " , here has the meaning "large, enormous, foundational" and so forth. The Guru Naadi is the PULL unto BEING Himself and as constituted by ParaNatam and ParaBindu. The rest are constituted by Apara Natam (idakalai) Apara Vintu (pingkalai) and both together ( suzimunai)

When the nadies are constituted by the Apara Natam and Vintu they establish inner pressures for worldly enjoyments especially the sexual in a wide sense of the word. When the psychic entity escapes these pulls and aligns itself with the founding Guru Naadi, it becomes essentially a mumuksu i.e. that which is concerned with attaining and enjoying Mukti. The Tamil Saivites call this Sivayoga and link it up with the visions of the Third Eye, the eye of transductive perceptions, vinjnjana kaadsi , as Arunandi would say.

It would appear that  there is already an intrinsic PULL of all anmas towards BEING  but only by a transmutation of the primordial sexuality into Bakthi, the transmutation of sexual love into divine love that being in the presnece of BEING ( sanniti) that one can enjoy it genuinely.  However sexual morbidity can arise on the way if the sexual is NOT enjoyed in the way it shoul be. . And the right way appears to be as that under romantic and aesthetical and as constituted by Thirumal( Vishnu ) and Brahma but more directly by Manmatan, the Hindu Cupid who has as  his weapons (kaNai) Sugarcane , a soft  bed, flower garden, breeze and love songs.

The Third Eye that every human being is capable of and Sivayoga , the discipline that keeps this eye open is said to be by Appar in this verse as that which will avoid the transformation of the sexual desires aroused by Manmatan into something morbid and hence destructive. The sexually morbid individuals may  be , in addition to being psychotic also a killer, hence a dangerous  kind of individual especially when he is also politically very powerful
 

142

kazai padu kaadu tenRal kuyil kuuval anjcu
    kaNaiyoon aNaintu pukalum
mazaivadi vaNNan eNNi makavoonaividda
    malaraana thodda matanan
ezilpodi ventu viiza imaiyoor kaNangkaL
    eri enri iRainjci akalat
tazalipadu neRRi oRRai nayananj civanta
    tazalvaNNan entai caraNee
 

Meaning:

Manmatan, the archetype of Sexual desires has as his weapons : the sugar-cane that installs the desire for enjoying thepleasant, a bed suitable for the conjugal act, the garden that provides the mood, the breeze and pleasant  music such as  that of Kuyil that arouse sexual desires.  When once Civa isolated Himself from Parvathy and concentrated asMakayogi in Kailash, there was lack of happiness and enthusiasm to live  among the living things all over the world.Seeing this Brahma and the Dark-hued Thirumal and Indra implored Manmatan to aim his weapons at Civa, arouse
sexual desires in Him and make Him unite with Parvathy. However when Manmatan attempted this , he and hisweapons were singed to ashes  by Civa when he opened His Third Eye, the Eye of Fire. ( Then Civa , on thepleading of Rati, the consort of Manmatan, restored life to him but only to be visible to Rati) . The celestial beingsrealizing now the BEING can be FIRE ran way in fear pleading for grace. This BEING who appears with  theSingle  Eye on the Forehead and in the form of FIRE, is my Father and recluse.
 

Commentary:

This mythical theme also well known,  brings out another aspect of the Third Eye normally associated withBEING-as-Civa but not so far as as know, with Brahma or Thirumal (Vishnu). The close linkages this Eye has withthe Form of Fire BEING assumes and these forms in order to burn off sexual desires, the root cause of all desires isbeing brought out in this verse. And for obvious reasons: even tyranny and terrorism are products of desires probably twisted and misdirected forms of the sexual and hence once if this desires is eliminated from the interiority of the
psyche,  real freedom and humanity can be enjoyed and anma also rescued from becoming a tyrant.

The Third Eye is the metaphysical eye and when that eye alone is open we have BEING as Makayogi, BEING asCattan (derived from' 'cat", the Absolute)) , BEING as totally withdrawn unto Himself. There is SELF-CLOSURE and because of which he becomes forgetful of Parvathy, which literally means the Woman of the World.  TheManifest World  becomes forgotten, to speak metaphorically here and hence the world made insipid and lacking in every motivational dynamics much to the disappoint of Vishnu, the BEING of the Manifest World, the Purusha.  All the living creatures languish and and suffer without any interest in whatever.

It is realized now that it is sexual desire that is the ROOT CAUSE of it all and that all living things derive theirmotivation or energia from this desire. So the archetypes of the worldly pleasures Brahma Vishnu Indra and so forth, to restore this primordial impulses to act, implore Manmatan to aim his weapons at Civa as Makayogi but who gets burnt to ashes along with his weapons when HE opens the Third Eye, the Eye on the Forehead that always emits Fire  of intense heat. This simply means that when the anma is imbued with the intense desire for metaphysical
illuminations, the desire to unravel and become clear about the hidden mysteries of Existence and which are beyondthe physical and available only in the metaphysical realms is or can be  so consuming that all the worldly desires .including the sexual, the most primordial of all, can be burnt off and singed to ashes.

This myth discloses a hidden aspect of BEING, that He can assume forms that would kill even the very obstinate anddifficult to overcome sexual desires; that man and woman can attain real freedom , the freedom from desires by the Grace of BEING when he bestows the vision of the Third Eye for the creatures. This  also means rescueing the anmas from becoming tyrants of a sort because of twisted nature of the sexual libido, it becoming  morbid and thereby  immensely destructive.

Civayoga understood here as the discipline that is concerned with opening the Metaphysical Eye  and seeing everything with that Eye appears  to be  the solution Appar offers to prevent the emergence of the morbid individuals , somewhat psychotic and tyrannical, individuals who would never hesitate to kill even innocents to achieve their own desires . Morbidity of the mind is perhaps a product of sexual libido twisted and corrupted for lack of proper channels of discharge which consists in enjoying it within LOVE, that weapons that  Manmatan installs and that too with the blessings of Thirumal etc.



 

Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

27 : AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism -1

One of the elements that  Dravidian Philosophical tradition embodies and which is of universal interest is the HERMENEUTICAL principles it upholds  in philosophic matters. While it is true of  both the Saiva and Vaishanava traditions , it appears that beginning from the Civanjanabotham of Meykandar it became so well developed that metaphysics itself became transformed into a field of Hermeneutic Science. This notion was carried over by his foremost student Arunandi who wrote TWO classics in Dravidian  Philosophy Irupa Irupatu and the massive Civanjana Ciitiyaar. The Ciitiyaar is divided into TWO parts the Parapkkam and Supakkam and the whole book is organized on the basis of disconstruction. The parapakkam constitutes the darsanas that  are discontructible and the Supaakam that which cannot and within which  is located Saiva Siddhanta.

Within Parapakkam Arunandi takes up  first and discontructs the Lokayatas who have  been in the whole of India in various shades and from very ancient times. The Lokayata's view that seeing is the same sensing and that there are no interpretive movements of the mind where from the surface structures the deep structures are inferred ( anumana) is that which is disconstructed here. What is interesting is that no authorities -- Vedic or Agamic --  are brought in to substantiate the view. Everything remains hermeneutical,  matters concerned with UNDERSTANDING and hence something of universal application. It is shown  that human understanding in general in being historical is also temporal and that because of this,  SEEING is different from sensing for seeing involves TEMPORALITY but nor pure sensing.

In this  there  are some parallels between Heidegger and Arunandi. However  while Saiva Siddhanta notes that anma sat-asattu i.e. historical-ahistorical  and hence with the possibility to become totally and completely ahistorical and hence atemporal, such a notion is absent in Heidegger.

In the following verse that is concerned about the genesis of njaanam that I have translated as Understanding, Arunandi argues that it is a product of INTERPRETIVE processes  and hence in a way inferential. In this way he points out that in ordinary life we do infer and our thinking in general involves such interpretive movements of the mind and which in turn generate understanding. Understanding does not come to be there just because the senses meet the objects, there are  many interpretive and hence inferential processes at work before something is understood as such and such.
 

35

kaaNdaloo anumaanam aavatum
    kaadci munnatum kaadciyeel
puuNda puuta udambinuL ezu
    pootam enkodu kaNadnai
maaNda vaayin manangkoL njaanam
    uNarntatum anumaanam enRu
iiNdu puutam iyaintatu ivvudal
    enpatu en piramaaNamee

Now while there is such thing as historical understanding, the understanding of the past that the hermeneuts claim isafter all sensorial only that they are perceptions that have become a matter of the past, and hence there are noinferential processes over and the sensorial-- thus says the Lokayata. However let  me ask you: you have granted that  there is such a thing as 'understanding' ; now tell me how do you come to this conclusion? My view is that it is through a process induction, a species of the inferential . The physical stimuli that impinge upon the senses are processed by the cognitive mechanisms of the mind  and because of which there is understanding and consciousness. Thus the notion that there is understanding even now is after all inferential, it is going beyond the sensory stimulations.  So is also the case with the conclusions you have made about the physical bodies -- that they are generated from the  five fold basic elements.

Notes:
 

The whole thrust of the disconstruction of the Lokayatas that AruNandi practices here presupposes hermeneutics in which the notions of understanding and interpretations are central. The Lokayatas  have no choice but  to accept the fact that our understanding is HISTORICAL, that it goes to the past from the present and PROJECTS into future on the basis of the understanding of the present. Within the framework of historical understanding such as this , the Lokayatas observe , the past is after all the perceived but which has become the past and hence there is no getting away from the fact everything is sensorial and hence there is no necessity to bring in the inferential and so forth.

However Arunandi considers now the PRESENT that is also a part of the historical understanding and the basic fact that UNDERSTANDING as such is acknowledged even by the Lokayatas. The point Arunandi makes is that, the  understanding that exists even now is NOT purely sensorial and that it is generated only because of the INTERPRETIVE processes of the mind. There are various kinds of stimuli that impinge upon the senses and they will  remain purely physical stimuli unless they are PROCESSED as such and  INTERPRETED as being this and that. Such  interpretive processes are a species of the inferential or inductive as they  involve going beyond the physically given.

The conclusion that there is such a thing as understanding and to which is related consciousness or njaanam and which is  inductive and a kind of anumaanam, or inferential.  It is also claimed that Lokayatas' central doctrine of Physicalism,  that all bodies are ultimately generated from the four basic elements of earth fire water and wind , is also similar, something that presupposes inductive kind of thinking though the Lokayatas remain blind to it.


Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

28: AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism - 2

One of the central principles of the materialists then as of now is the denial of the categorical distinction between the psychical and physical, the mental and the brutal. They practice a kind of REDUCTIONISM , that of reducing the mental to the physical and thereby denying also the truth of metaphysical experiences that constitutes the essence of religious life. What can overcome this reductionism is the practice of science as Hermeneutic Science, the kind of sciences practised extensively  in the Dravidian countries and perhaps also all over India within the Agamic oe Tantric traditions. It may also be possible that it is the development of the Hermeneutic Sciences that is quite distinctive of Indian Civilization as a whole.

In the following verse AruNandi provides his disconstruction of the physicalistic view of the mental and reductionism that accompanies it by showing there is INTENTIONALITY and that because of that  the anma is TEMPORAL , its understanding historical with the attendant three ekstases of time (as noted by Heidegger), the past present and future. Of particular importance here is the notion of KuRippuk Kaalam of Tolkaappiyar, the consciousness of TIME that comes along with  INTENTIONALITY, also called the psychological time and so forth.  Human understanding reaches OUTSIDE itself only because of this inherent intentionality and it is only because of this there is the-tic consciousness, consciousness of things in terms of 'this' and 'that' that meykandar calls cudduNarvu. This phenomena also shows that the anma is distinct and NOT to be confused with the product of the material processes.

The existence of the mental phenomena is a fact of life and the Lokayata's reduction amounts to explaining it away rather than explaining the phenomena, so contends AruNandi

42.

aRivu puutamatu ennil veeRu
    puRattu aRintamai kaNdilam
ceRivu taan udalattu enil cava
    maana pootu udal teerumoo
kuRikoLaatu udal vaayuvaanatu
    kuudidaamaiyin ennin nii
piRitaraatu niRka njaanam
    uRakkam en piRavaatatee?

Meaning:

 Lokayata! You say that intelligence is just another  one of  physical products generated by the combination of thebasic physical elements. Then how do you  explain that living creatures are INTENTIONAL and in that they perceive  something as a " that"  and which is external to themselves? Now if you deny this externality and say that such mental  processes are internal  (biophysiological) and happen within the body , then how to you explain that at the point of  death while the  body is still intact there is no intelligence as such? Now if you say such consciousness related  processes become unavailable because of the departure of the WIND, then how do you explain the fact that  during  deep sleep while there is still breathing but there is NO consciousness?

NOTES

This constitutes one of the fundamental objections of Arunandi to the materialism of the Lokayatas which is essentially  REDUCTIONISTIC, the denying of the categorical and ontological difference between intelligence andnon-intelligence, a distinction that is accommodated with the hermeneutical way of looking at things. The hermeneutswould see the living things  as TEXTS in which the psychological would be seen as the Deep Structure and the biophysiological as the Surface Structure. While it is true that INTELLIGENCE as such cannot be understood as there  independent of the physical embodiments, categorically they are NOT the same. For the living creatures are
characterized by INTENTIONALITY and they do not simply sense objects in the world but SEE them , a process that requires grasping as it is something outside themselves.

Of course such phenomena have  biophysiological correlates -- brain processes of various kinds in which theinformation that reach the brain through the five senses are processed and an object is recognized as such and such.But all such perceptions emerge as "a tree over there" ' a pain in my foot " etc.  A close examination of such processes indicate that perceiving is NOT simply translating the sensorial input into object identities. There is a SELECTION mechanism at work and unless such selections are operative there , the singling out and synthesizing a mass of sensory input into that as  pertaining to a particular  object will NOT take place. And when we look at the
SELECTIVE mechanisms we can see that it  is psychical, there is actually a psyche, a non-material spiritual thingwhich does all these. The INTENTIONALITY is that which makes the psychic entities go beyond the internalpsychobiological processes and grasp an object in the world and as in the world and hence  outside the internalcognitive processes that disclose its presence. That seeing as such is psychical and NOT merely psychobiological isshown by pointing out that when a person is dead, the body is there intact but seeing is no more and hence alsoperceiving. The dead person does not perceive despite the presence of all the biophysiological mechanisms.

Now Lokayata in admitting the presence of INTENTIONALITY, tries to explain it away by saying that it  is simply  the  function of the WIND that which is the cause of the breathing processes, the inhaling and exhaling, the fundamental  biophysiological processes that maintain LIFE as such. As against this Arunandi notes that while during deep sleep while breathing goes on as usual , there is ABSENCE of conscious prehension, the functioning ofINTENTIONALITY even as dreams.  We have here a situation where there is breathing for the person is NOT deadbut nevertheless  is NOT conscious and hence experiencing anything INTENTIONAL including the dreaming which
may indirectly be  related to intentionality. This shows that the proposed correlation between breathing andconsciousness does not hold.



 

Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

29 : AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism -3

Lokayata's view that intelligence is NOT primordial and categorically different but rather a byproduct of the biophysical processes is disconstructed by pointing out that there is INTENTIONALITY and Temporality as a fabric of human ( also animal) consciousness and as such it cannot be just a byproduct of the physical but organic processes in the body. Intelligence is something not only ABOVE but also more primordial. The body is what a soul assumes  something like clothes people wear -- we can discard the old and assume a new one. Of course the primary intention of the Lokayata is to DENY the reality of Karma first, karma understood here as the action-deposits lodged in the deep recesses of the mind some  of which persist even when the body is dissolved and regulates the acquisition of a new body and other cognitive mechanisms  during rebirth or regeneration (prapta karma)

But now another argument is put forward to circumvent the admission of Karma in the Deep Structure of the world processes underlying the reproductive  mechanisms of the creature regeneration. Intelligence is seen as Gestaltic, something that emerges like the melodies of an orchestral performance, something that emerges when the body functions COLLECTIVELY and TOGETER  and hence at the disruption of which it is no more. This may be a Lokayata adaptation of the Camudaya Vada of the early Buddhists who were also positivists of a kind.

AruNandi brings to bear upon this the EVOLUTIONARY differences among the creatures , an understanding that has been with the Tamils at least the days of Tolkaappiyam and which has been well accommodated within Saivite thinking as seen  Manikkavasagar's CivapuraNam . This evolutionary notions may also be hidden in the VaishaNava notions of Tasavataaram, the ten fold Avatars that BEING-as-VISHNU assumes but all cloaked in mythological garb.

The point Arunadi at pains to make is that , the evolutionary differences among creatures which is an observable fact requires noting the presence Karma in the deep structure as that which regulates creature evolution and hence the differences.

43.

aRivudaR  kuNamennil aanaiyatu
    aati antam eRumpataa
uRum udaR peritaanavaRril
    utittidum peritaakavee
ciRuvudaR ceRi njaanamum ciRitaa
    aayidum pariNaamamum
peRum udaR ciRitaavatu en peritu
aavatu en cila peecidee!

Meaning:

Now because of the incapacity (of the materialistic notions to explain the phenomenon of death at which pointconsciousness is totally absent and that of  deep sleep or swoon in which while there is breathing there is noself-consciousness) you Lokayata may say that Consciousness arises only because of the ORGANIZATION feature ofthe physical body of the creatures . Now this would mean that the creatures with large bodies like elephants and thosewith small bodies like the ants would have higher and lower kind of intelligence. The SIZE  of the physical body must correlate with intelligence being more or less evolved but this NOT the case in the world. Furthermore the fact
that creatures have bodies of different sizes is also something that needs to be explained. Can you explain this (withoutrecourse to the notion of Karma?)

NOTES:

The Hermeneutic perspective within which Arunandi operates enables him to disconstruct another view of theLokayatas with respect to explaining the presence of intelligence in living creatures. The view that consciousness is a product of biophysical structure of the body was disconstructed by presenting the fact that at the point ofdeath, something happens whereby there is NO MORE intelligence and hence consciousness while the biophysical organs may remain intact, at least in most cases of death. This led to noting intelligence as something arising because of psychophysical processes that are ultimately related to the breathing processes. But
against this it was pointed out that while during deep sleep ( or in the state of swoon and so forth), the psychophysical processes particularly breathing while active there is nevertheless no consciousness.

Now emerges another candidate for the Lokayata, the materialists: the body as a whole that remains intact.While at the point of death there is disintegration as the WIND is no more while during deep sleep there is intelligence as the body as WHOLE is there.

Now Arunandi notes that this view creates problems with respect to the intelligence being higher and lower and this NOT correlating well with size of the physical body. If intelligence is purely a matter of the WHOLENESS of the body and DIFFERENCES in intelligence a matter purely related to the SIZE of the body, the materialists can get away with their view. However an examination of the intelligence of the creatures and body size show that this NOT always the case. In modern terms we may agree that the single-celled creatures may be very low in intelligence but when it comes to the mammals this is certainly not true. The human beings are capable of LANGUAGE and as such disclose a very high level of intelligence but their body in no way the largest among the mammals.

Now a modern lokayata  may shift the body size to the size of the cranium or the brain and claim that intelligence is a matter of the size of the brain ( and its complicated internal structure) However in anticipation of such views Arunandi points that even if it is the case it DEMANDS an explanation, WHY the brain sizes differ and so forth.

Of course what is implied by this rhetorical  thrust is that there is something like Karma, something
imperceptible but certainly active in the genesis of the physical body itself.


Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

30 : AruNandi's Disconstruction of Materialism - 4
 
 

Reading between the lines what we notice is that the Lokayatas of the time of the  Imperial Cholas were just as astute as the Saiva philosophers who were inspired by the insights of the Saiva Nayanmars in the metaphysical pursuits. It is unfortunate we do not  have any texts by the Lokayatas to understand their views from their own words ( There is a manuscript  published recently by Dr N. Ganesan  which may  may fill up this gap. I had only a cursory look at it and it seems to be a severe critique of the religious philosophies  of the times)

Undeterred by Arunandi's critique of the Lokayatas position that Karma need not be brought in to explain the creature differences they offer an alternative explanation of the matter which is also disconstructed by AruNandi in this verse. In this alternative the Lokayatas bring in the notions of TWO kinds of physical stuff that I call mental-stuff and brute- stuff and in this they might have been  influenced by the notions of Suddha Maayai and Asuddha Maayai that has been noted in the Saiva classics. The understanding is that there is primordial Maayai, the stuff out of which all are generated and which differentiates into the Suddha Maayai, the Pure-Stuff and the Asuddha   Maayai, the Impure or Brute stuff.  It was understood that all mental phenomena are products of Suddha Maayai while all concretival products that of Asuddha Maayai, both arising as differentiation of Tuu Mayaai. The use of the term 'maayai" here is quite different from that in Advaita Vedantic philosophies where it has probably the meaning of "magical" as in mayasakthi, a bewildering and incomprehensible power that fabricates as if by magic a bewildering variety of mental constructs and thus fascinates and imprisons the mind.

Lokayatas thesis that  the differences arise due to the presence of different proportions of these two different kinds stuff in the  genesis of creatures bodies is disconstructed by noting that there must some kind of LAW or Niyati operating to account for these different proportions of these kinds of stuff. The process is NOT chaotic or haphazard or purely accidental but rather rule governed, and hence the need to acknowledge the workings of KARMA  as such
 

44

pootamum melivaakiyum mali puutamaanavai kuudaliR
peetamodu peruttu udaRkaL ciRutta peRRimai enRidin
ootu udaR peritaanavunj  ciRitaayidaa ciRitaanavunm
niitiyiR paritaayidaa munam uLLa tanmaiyil niidumee

Meaning:

Now the Lokayata continues to defend his view that Consciousness is a quality of the physical body. Within thisnotion the different body sizes and they not correlating with intelligence in explained thus: when in the genesis of abody if the percentage of intelligence-stuff  or mental -stuff ( considered as a material evolute) is larger than the physical-stuff or brute-stuff    then we have creatures with higher intelligence but small physical bodies. In the same manner  when the converse happens  then we have creatures with large bodies and lower intelligence. But this is problematic for there are no laws or some  kind of  causality underlying these differences. The creatures with large bodies do not on their own accord become  creatures with small  bodies. And also the converse. Underlying these changes there must be Karma that regulates  these developments. And if there are such factors regulating the evolutionary developments, then all creatures will  persist  with the bodies they already have.
 

Notes:

The problem now shifts to the evolutionary dynamics of creatures, which according to Saiva Siddhanta requires thenotion of Karma as that which regulates and  because of which we have the differences in the kinds of intelligencesand bodies that creatures enjoy. The Saivites understand that the psychic entities EVOLVE and this evolution intocreatures of higher intelligence is something dependent on Karma, i.e. the deposits  of action-outcomes in the present course of life. Thus creatures attain a higher kind of birth and hence cognitive mechanisms and bodies consistent with it as regulated by the traces  of action-outcomes  lodged in the deeper recesses of the psyche and which is termed as karma. We must note here the word "karu " means 'to do someting, to effect something" as in the Sumerian "ilu gar-u" (set of lament)  gu gar-u ( set up a cry ) and so forth. Each action effected elicits a set of mantra complexes and which become lodged in the deeper parts of the psyche and which contribute to  the biological conditions of its next birth. BEING is postulated as the GROUND of all these and which are taken to function according to a NIYATI, a system of rules.

The Lokayata deny this view and provide explanation of the matter as follows:

There are TWO kinds of material stuff : the mental-stuff and physical-stuff and they can combine in variousproportions and it is these differences in the proportions these two different kinds of stuff combine that determine thedifferences in the evolutionary developments

Now as an extension of this view we can reason along the following lines:  creatures very primitive in evolutionary ladder like the single cell amoebae and so forth have small amounts of both say compared to ants and termites and such other creatures . And among the mammals it may be  that the amount of mental-stuff may be more than the physical for man and the converse for elephants and so forth.

But the problems with this view as seen by AruNandi is with respect to the LAWS  or some kind of PRINCIPLEunderlying  such evolutionary changes . The Lokayatas make it appear that these processes are UNREGULATEDand haphazard, processes that happen as if purely by accidents with no principles involved at all. They make the natural processes that underlie the evolutionary mechanism of creatures completely arbitrary and chaotic with NOorder or principle involved and which DENIES the observational  truth that there is linkage between evolution and the actions that are effected by the creatures.  Karma is postulated as the mediator of the changes in the evolution andactions effected and this explains better what prevails in the world.


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