by Sri Bmal Mohanty
VOL No. 30
July / August . 2003

ATTEMPTS TO DESCRIBE BRAMHAN - Part 4

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

(In the last article, we were discussing the importance of Sruti as the authoritative aid to lead us towards Bramhan.)

There is yet another aspect that often confuses a novice mind when we speak of srutis being the authority for study of Bramhan. It is the concept of apara vidya and para vidya, roughly translated as inferior knowledge and superior knowledge. We have a upanishad called the Mundaka which raises this point and deals somewhat extensively on the issue. It makes this distinction about knowledge or jnana, and declares in the beginning that all these Rk Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda, this science of sound pronunciation, code of conducts, grammar, etymology, the poetic metre, astrology etc are all inferior knowledge.

Apara rkvedo yajurvedah samavedotharvavedah siksha kalpo vyakaranam niruktam chando yotishamiti

It is like pouring cold water on everything we have discussed so far.

With The Vedas being delegated to inferior knowledge, all our upanishads vedanga sutras, etc lose their importance as the authoritative source of Bramhan. This is a great confusion if not properly understood.

We have a similar situation even in Chandogya Upanishad, another of our authoritative sources. When rishi Narada went to acquire higher knowledge from Sanat Kumara, he was asked first to recount what he already knows. So Narada went on to give a long list of vedic scriptures he has studied, starting from The Vedas to mathematics, sciences, logic and all that, saying that "I know all these.’ To this, Sanat Kumara replied ‘All these are mere names’ mere words. Yat vai etat nama eva etat.

There is something beyond all these and after knowing that, you can rightly say ‘I know’ –or I have truly studied- Adhyemi.

The obvious question that comes to mind is that, if studying all these spiritual scriptures is inferior knowledge, what good will accrue, by studying them? If the Vedas and Upanishads are apara vidya, then where do all other spiritual writings of eminent saints like Sankaracharya, Vivekananda and even Sri Aurobindo and their likes stand? Is it all a waste? Will it not be better to go in for something, which is the higher knowledge or para vidya straightaway and leave all these aside?

This forces us to delve deep into understanding clearly, the very concept of knowledge itself.

The Mundaka Upanishad where this question is raised, also goes to length in explaining what is indeed true knowledge. So also does The Chandogya.

This english word ‘knowledge’ is so generic and unclear in its meaning that, it gives little scope for a wider understanding. In sanskrit, we have atleast three words, which help to differentiate between levels of knowledge. We have vidya, jnana and vijnana. Although no clear cut english translations are available, these can be roughly translated as textual knowledge as in books and also acquired by seeing, hearing etc as vidya, understanding of that at intellect level as jnana, and realisation at consciousness level as vijnana. Lord Krishna makes similar distinction in the seventh chapter of Bhagavad Gita, - The Jnana Vijnana Yoga.

Mundaka Upanishad tells us that when you have read the texts, listened to explanations you have been exposed only to apara vidya. You have gained some vidya, but this vidya is indeed like paddy in the paddy stalks in the field. Until taken out, cooked and eaten it does not serve your purpose.

The purpose of vidya is to be understood by intellect and realised by consciousness. Until that happens it is indeed useless.

Apara Vidya and para vidya, lower knowledge and higher knowledge, are not two different things. There are no two syllabuses as we are accustomed to in our education system. The same apara vidya when it reaches and gets assimilated at the consciousness level becomes para vidya. It then assumes value, width and depth. It then has the power to transform and remould you into a ‘better being’ as Sri Aurobindo would put it. Between aparavidya and paravidya, the vidya does not change, it is we who change. It is the first level of transformation.