In this first part of this series, I will be comparing the how the concepts of Soul and Vimarśa in, respectively, Plotinus’ Enneads and Utpaladeva’s Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā (“Verses on the Recognition of the Lord”, hence abbreviated ĪPK) both (1) proceed from and (2) reflect a prior principle, understood as a kind of universal consciousness. Notably, in both instances, this principle, from which Soul or Vimarśa proceeds, is identified with a masculine deity (Kronos and Śiva, respectively). I am specifically interested in a ‘structural’ comparison, where “the question of historical influence is […] set aside in favour of seeking structural or doctrinal parallels of the two systems” (Just 2013, 4).
Section 1: Procession
Both Vimarśa and Soul proceed from a metaphysically prior intellective principle. I am consciously using this word, ‘proceed’, to distinguish from a kind of creation of an entity or being which is separate from its creator. For both Plotinus and Utpaladeva, this prior principle encompasses both individual cognition and a transcendent intellect (Nous, Prakāśa).
Utpaladeva introduces Vimarśa when defining memory, arguing it must be a form of the reflective awareness of the “Free One” (vimṛśansa iti svairī smaratītyapadiśyate, ĪPK I.4.1). The argument from memory against a Buddhist teaching of no-self is, by Utpaladeva’s time, not original. However, Utpaladeva grounds memory not in an atomized, individual soul but in the persistent self which is identical to the “Free One,” who is explained in his commentary to be Śiva (tasyaikasya vibhoḥ kartuḥ sa ityatra pūrvānubhūtatvena pratyavamarśaḥ smṛtirnām vyāpāraḥ, ĪPK vṛtti on I.4.1; note the qualities ascribed to the possessor of this memory-as-Vimarśa : this possessor is one [eka] omnipresent [vibhu] agent [kartṛ]).
Furthermore, Utpaladeva “indissolubly link[s] consciousness, reflective awareness and the supreme word” (Torella 2021, xxvi) by asserting that “[c]onsciousness has as its essential nature reflective awareness (pratyavamarśa); it is the supreme Word (parāvāk) that arises freely” (ĪPK I.5.13). In his commentary on this verse, he explains that “[t]his is the First Word, in which the expressible is undifferentiated” (ĪPK vṛtti on I.5.13). Differentiation, then, is part of the ‘free arising’ of the Supreme Word from consciousness. This ‘free arising’ is intimately connected to Vimarśa, or reflective awareness, and I am considering it as a kind of procession.
Utpaladeva’s connection of Vimarśa to Word (vāk) as the “essential nature” of consciousness offers an interesting entryway to comparison with Plotinus’ account of the procession of the hypostatic Soul from Nous. Plotinus describes Soul as the image (eikon) of Intellect (εἰκών τίς ἐστι νοῦ, En. V.1.3.7). While this may appear to make Soul derivative, as a kind of external reflection of the Intellect, he immediately qualifies this iconic relationship with an important comparison to speech:
“…[a]s a word (logos) in utterance is an expression of the word (logou) in soul, so too soul is the expression (logos) of intellect and its whole activity (he pasa energeia) and the life which it sends forth for the existence of another.” (En. V.1.3.7-9; Perl 2015, 36).
Because he emphasizes the continuity between the inner word (logos) and its outer expression, Plotinus’s word eikon must be read as an elevated use of the term (cf. Lamberton 1986, 87-88; Butler 2005, 89; Vassilopoulou 2014, 487-488), not simply a mimetic relationship but as an image which has within it the presence of that of which it is an image. Plotinus also finds this emergence of Soul from Intellect in his mythical exegeses, where he traces the emergence of the Heavenly Aphrodite to Kronos “who is Intellect.” (τὴν δὲ οὐρανίαν λεγομένην ἐκ Κρόνου νοῦ ὄντος ἐκείνου ἀνάγκη ψυχὴν θειοτάτην εἶναι, En. III.5.2.19-20).
Section 2: Reflection
Vimarśa and Soul retain a necessarily reflexive relationship to the principle from which they proceed. This reflexivity takes on soteriological importance for both Utpaladeva and Plotinus.
While in some respects this reflectivity is built into Utpaladeva’s vocabulary by using ‘Vimarśa’ and related terms, he further develops this reflexivity with his concept of “savoring” (camatkāra; following Torella 2023, 63 rather than Gnoli 1968, who understands this term to mean ‘wonder’). Prakāśa is a sentient reality for Utpaladeva because it ‘savors.’ He demonstrates this through a counterfactual, saying that “[i]n the absence of reflective awareness, light, though objects make it assume different forms, would merely be ‘limpid’, but not sentient, since there is no ‘savouring’ (camatkṛteḥ)” (ĪPK vṛtti on I.5.11). Because it engages in the activity (ĪPK vṛtti on I.5.12) as a result of its reflective awareness, it must be considered sentient. Sthaneshwar Timalsina summarizes this point well when he writes that “[i]t is now evident that Vimarśa is not one among the modes of consciousness but an essential aspect embedded in every mode of conscious experience” (Timalsina 2021, 103).
Utpaladeva connects this ‘savoring’ to the reflection of consciousness on itself. When summarizing his teachings, he says that “[t]he one, full of savouring (camatkāra) of the undivided perceiving subject, of the undivided perceptible object and the fusion of the two […] the Self common to all beings, is Maheśvara” (ĪPK vṛtti on IV.1.1). Maheśvara’s savoring is of the unitary reflective awareness (akhaṇḍāmarśam, ‘partless awareness’, ĪPK VI.1.1; cf. Torella 2021, 210, footnotes 1-2) whose contents are “I” (aham), which is “the undivided perceiving subject”, “this” (idam), which is the “undivided perceptible object”, and “I-this” (ahamidam) (ĪPK VI.1.1). The reflective awareness “I-this” proves to be an essential aspect of Utpaladeva’s soteriological aim of ‘recognition of the Lord’ (the title of his work): “[t]he liberated soul looks at ‘common’, cognizable reality [i.e., the idam of ahamidam] as being undifferentiated from himself [i.e., the aham of ahamidam]” (ĪPK VI.1.13).
While the reflectivity of Soul is not transparent in the term, it is clearly developed through Plotinus’ erotics. The Soul (as Aphrodite) reverts to Nous (as Kronos) in a pivotal moment in Plotinus’ account of the birth of Eros:
“In fact, directed towards Kronos, or if you wish, towards Ouranos, the father of Kronos, she is in action [energese] towards him and is at home with him; in desiring him, she gives birth to Eros. And with Eros she is looking towards him. Her own activity makes a hypostasis and a being, both looking towards the intelligible. Both she who gives birth and the beautiful Eros who is born are eternally ranged towards another beauty.” (En. III.5.2.33-38, my translation).
This activity of the Soul – reversion to Intellect, which produces Eros – plays a central role in Plotinian soteriology. This is because Eros does not only direct the Soul towards Intellect, but beyond it, as Eros is “the activity of Soul which strives for the Good” (En. III.5.4.21-23, my translation). In achieving the ascent to that Good which every soul desires (cf. En. I.6.7.1), the distinction between the one who looks, the looking and that which is looked at dissolves (En. I.6.9.15-30). This dissolution is the perfection of the activity of Soul (Eros) because it has attained the Good; as such, it is at peace and, in true eudaimonia, desires nothing else (cf. En. I.4.4).
(Stay tuned for part II, concerning the immateriality of Vimarśa and Soul).
References
Gnoli, Raniero (1968). The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta. Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies LXII. (Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office). Second Edition.
Henry, Paul and Schwyzer, Hans-Rudolf (eds.) (1964-1983), Plotini Opera. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Vol. I-III.
Just, Michal. (2013) “Neoplatonism and Paramādvaita”, Comparative Philosophy 4.2. 1-28.
Perl, Eric D (tr.) (2015), Plotinus Ennead V.1 On the Three Primary Levels of Reality: Translation with an Introduction and Commentary. Dillon, John M. and Smith, Andrew (eds.) (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing).
Timalsina, Sthaneshwar (2021), “Vimarśa: The Concept of Reflexivity in the Philosophy of Utpala and Abhinavagupta”, Acta Orientalia 80:98-121.
Torella, Raffaele (2021) (Tr.), The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of Utpaladeva with the Author’s Vṛtti: Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass).
Torella, Raffaele. (2023), “Camatkāra.” Journal of Indological Studies (34-35), March. pp. 39-72.