Part I: Chapter 5

TRIKA PAVED THE WAY FOR ISLAM - ANOTHER MYTH

With no firm grounding in the realms of philosophy in general and Kashmir Shaivism in particular, Bazaz commits the fallacy of equating monotheism with the Absolute in the Trika, which, to him and Bamzai too, is the apt nomenclature for Kashmir philosophy of Shaiva non-dualism. It is extremely relevant to point out that monotheism in essence is a syriac concept common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam and hence has implicit in it a definite psyche and the syriac-Judaic cultural ring and ambience and contrary to it, the thought of non-dualism, the same as monism, has full-fledged history in India and naturally in Kashmir too. To his lay mind, it appears, though an absurdity, that the concept of Absolute propped upon logically structured thought-constructs led to the acceptance of Islam in Kashmir as 'one God reality' is at the centre of Islamic religion too. Unaware of finer nuances of philosophica1 structures, he seems to hold that Param Shiva or Shiva as the absolute in Kashmir non-dualism is the same God as Gods in Judaism and Islam are. Shiva is an absolute, not a God and an absolute the same way as Shuniya (Void) and Vignyan (Consciousness) are in the Buddhist philosophies of Madyamika and Shunivanvad and Brahman in Sankara's philosophy of Advaitism (non-dualism).

Had Bazaz extended the limits of his misconceived and preposterous thesis, he would have no qualms in formulating that the Indians accepted Islam because of Sankara's philosophy of Advaitism with Brahman as the coping stone of the whole facade. To him, Brahman, perhaps, is the same God as that of Islam.

Monotheism with its Semitic colour and sociological and ethnic background especially syriac and Judaic came over to Islamic realms as a borrowed bequest and if introduced in Kashmir by Muslim proselytizers led by Saiyid Ali Hamadani could not have worked wonders on the thinking plane as it had no halo of being new, original or innovative and more than most there is hardly any region and area of religion or abstract thought which the Hindus have not prolifically conceived and dilated upon with depth and mellowness.

Writes Giri Lal Jain, "There is no human aspiration and experience which lies outside the range of Hinduism."

Writes Rafiqi, "that the idea had long existed in Hinduism. Even as early as Rig Vedic hymns, we meet the idea of 'one reality'. This also is the teaching of upanishads, that whatever is, is Brahman, it is the source and end of all."

Monotheistic religion in sharp contrast to polytheism has its full accent on the idea of one God and professes and assumes the execution of His work on earth. Man in such a religion is enunciated as being highly indebted to God for all his material and tangible possessions in the world. As a sequential corollary, man is required and fiated to repose full faith in God and has to be devoted to him in all gratefulness. A monotheistic religion with the accretion of prophetism is not lost in mystical realms, but is rooted in time and history and looks forward to the end of the world when Justice would be dispensed and meted out. Its interest in the world is not only maximum but supreme as it Is God's gift to man.

Puts Krishna Chaitanya, "Polytheism sees the imprint of God's foot-steps in every manifestation of nature, in river and forest, in sun and moon. But, it too frequently degenerates into animism. Monotheism may be a higher concept, but then one God has been too frequently a jealous tribal deity.

Kashmir Shaiva non-dualism having no comparable parallels with Monotheism has an entirely different root system and soil chemistry. It encompasses and is securely modelled on a world-view, which has no meeting-ground with and not even a remote semblance to the monotheistic idea. To monotheistic religions, creation is deistic, but in Kashmir Shaiva Monism, there is no creation, instead there is perpetual manifestation or emanation and Shiva as the absolute reality is both transcendental and immanent. To Monotheistic religions, man is not accountable for all what he does, good or bad, on the earth. He becomes accountable and is subject to judgment only after he goes to the grave.

But, as per the Shaiva non-dual tenets, every individual is responsible for his actions, past and present, in this world, which is caught up in the layers and meshes of duality and his prime objective in the world is to recognise himself the same as self realisation, by treading upon the path of piety and spiritualism, of course, under the inspiring guidance of a worthy preceptor (guru).

Man has to march through time and history, but his ultimate state is self-recognition, which is the attainment and actualization of original Shiva-condition, pure and pristine, a condition beyond time and history. To Kashmir Monism, world is real, yet it in its basics is a duality and a seeker, who is not an atom in a collective herd, chooses by the exercise of his free will to journey through the zigzags of duality to a state, which is non-dual untainted by the meshes of time and history. Self-recognition is a condition of perfection, though a state attained in and through the world, yet in essence a state of transcendentalism where a self-recognised soul dwells enjoying the beauteous bliss. He may choose to be in the world for altruistic purposes but as a man having tasted the bliss of recognition is not stained by his actions in the world. He is in absolute harmony with the world which though apparently external to him is in reality his own reflection or emanation. Liberation though considered to be in the world, but in essence is beyond the world, which means beyond time and history.

Needham, F.Carr, Paul Tillich and Kausambi have offered a thesis for the peculiar Indian tendency to weave and formulate Absolutist philosophies and have found its deep rooted motivations in the Indian belief in time and history. One may not agree to the formulations that they have offered in this regard, but they have certainly spotlighted the Indian belief in time as cyclical or circular, but not linear or straight. The Indian view-point about time, to Needham, is 'that world goes down the destruction one after another'. Kausambi holds that the belief in four ages of mankind is rooted in the climatic conditions of this land.

These scholars of eminence also hold that the Indians have yet to make history and that is why they have not produced a single work on history detailing out 'a series of specific events in which men are consciously involved and which they consciously influence.'

Though Kashmir has a scintillating and coherent tradition of history-writing, yet the historians have harboured and nurtured the same notions about time and history and that is why terror, trauma and tragedy the Hindus have suffered with the on-set of Muslims in Kashmir have been negated and have not been vividly and graphically drawn and delineated. Fate, to them, is a factor that shapes historical forces and processes, which in themselves are pointless and purposeless.

The above formulations delineating the Indian positions on religious and philosophical issues lead one to postulate that Monotheism as a religious idea emerging from tribal social formations contains a view, which is absolutely at variance with an absolutist philosophy. Where Bazaz has artificially perceived a unity of thought and concept are mutually antagonistic and ideologically divergent with no scope for a rendevouz. In fact he has jay-walked into the whole issue.