Abstract
The notion of maximal greatness is arguably part of the very concept of God: something greater than God is not even possible. But how should we understand this notion? The aim of this paper is to provide a Śaivist answer to this question by analyzing the form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition. First, I extract a model of divine greatness, the Hierarchical Model, from Nagasawa’s work Maximal God. According to the Hierarchical Model, God is that than which nothing could be greater by virtue of being better suited than all other beings in relation to certain great-making properties (§1). I then offer an analysis of the form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition by discussing passages from the works of Somānanda, the founder of the Pratyabhijñā school, and of Utpaladeva, the most prominent of Somānanda’s disciples. I argue that the Pratyabhijñā theist cannot account for divine greatness in terms of the Hierarchical Model. My argument is that the Hierarchical Model requires a comparison between God and other beings that cannot be made with the Pratyabhijñā God (§2). Finally, I develop an original alternative model, the Unlimited Nature Model, that accounts for God’s maximal greatness in a way that suits Pratyabhijñā’s theism. According to the Unlimited Nature Model, the nature of all ordinary beings is metaphysically limited as a result of realizing only a small portion of the potential of what could be, and God is maximally great because only he has a completely unlimited nature (§3).
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Notes
Cf. Nagasawa (2017, 56–64).
For reasons of simplicity, this account does not consider the possibility of mutually inconsistent properties. If some great-making properties were such that they were mutually incompatible, then the Hierarchical Model should be reformulated so as to characterize God’s maximal greatness as a matter of instantiating the best consistent combination of great-making properties and extent of those.
In fact, Pratyabhijñā theism is generally understood to be a form of pantheism or panentheism. See Nemec (2014) for a discussion of pantheism and panentheism in Somānanda and Utpaladeva, and Biernacki (2013) for an account of Pratyabhijñā panentheism in the later philosopher of the school Abhinavagupta.
For the purposes of the present paper, we can leave it open whether this is to be better understood as a form of metaphysical idealism, panpsychism, or something else.
But not temporally. See Prueitt (2020).
It is worth mentioning that the claim that everything is nondual with Śiva’s consciousness also applies to the relation between Śiva and his very creative power. In the Pratyabhijñā tradition, the creative power of Śiva is known as śakti, and in the Śivadṛṣṭi Somānanda affirms the nonduality of Śiva and śakti very clearly: ‘Śiva does not exist apart from śakti; śakti is not different (from Śiva)’ (Somānanda & Utpaladeva, 2011, 214). Somānanda also explains their nonduality metaphorically by saying that ‘[c]oldness is not separated from snow, and heat cannot be separated from fire’ (ibid, 218), the idea being that just as coldness does not exist somewhere separated from the snow, śakti is not separated from Śiva.
Of course, another consequence of the nondual view is that Śiva cannot be gendered. In this paper, I keep the use of masculine pronouns to refer to Śiva to maintain consistency with Nemec’s translation and with the considerations on the issue that Utpaladeva makes in his commentary to the Śivadṛṣṭi (see Somānanda & Utpaladeva, 2011, 213).
This view of creation connects to important issues in the Pratyabhijñā tradition concerning causation. Somānanda subscribes to a doctrine of causation known as satkāryavāda, according to which effects are always already inherent in the causes. This doctrine is important in explaining why Śiva does not change his nature in the process of creation. Since the effect (the created world) is always inherent in the cause (Śiva’s consciousness) it is not the case that Śiva’s nature gets affected by the creation process (see Somānanda & Utpaladeva, 2011, 235–236).
Cf. Utpaladeva (2002, 154), where he characterizes existence and non-existence as applying to particular manifestations that metaphysically depend on Śiva.
I want to thank an anonymous reviewer for helping me clarifying this point.
Cf. Somānanda & Utpaladeva (2011, 119).
Notice that one could take this to pose a puzzle for the Pratyabhijñā conception of māyā or the noncognition of non-duality. On the one hand, as in the passage quoted in the previous subsection (i.e., Somānanda & Utpaladeva, 2011, 114), the noncognition of non-duality is understood as the power involved in the process of creation as God’s self-variegation, which we understood as having a metaphysical component; on the other, the noncognition of non-duality seem to be used to refer to the lack of one’s capacity to see God’s unity qua creation (as opposed to seeing even the variegated world as nothing but God’s consciousness), which points instead to an epistemic distinction. This tension becomes particularly tricky when one connects it to the Pratyabhijñā understanding of liberation, for while noncognition in the first sense seem not to be faulty (in fact, it’s the very power that generates the created world), in its second sense it refers to a cognitive state that we should get rid of in order to achieve liberation. This issue is explicitly addressed by Somānanda and Utpaladeva. Utpaladeva writes that ‘[e]ven when duality exists, the condition of Śiva exists in this way, i.e., in a dualistic form […]. Moreover, that, i.e., the duality, has Śiva as its nature, and in this way, the duality being of the nature of Śiva, there is no bondage; since that doesn’t exist, there is no liberation, either the latter being dependent on the former’ (Somānanda & Utpaladeva, 2011, 256). Utpaladeva’s answer to the problem is thus to embrace the noncognition of non-duality as the power behind creation and reject the ultimate value of the distinction between liberation and non-liberation or bondage. The world just is the result of Śiva’s self-variegation. Still, this duality is always subsumed under the non-duality of everything being of Śiva’s nature. Whether this is a satisfactory solution or not, I will leave to future research to discuss.
To get a sense of how the attribute of being powerful applies to Śiva, see footnote 6 on the relation between Śiva and śakti.
Arguably, it is a good feature of the Unlimited Nature Model that it identifies maximal greatness with the value zero. The reason is that, unlike any positive number, zero can constitute an objective limit of maximality. One could argue that an objective limit of maximality can also be constituted by the infinite. However, whether an actual infinite is possible is a debated issue (see, e.g., Craig & Smith, 1993).
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I wish to thank Catherine Prueitt for giving me feedback on previous versions of this paper.
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Zappulli, D.A. Unlimited Nature: A Śaivist Model of Divine Greatness. SOPHIA (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-024-01005-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-024-01005-1