Dualism

Recently while going through Allama Iqbals Phd thesis a remark on Zoroaster struck me. Much of the religious and philosophical history of mankind can be summed up in that very remark which is hardly even one full sentence -‘trying to find the balance between  religious monotheism and philosophical dualism’. What Allama cites as Zoroaster’s problem has been the problem that  almost all thinkers have grappled with .From Vedas to the Sufism there is a  undercurrent of  the same old problem .While  the problem of dualism often manifests itself in the form of “the benevolent versus the malevolent” in philosophical  systems. It ,however, takes the shape of a more profound question in fully organized religious systems that is the problem of evil itself.

Zoroaster, in the words of Allama, inherited two fundamental principles from his Aryan ancestry

1. there is law in nature

2. there is conflict in nature

Iqbal quotes Haug who considers Zoroaster a theological monotheist and philosophical dualist. The problem before him, as Iqbal says, was to reconcile the existence of evil with the existence of God. He found his ancestors worshipping a pantheon of spirits which he reduced to a single unity called the Ahurmazda   while the forces of evil were clubbed into a single entity called the Druj-Ahriman but because  he looked upon them as parts of the same being ,philosophically  it became  a case of falling from the frying pan into the fire.

Such has been the impact of this problem that some  Jain philosophers found dualism even in Time and space. They divided Time into ‘real time’ (or paramarthika) and ‘empirical time’(or vyavaharika). The former makes continuity  or duration possible and the latter is divisible into hours, days etc  and makes changes possible. Space was divided into ’ lokakasha’- in which movement is possible and the other in which movement is not possible – ‘alokakasha’. These can be seen as attempts at reconciliation between the unity perceived and the duality seen.

Buddha tried to come to terms with this dualism by teaching the doctrine of ’ pratityasamutpada’

Which incidentally is the cornerstone of everything that the Buddha taught. The four noble truths of the Buddha are:

1. There is suffering(dukha)
2. There is a cause of suffering(dukha samudaya)
3. There is cessation of suffering(dukha nirodha)
4. There Is a way that leads to this cessation of suffering(dukha nirodha gamini pratipat)

Suffering according to Buddha is samsara and cessation of suffering is nirvana both are aspects of the same reality,  the pratityasamutpada which when viewed relatively is samsara and when viewed from reality is nirvana. This in layman terms implies that it is the absolute itself which appears in the form of relative. This unifying definition lead to an apparent cessation of plurarity.

Hinduism seen as the ’ boa mystica’ of world religions- the system capable of swallowing and assimilating other schools of thought including religious systems, has had much of its own vedic originality swallowed by philosophical speculations regarding the relation of spirit and matter. Vedas are inherently monotheistic in nature .The duality problem gets varied treatment from  the Various systems of thought within Hinduism for example advaitya Vedanta, vishishadvaita, dvaita, dvaitadvaita contain a contrasting views ranging from the outright  denial of the world as a reality( as in advaita propounded by Gudapada) to a subtle acceptance of the duality (as in dvaita which regards the Brahman and other beings as different but inseparable entities)and inconclusive results as in dvaitdvaita(which regards  the primordial spirit and all other beings  same and different at the same time).

The proximity of wahdatul wajud and Sufism is too well known to be explained here .  The underlying tension of the duality question seems to have prompted the evolution of wahdatul wajud and resulted in its  widespread fame as a doctrine. The supporters of wahdatul wajud believe that there is no true existence except the ultimate truth(God).In connection  with this doctrine there are two points that demand attention:

1. The doctrine of wahda tul wujud couldn’t seep into the main stream consciousness or literature  formally  as such it remained a  subject matter of esoteric  groups, where it gained the status of a formal doctrine. Although it did influence the beliefs of  people indirectly.
2. There seems to been  have been a  timely intervention by the criticism of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi and his alternate theory of wahdatu l shuhood which stressed  that the unity of being is only subjective in nature. Had this not been the case it wouldn’t have been surprising if wahdatul wujood had gained momentum as an established principle of theology especially in India where the ground was fertile as peoples minds were acquainted with vedic philosophy.

The author is final semester B.Tech student at NIT Srinagar and can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it