There are two striking examples of democracy
in its pure form: that of ancient India , which streamed from
the intuitive plane and originated from the Rig Veda; and that
of Pericles' Athens , which emanated from the sattvic plane
of clear reason. The following essay deals first with the Indian
and then with the Western development of democracy.
Sri Aurobindo saw history as unfolding cycles. The earliest
age, religious-spiritual, was essentially symbolic, imaginative
and intuitive. God, the deities and other numinous principles
were experienced as omnipresent; the institutions, religious
or social, were symbols of this mode of consciousness to which
ethical, psychological and economic factors were subordinated.
The symbolic age was succeeded by the typal, a fixed though
not yet rigid social order. Predominantly psychological and
ethical, it nurtured great social ideals; the ideal of social
honour remains its main legacy. The conventional age followed,
based upon unquestionable authorities and hierarchies. The
interdependence between the ethical and social functions vanished,
being replaced by order of birth and heredity, determining
the function, family customs and rituals. Thus, the caste system
was born.
Ancient India considered individuals not as social, but as
spiritual beings undergoing an evolutionary process. This is
the key to that dharma-based society, for which its unique
form of democracy streamed from the high planes of the intuitive
mind. The symbolic age corresponded to that of the Vedas. Its
fourfold order of society, caturvarnya, was comprised of the
head (the brahmana, being of knowledge and spirituality), the
arms (the ksatriya, being of honour and power), the thighs
(the vaisya, being of trade and production) and the feet (the
sudra, being of dedication and service). They constituted the
four limbs of the virat purusa or purusasukta, the Rig Veda's
Cosmic Being.
The ethical age that followed corresponded to that of the
Upanishads. An age of bold seeking, it gave birth to grand
philosophical systems and versatile literature, marking the
inception of art as well as science. Complex social systems,
large kingdoms and empires were its feature. No longer reserved
for initiates, the quest for the One in its myriad of aspects
took the popular form of the Divine dwelling in the secret
heart of every being, hradye guhayam. Even outcasts had saints
revered by all.
Society as quest for self-perfection
The evolutionary principle of the
sanatana dharma fashioned the whole Indian civilisation for
two millennia. Polity and society, art and philosophy, science
and mathematics, surgery and astronomy, economics and the
military rule, all fields of knowledge and investigation,
all activities and aspects of life revolved around the dharma
or law of ideal living – embracing
yet going beyond all religions. The rishis translated the sacrosanct
dharma into shastras – authoritative codes encompassing the
whole of life, determining both the highest order of life and
particulars with the same care. The law and custom of society
were thus sanctioned by the rishis and the gods. Belonging
to any of the varnas, the rishi or Vedic seer was often the
advisor and preceptor of the king. The monarch and emperor,
the people, the larger and lesser polities were all bound to
maintain the dharma, preserving both the right law of human
existence and the universal one. The aim of life was the pursuit
of perfection, intellectual and physical, ethical and aesthetic,
empirical and spiritual, social and political. The broad lines
were universal but each human conglomerate as well as each
individual was considered to have a nature and a law, a svabhava
and a svadharma of its own, to which corresponded detailed
rules, as outlined in the shastras, leading to perfection via
the various disciplines.
According to the Bhagavad Gita, one canon of the Upanishadic
age, the system of caturvarnya corresponded to a divine power.
The four varnas, each endowed with its own ethical discipline
or svadharma, determined the social functions on the basis
of one's nature (svabhava), temperament and inner predisposition
(adhikara). The three gunas: sattva (clarity); rajas (dynamism);
tamas (inertia) are the primal qualities of being. Not only
society was to be constituted by all the four types, but individual
perfection demanded integration of each of the four varnas.
This was intended to be a stage of self-development within
one's single soul; the predominant varna leading the others.
The hereditary principle was recognized, but character and
capacity were the real basis of social organisation. All action
was determined from within; if this was in harmony with the
truth of one's being, svadharma, to serve society was a means
to attain to self-perfection, turning life into a sacrifice
of works and worshipping the Divine with all of one's inner
and outer activities. Society provided the framework for one's
integral fulfillment and was instrumental to attaining moksha:
liberation in life and serving one's fellow beings. This was
the one aim and foundation of society, its dharma. The aim
was the same regardless of one's varna or ashrama (period of
life): brahmacarya (student), grahastha (householder), vanaprasta
(forest-dweller), sannyasa (wandering ascetic or recluse).
By embracing the dharma of one's social type the individual
also surrendered to the collective self. Transcending even
the supreme social law of the sanatana dharma, he grew into
the Spirit's freedom, the ultimate dharma.
The binding role of Dharma in self-governed polities
Ancient India was the repository of the
highest form of democracy: the Sacred determined the political
and social order. The Vedic age saw the people (visah) sitting
in urban councils, empowered to impose their will even on the
monarch. This continued in successive ages, down to the time
of the larger kingdoms and empires. Dharma commanded respect
for the autonomy and self-determination of the villages, city-states,
republics and constitutional kingdoms; a true unity in diversity
of a multitude of ethnicities and people. The villages and
townships were neither mere geographical units nor conglomerates
for electoral, administrative or other purposes, but real communities
functioning on their own power and will, constituting the most
stable foundation of the collective being.
The villages were governed by their elected panchayats and
officers. Self-sufficient, they were auto-nomous, self-governing
units managing their own education, tribunals, police, economic
and other needs. Thus were the townships ruled by their own
assemblies and committees by the force of an elective system,
which included voting so as to register the common will of
the people. Metropolitan governments administered police and
the magistrature, public works, registration, collection of
municipal taxes, trade and industry, the management of sacred
and public places and so on. The villages and townships sent
their representatives to the kingdom's general assembly. The
village communities were like small village republics and the
townships, larger urban republics. The guild governments and
the metropolitan polities even enjoyed the astounding privilege
of striking coins, customarily exercised only by the king or
the republics.
Heredity instead of merit
The set-up of the monarchic institution evoked the constitutional
monarchy. The king's executive powers rested upon his respect
for the dharma, of which he was the executor and servant; depending
on the assent of the people, he was not allowed autocratic
interferences. If he betrayed his royal svadharma, Manu's law
acknowledged the people's right of insurrection and regicide.
Through conquest or coalition a kingdom of confederated republics
later evolved. Before the sixth century B.C there were republican
states as well, contemporary to the Greek city-states; those
with a strong organisation lasted until the beginning of the
Christian era. Afterwards these too were replaced by the monarchical
state. In the simpler as in the complex polities none of the
social orders was predominant; nor was uniformity needed. The
social, political and economic dharma and its artha shastra
harmonised the pre-existent patterns with newly evolved ones.
The State stood for co-ordination, with no right of infringing
on the autonomous functioning of the varnas (social classes),
kulas (clan families), sanghas (spiritual communities) or any
polity. From king to servant, all were bound to maintain the
dharma.
At a latter stage the rishis envisaged
a unifying political rule by a universal emperor (cakravartin),
yet without destroying the self-governance of the autonomous
polities; although there is no evidence of its application.
Caturvarnya, the fourfold order of the vedic age, continued
throughout the ethical-philosophical upanishadic age; it began
to vanish during the conventional age, replaced by the caste-system
established on heredity rather than individual merit. Also,
the empire and the imperial monarchy tended to undermine the
autonomy of the lesser polities, turning them into factors
of division. The decline of a society that had lost the thread
of life – and with it, of renewal – had
commenced. Intellectual and artistic pursuit, the scientific
and critical intelligence, creativity and intuition were numbed.
Social functions became artificial, and the dharma so strict
that it hampered the freedom of the spiritual quest; moksha
(liberation) was sought in opposition to the sacredness of
life. Partial truths were enhanced, others denied, the grand
spiritual synthesis waned. When the British Empire took over
not much was left of a society run for two millennia on the
basis of intuitive democracy and self-government as dharma,
intended as the quest for self-perfection of all the classes
of society. The gates to foreign invasion were fully open.
The Western way: from the infra-rational to the rational age
Sri Aurobindo introduced a major distinction between the infrarational
and rational ages. In the former the people acted out of instinct,
obeying tradition mechanically. Although crude, this age had
elements of reason and spirituality and could soar to lofty
ideals, as in the early Greek civilisation and prehistoric,
mystic India ; the masses, however, remained infra-rational
and infra-spiritual. As reason and spirituality expanded, the
solitary avant-gardes were replaced by legions of thinkers,
writers, poets, scientific enquirers, etc. In Europe this was
the age of the Greek sophists, contemporary with Socrates and
Plato. In India , it corresponded to the Upanishadic age with
its philosopher-mystics; opening to the masses, the barriers
between initiates and lay people collapsed and society as a
whole searched for enlightenment.
Reason was developed first by exceptional individuals in exceptional
communities or nations. Greece and Rome led in Europe ; India
, China and Persia in Asia . But civilisation is not safe if
limited to a small minority; the Greco-Roman civilisation was
undermined by inner causes as severely as by outer ones; surrounded
by infrarational multitudes, the other civilisations perished
as well. Moreover, the ruling classes were obliged to cast
religion and spirituality into moulds acceptable to the masses,
diluting their original force. When intellectual or spiritual
movements rose in reaction to fossilized habits, the rational
age was born, at first as individualism. It was a typically
European phenomenon, a questioning and rejection of dogmas
and conventions, of unmovable privileges, authorities and theocratic
hierarchies. Popes and kings responded with crusades, massacres
and the stake; knowledge and science were repressed. The religious
-heretical drive led first, the socio-political followed; atheism
was the final outcome. In the East this movement, socially
and politically divested of iconoclastic significance, produced
religious reformers, new creeds and philosophies.
Philosophy and ethics, science and
art, politics and economics are the ordering principles of
homo sapiens, the mental being. Instead of rising above all
contraries where all is one, reason deals in opposites. Sri
Aurobindo stressed the necessity, though, of a temporary
reign of the critical reason by avant-gardes questioning
everything – affirming and simultaneously denying;
setting a rule, disposing of it. By this evolutionary drive
progress unfolds. Intelligence has to be turned inward and
upward, attaining knowledge, albeit indirect, of the universal
principles of existence, where knowledge and freedom are one.
Great idea-forces such as liberty, equality and fraternity,
a religion of humanity, were given form. This will reach fruition
only when the masses too learn to use their intelligence; until
then society is a mixture and often infrarational forces takes
over. It ensues that universal education is an utmost necessity;
in terms of mental, but also ethical and aesthetic capacity.
This implies a return to the Hellenic ideal, although there
is an emphasis on utilitarianism – as is typical of the contemporary
age – rather than the search for beauty and ethical refinement.
Reason as social creator
Democratic freedom and equality are inborn in small communities,
where all take an active part. Among history's most fruitful
periods are the Greek, Roman and Italian Renaissance city-states.
The civic and cultural participation of the Greek cities is
the foundation for the political ideals of modern Europe as
well as its intellectual, philosophical and artistic ideals.
The Athens of Pericles, where living itself was education,
was the summit. The Roman Empire , with its momentous organization,
enjoying both peace and prosperity, gave to Europe its political
and military science, along with the notion of empire and colonization.
As in Europe , India 's most creative age had also been that
of small kingdoms, republics and city-states: free societies
whose democratic self-governance survived even under the bureaucracies
of the great monarchies and empires.
Moulded by Hellenism and Christianity, sharpened by free thinking
and science, the Western mind has elaborated an ideal of human
progress revolving around both intellectual and material freedom,
equality and comradeship. In Sri Aurobindo's vision real democracy
depends on three postulates: universal education, transition
from infrarational to rational and character building. If any
of the three is lacking the true democratic order cannot manifest.
To rationalize human society through universal education seems
to be the ideal remedy; yet because of the system's intrinsic
contradiction this too may fail. Sri Aurobindo warned:
“But a rational education means necessarily three things,
first, to teach men how to observe and know rightly the facts
on which they have to form a judgment; secondly, to train them
to think fruitfully and soundly; thirdly, to fit them to use
their knowledge and their thought effectively for their own
and the common good. Capacity of observation and knowledge,
capacity of intelligence and judgment, capacity of action and
high character are required for the citizenship of a rational
order of society; a general deficiency in any of these difficult
requisites is a sure source of failure. Unfortunately, – even
if we suppose that training made available to the millions
can ever be of this rare character, – the actual education
given in the most advanced countries has not had the least
relation to these necessities” (The Human Cycle, p.198)
A religion of humanity
One idea-force of democracy, accepted by all progressive nations,
is the political equality of all citizens in ordering government
and society. In socialism, equality is social too. Democratic
nations, organised into a body politic truly representing all
tendencies of society, determine their dharma through the reason
and will of all individuals. If not we regress to the irrational
age, which is ruled by a dominant class. In Greece , along
with great personal freedom and all-encompassing education,
the democratic ideal stood for all citizens sharing in the
government, legislation and administration of the community's
affairs. In contemporary democracy, run by party government,
this no longer happens; although in the United States the tendency
survived for some time. Freedom and equality, if solely political
as in the Western concept of democracy, are unable to eliminate
clashing ideologies and vested interests, ruthless economical
struggles, the ceaseless war of classes.
The age of individualism commenced as
a revolt of reason and culminated with the triumph of science;
gifting society with that Sri Aurobindo called a ‘religion of humanity'. Politically,
it is the advent of ‘reason as a social creator', unfolding,
according to him, in three stages that he foresaw as democracy,
socialism (followed eventually by ‘governmental communism') and
anarchism. The transition from the infrarational (to which all
the past political orders belong) to the rational age is thus
complete, heralding the transition from the objective to the
subjective, spiritual age. Then only the ideal of communistic
anarchism can reach its full status: not just an ethical but
also a spiritual perfection and the end of the quest. Yet democracy
remains the starting point.
God in Humanity: Humanity in God
In humanity's evolution towards the
ideal society the democratic order of ancient India, run
on the principle of autonomous, self-governed polities, stands
as an experiment splendid and unique. Sri Aurobindo considered
caturvarnya to be a socialistic institution; inequality was
external and accidental. He wrote that socialism (the solution
to the economic impasse designed to concentrate on the inner
progress of individuals) is essentially Asiatic and particularly
Indian, and that democracy will never be fulfilled without
it. Sri Aurobindo trusted that, by rediscovering the way
to attune the world to Spirit , India will find the secret
order for which socialism struggles. Turning humanity's most
precious energies to its highest development, each member
of the community exists for the welfare of all. Sanatana dharma
is the creed, God in humanity, humanity in God. He asked for ‘the
eternal religion' to be applied to contemporary politics, reshaping
them into an ethical and spiritual pursuit.
Humanity's inner being toils towards
a higher life through the varied cultures of its people. While
insisting on the democratic distribution of functions at which
socialism aims, Sri Aurobindo called for the advent of divine
unity where all individuals are one and equal. He called for
breaking of the half-theocratic, half-aristocratic feudalism
of the age, so as to realize the democratic spirit of Vedanta
and, from within its inner law, a new social and political organization.
He wished for an assimilation of Europe 's democratic principle – while eliminating its shadow
components, individualism and materialism – calling for a true
spiritualisation of the irresistible urge for liberty, equality
and brotherhood. He called for a remoulding of society into the
Vedantin gospel of equality that recognizes the Divine in every
being, in the true spirit of the sanatana dharma irrespective
of birth, class, creed or country. The Self in one creature is
identical to the Self of all; God is the sum of this illimitable
variety.
Vedantin oneness
A fundamental postulate of Western democracy is the equal
right of freedom and mutual respect of all individuals, living
a liberal and rationalised existence. This leads to a profounder
truth, repressed in the past or limited to the spiritual domain,
the right to live according to one's own reason and will. Freedom
of thought and consciousness, space for the individual soul
is, in Sri Aurobindo's vision, the most powerful idea-force
of the rational age. In harmony with the Asiatic experience,
it has a prominent role in shaping the future. This is where
East and West ultimately meet. Millennial experiences, at times
apparently antithetic, ultimately lead to the satyayuga or
golden age that is the crown of the human cycle; the harvesting
of unity in diversity. Through endless experimentations this
leads to the ultimate consummation, the ideal society of the
Gnostic being.
The Lord's supreme teaching in the Bhagavad
Gita rises beyond nationalism and cosmopolitanism, beyond humanitarianism
and collectivism, beyond service to society, even beyond a
religion of humanity – these
are preliminary stages only – to divinised human beings who,
having lost the smaller self, have found the greater self. Unity
with all beings is the all-embracing Vedantin oneness – and dharma,
the uplifting of the whole community into Brahmic consciousness.
The supreme power of knowledge and action is God-love – and
humanity the real sangha or spiritual fellowship, towards which
all beings on earth move according to their evolutionary capacity.
In the golden age or satyayuga there is no need for an external
government: the self-determining individual and community live
spontaneously according to their free, divine svadharma. This
is the ultimate condition.
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There are two striking examples of
democracy in its pure form. One is that of ancient
India 's, which streamed from the intuitive plane and
originated from the Rig Veda – the
first sruti or directly revealed scripture received
by seers in a state of divine consciousness, around the
sixth millennium BCE. The other is that of Pericles'
Athens , which emanated from the sattvic plane of clear
reason, and is the lighthouse of Western democracy.
Both types nurtured character building, beauty and refinement,
pursuit of an ideal of which all individuals were the
indispensable cells. Thus the body politic was built
involving self-government of both the individual and
collective being. The democracy of ancient India was
prevalently intuitive and spiritual, while Athens 's
was rational and aesthetic |
