The Religions of India / Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow

by Edward Washburn Hopkins

CHAPTER X.

BRAHMANIC PANTHEISM.—THE UPANISHADS.

In the Vedic hymns man fears the gods, and imagines God. In the Br[=a]hmanas man subdues the gods, and fears God. In the Upanishads man ignores the gods, and becomes God.[1]

Such in a word is the theosophic relations between the three periods represented by the first Vedic Collection, the ritualistic Br[=a]hmanas, and the philosophical treatises called Upanishads. Yet if one took these three strata of thought to be quite independent of each other he would go amiss. Rather is it true that the Br[=a]hmanas logically continue what the hymns begin; that the Upanishads logically carry on the thought of the Br[=a]hmanas. And more, for in the oldest Upanishads are traits that connect this class of writings (if they were written) directly, and even closely with the Vedic hymns themselves; so that one may safely assume that the time of the first Upanishads is not much posterior to that of the latest additions made to the Vedic collections, though this indicates only that these additions were composed at a much later period than is generally supposed.[2] In India no literary period subsides with the rise of its eventually 'succeeding' period. All the works overlap. Parts of the Br[=a]hmanas succeed, sometimes with the addition of whole books, their proper literary successors, the Upanishads. Vedic hymns are composed in the Brahmanic period.[3] The prose S[=u]tras, which, in general, are earlier, sometimes post-date metrical Ç[=a]stra-rules. Thus it is highly probable that, whereas the Upanishads began before the time of Buddha, the Çatapatha Br[=a]hmana (if not others of this class) continued to within two or three centuries of our era; that the legal S[=u]tras were, therefore, contemporary with part of the Br[=a]hmanic period;[4] and that, in short, the end of the Vedic period is so knit with the beginning of the Br[=a]hmanic, while the Br[=a]hmanic period is so knit with the rise of the Upanishads, S[=u]tras, epics, and Buddhism, that one cannot say of any one: 'this is later,' 'this is earlier'; but each must be taken only for a phase of indefinitely dated thought, exhibited on certain lines. It must also be remembered that by the same class of works a wide geographical area may be represented; by the Br[=a]hmanas, west and east; by the S[=u]tras, north and south; by the Vedic poems, northwest and east to Benares (AV.); by the epics, all India, centred about the holy middle land near Delhi.

The meaning of Upanishad as used in the compositions themselves, is either, as it is used to-day, the title of a philosophical work; that of knowledge derived from esoteric teaching; or the esoteric teaching itself. Thus brahma upanishad is the secret doctrine of brahma, and 'whoever follows this upanishad' means whoever follows this doctrine. This seems, however, to be a meaning derived from the nature of the Upanishads themselves, and we are almost inclined to think that the true significance of the word was originally that in which alone occurs, in the early period, the combination upa-ni-[s.]ad, and this is purely external: "he makes the common people upa-ni-s[=a]din," i.e., 'sitting below' or 'subject,' it is said in Çat. Br. ix. 4. 3. 3 (from the literal meaning of 'sitting below').[5] Instead, therefore, of seeing in upan[=i]sad, Upanishad, the idea of a session, of pupils sitting down to hear instruction (the prepositions and verb are never used in this sense), it may be that the Upanishads were at first subsidiary works of the ritualistic Br[=a]hmanas contained in the [=A]ranyakas or Forest Books, that is, appendices to the Br[=a]hmana, ostensibly intended for the use of pious forest-hermits (who had passed beyond the need of sacrifice); and this, in point of fact, is just what they were; till their growth resulted in their becoming an independent branch of literature. The usual explanation of 'Upanishad,' however, is that it represents the instruction given to the pupil 'sitting under' the teacher.

Although at present between two and three hundred Upanishads are known, at least by name, to exist, yet scarcely a dozen appear to be of great antiquity. Some of these are integral parts of Br[=a]hmanas, and apparently were added to the ritualistic works at an early period.[6]

While man's chief effort in the Brahmanic period seems to be by sacrifice and penance to attain happiness hereafter, and to get the upper hand of divine powers; while he recognizes a God, who, though supreme, has yet, like the priest himself, attained his supremacy by sacrifice and penance; while he dreams of a life hereafter in heavenly worlds, in the realm of light, though hardly seeking to avoid a continuation of earthly re-births; nevertheless he frees himself at times from ritualistic observances sufficiently to continue the questioning asked by his Vedic ancestors, and to wonder whither his immortal part is definitively going, and whether that spirit of his will live independently, or be united with some higher power, such as the sun or Brahm[=a].

The philosophical writings called Upanishads[7] take up this question in earnest, but the answer is already assured, and the philosophers, or poets, of this period seek less to prove the truth than to expound it. The soul of man will not only join a heavenly Power. It is part of that Power. Man's spirit (self) is the world-spirit. And what is this? While all the Upanishads are at one in answering the first question, they are not at one in the method by which they arrive at the same result. There is no systematic philosophy; but a tentative, and more or less dogmatic, logic. In regard to the second question they are still less at one; but in general their answer is that the world-spirit is All, and everything is a part of It or Him. Yet, whether that All is personal or impersonal, and what is the relation between spirit and matter, this is still an unsettled point.

The methods and results of this half-philosophical literature will most easily be understood by a few examples. But, before these are given, it will be necessary to emphasize the colloquial and scrappy nature of the teaching. Legend, parable, ritualistic absurdities, belief in gods, denial of gods, belief in heaven, denial of heaven, are all mingled, and for a purpose. For some men are able, and some are unable, to receive the true light of knowledge. But man's fate depends on his knowledge. The wise man becomes hereafter what his knowledge has prepared him to be. Not every spirit is fitted for immortality, but only the spirit of them that have wisely desired it, or, rather, not desired it; for every desire must have been extinguished before one is fitted for this end. Hence, with advancing belief in absorption and pantheism, there still lingers, and not as a mere superfluity, the use of sacrifice and penance. Rites and the paraphernalia of religion are essential till one learns that they are unessential. Desire will be gratified till one learns that the most desirable thing is lack of desire. But so long as one desires even the lack of desire he is still in the fetters of desire. The way is long to the extinction of emotion, but its attainment results in happiness that is greater than delight; in peace that surpasses joy.

In the exposition of this doctrine the old gods are retained as figures. They are not real gods. But they are existent forms of God. They are portions of the absolute, a form of the Eternal, even as man is a form of the same. Absolute being, again, is described as anthropomorphic. 'This is that' under a certain form. Incessantly made is the attempt to explain the identity of the absolute with phenomena. The power brahma, which is originally applied to prayer, is now taken as absolute being, and this, again, must be equated with the personal spirit (ego, self, [=a]tm[=a]). One finds himself back in the age of Vedic speculation when he reads of prayer (or penance) and power as one. For, as was shown above, the Rig Veda already recognizes that prayer is power. There the word for power, brahma, is used only as equivalent of prayer, and Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati is literally the 'god of power,' as he is interpreted by the priests. The significance of the other great word of this period, namely [=a]tm[=a], is not at all uncertain, but to translate it is difficult. It is breath, spirit, self, soul. Yet, since in its original sense it corresponds to spiritus (comparable to athmen), the word spirit, which also signifies the real person, perhaps represents it best. We shall then render brahma and [=a]tm[=a] by the absolute and the ego or spirit, respectively; or leave them, which is perhaps the best way, in their native form. The physical breath, pr[=a]na, is occasionally used just like [=a]tm[=a]. Thus it is said that all the gods are one god, and this is pr[=a]na, identical with brahma (Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 3.9.9); or pr[=a]na is so used as to be the same with spirit, though, on the other hand, 'breath is born of spirit' (Praçna Up. 3.3), just as in the Rig Veda (above) it is said that all comes from the breath of God.

One of the most instructive of the older Upanishads is the
Ch[=a]ndogya. A sketch of its doctrines will give a clearer idea of
Upanishad philosophy than a chapter of disconnected excerpts:

All this (universe) is brahma. Man has intelligent force (or will). He, after death, will exist in accordance with his will in life. This spirit in (my) heart is that mind-making, breath-bodied, light-formed, truth-thoughted, ether-spirited One, of whom are all works, all desires, all smells, and all tastes; who comprehends the universe, who speaks not and is not moved; smaller than a rice-corn, smaller than a mustard-seed, … greater than earth, greater than heaven. This (universal being) is my ego, spirit, and is brahma, force (absolute being). After death I shall enter into him (3.14).[8] This all is breath (==spirit in 3.15.4).

After this epitome of pantheism follows a ritualistic bit:

Man is sacrifice. Four and twenty years are the morning libation; the next four and forty, the mid-day libation; the next eight and forty, the evening libation. The son of Itar[=a], knowing this, lived one hundred and sixteen years. He who knows this lives one hundred and sixteen years (3.16).

Then, for the abolition of all sacrifice, follows a chapter which explains that man may sacrifice symbolically, so that, for example, gifts to the priests (a necessary adjunct of a real sacrifice) here become penance, liberality, rectitude, non-injury, truth-speaking (ib. 17. 4). There follows then the identification of brahma with mind, sun, breath, cardinal points, ether, etc, even puns being brought into requisition, Ka is Kha and Kha is Ka (4. 10. 5);[9] earth, fire, food, sun, water, stars, man, are brahma, and brahma is the man seen in the moon (4. 12. I). And now comes the identity of the impersonal brahma with the personal spirit. The man seen in the eye is the spirit; this is the immortal, unfearing brahma (4. 15. I = 8. 7. 4). He that knows this goes after death to light, thence to day, thence to the light moon, thence to the season, thence to the year, thence to the sun, thence to the moon, thence to lightning; thus he becomes divine, and enters brahma. They that go on this path of the gods that conducts to brahma do not return to human conditions (ib. 15. 6).

But the Father-god of the Br[=a]hmanas is still a temporary creator, and thus he appears now (ib. 17): The Father-god brooded over[10] the worlds, and from them extracted essences, fire from earth, wind from air, sun from sky. These three divinities (the triad, fire, wind, and sun) he brooded over, and from them extracted essences, the Rig Veda from fire, the Yajur Veda from wind, the S[=a]ma Veda from sun. In the preceding the northern path of them that know the absolute (brahma) has been described, and it was said that they return no more to earth. Now follows the southern path of them that only partly know brahma:

"He that knows the oldest, jye[s.]tham and the best, çretham, becomes the oldest and the best. Now breath is oldest and best" (then follows the famous parable of the senses and breath, 5. 1. I). This (found elsewhere) is evidently regarded as a new doctrine, for, after the deduction has been made that, because a creature can live without senses, and even without mind, but cannot live without breath, therefore the breath is the 'oldest and best,' the text continues, 'if one told this to a dry stick, branches would be produced and leaves put forth' (5. 2. 3).[11] The path of him that partly knows the brahma which is expressed in breath, etc, is as follows: He goes to the moon, and, when his good works are used up, he (ultimately mist) rains down, becoming seed, and begins life over again on earth, to become like the people who eat him (5. 10. 6); they that are good become priests, warriors, or members of the third estate; while the bad become dogs, hogs, or members of the low castes.[12] A story is now told, instructive as illustrating the time. Five great doctors of the law came together to discuss what is Spirit, what is brahma. In the end they are taught by a king that the universal Spirit is one's own spirit (5. 18. 1).

It is interesting to see that, although the Rig Veda distinctly says that 'being was born of not-being' (ásatas sád aj[=a]yata, X. 72. 3),[13] yet not-being is here derived quite as emphatically from being. For in the philosophical explanation of the universe given in 6. 2. 1 ff. one reads: "Being alone existed in the beginning, one, and without a second. Others say 'not-being alone' … but how could being be born of not-being? Being alone existed in the beginning."[14] This being is then represented as sentient. "It saw (and desired), 'may I be many,' and sent forth fire (or heat); fire (or heat) desired and produced water; water, food (earth); with the living spirit the divinity entered fire, water, and earth" (6. 3). As mind comes from food, breath from water, and speech from fire, all that makes a man is thus derived from the (true) being (6. 7. 6); and when one dies his speech is absorbed into mind, his mind into breath, his breath into fire (heat), and heat into the highest godhead (6. 8. 7). This is the subtle spirit, that is the Spirit, that is the True, and this is the spirit of man. Now comes the grand conclusion of the Ch[=a]ndogya. He who knows the ego escapes grief. What is the ego? The Vedas are names, and he that sees brahma in the Vedas is indeed (partly) wise; but speech is better than a name; mind is better than speech; will is better than mind; meditation, better than will; reflection, than meditation; understanding, than reflection; power, than understanding; food, than power; water, than food; heat (fire), than water; ether, than heat; memory, than ether; hope, than memory; breath (=spirit), than hope. In each let one see brahma; ego in All. Who knows this is supreme in knowledge; but more supreme in knowledge is he that knows that in true (being) is the highest being. True being is happiness; true being is ego; ego is all; ego is the absolute.[15]

The relativity o£ divinity is the discovery of the Upanishads. And the relativity of happiness hereafter is the key-note of their religious philosophy. Pious men are of three classes, according to the completed system. Some are good men, but they do not know enough to appreciate, intellectually or spiritually, the highest. Let this class meditate on the Vedas. They desire wealth, not freedom. The second class wish, indeed, to emancipate themselves; but to do so step by step; not to reach absolute brahma, but to live in bliss hereafter. Let these worship the Spirit as physical life. They will attain to the bliss of the realm of light, the realm of the personal creator. But the highest class, they that wish to emancipate themselves at once, know that physical life is but a form of spiritual life; that the personal creator is but a form of the Spirit; that the Spirit is absolute brahma; and that in reaching this they attain to immortality. These, then, are to meditate on spirit as the highest Spirit, that is, the absolute. To fear heaven as much as hell, to know that knowledge is, after all, the key to brahma; that brahma is knowledge; this is the way to emancipation. The gods are; but they are forms of the ego, and their heaven is mortal. It is false to deny the gods. Indra and the Father-god exist, just as men exist, as transient forms of brahma. Therefore, according to the weakness or strength of a man's mind and heart (desire) is he fitted to ignore gods and sacrifice. To obtain brahma his desires must be weak, his knowledge strong; but sacrifice is not to be put away as useless. The disciplinary teaching of the sacrifice is a necessary preparation for highest wisdom. It is here that the Upanishads, which otherwise are to a great extent on the highway to Buddhism, practically contrast with it. Buddhism ignores the sacrifice and the stadia in a priest's life. The Upanishads retain them, but only to throw them over at the end when one has learned not to need them. Philosophically there is no place for the ritual in the Upanishad doctrine; but their teachers stood too much under the dominion of the Br[=a]hmanas to ignore the ritual. They kept it as a means of perfecting the knowledge of what was essential.

So 'by wisdom' it is said 'one gets immortality.' The Spirit develops gradually in man; by means of the mortal he desires the immortal; whereas other animals have only hunger and thirst as a kind of understanding, and they are reborn according to their knowledge as beasts again. Such is the teaching of another of the Upanishads, the [=A]itareya [=A]ranyaka.

This Upanishad contains some rather striking passages: "Whatever man attains, he desires to go beyond it; if he should reach heaven itself he would desire to go beyond it" (2. 3. 3. 1). "Brahma is the A, thither goes the ego" (2. 3. 8. 7). "A is the whole of Speech, and Speech is Truth, and Truth is Spirit" (2. 3. 6. 5-14).[16] "The Spirit brooded over the water, and form (matter) was born" (2. 4. 3. 1 ff.); so physically water is the origin of all things" (2. 1. 8. 1).[17] "Whatever belongs to the father belongs to the son, whatever belongs to the son belongs to the father" (ib.). "Man has three births: he is born of his mother, reborn in the person of his son, and finds his highest birth in death" (2. 5).

In the exposition of these two Upanishads one gets at once the sum of them all. The methods, the illustrations, even the doctrines, differ in detail; but in the chief end and object of the Upanishads, and in the principle of knowledge as a means of attaining brahma, they are united. This it is that causes the refutation of the Vedic 'being from not-being.' It is even said in the [=A]itareya that the gods worshipped breath (the spirit) as being and so became gods (great); while devils worshipped spirit as not-being, and hence became (inferior) devils (2. 1. 8. 6).

It was noticed above that a king instructed priests. This interchange of the rôles of the two castes is not unique. In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad (4. 19), occurs another instance of a warrior teaching a Brahman. This, with the familiar illustration of a Gandh[=a]ra (Kandahar) man, the song of the Kurus, and the absence of Brahmanic literature as such in the list of works, cited vii. 1, would indicate that the Ch[=a]ndogya was at least as old as the Br[=a]hmana literature.[18]

In their present form several differences remain to be pointed out between the Vedic period and that of the Upanishads. The goal of the soul, the two paths of gods and of brahma, have been indicated. As already explained, the road to the absolute brahma lies beyond the path to the conditioned brahma. Opposed to this is the path that leads to the world of heaven, whence, when good works have been exhausted, the spirit descends to a new birth on earth. The course of this second path is conceived to be the dark half of the moon, and so back to man. Both roads lead first to the moon, then one goes on to brahma, the other returns to earth. It will be seen that good works are regarded as buoying a man up for a time, till, like gas in a balloon, they lose their force, and he sinks down again. What then becomes of the virtue of a man who enters the absolute brahma, and descends no more? He himself goes to the world where there is "no sorrow and no snow," where he lives forever (Brihad [=A]ran. 5. 10); but "his beloved relations get his virtue, and the relations he does not love get his evil" (K[=a]ush[=i]t. Up. 1. 4). In this Upanishad fire, sun, moon, and lightning die out, and reappear as brahma. This is the doctrine of the Götterdämmerung, and succession of aeons with their divinities (2. 12). Here again is it distinctly stated that pr[=a]na, breath, is brahma; that is, spirit is the absolute (2. 13).

What becomes of them that die ignorant of the ego? They go either to the worlds of evil spirits, which are covered with darkness—the same antithesis of light and darkness, as good and evil, that was seen in the Br[=a]hmanas—or are reborn on earth again like the wicked ([=I]ç[=a], 3).

It is to be noted that at times all the parts of a man are said to become immortal. For just as different rivers enter the ocean and their names and forms are lost in it, so the sixteen parts of a man sink into the godhead and he becomes without parts and immortal (Praçna Up. 6. 5); a purely pantheistic view of absorption, in distinction from the Vedic view of heaven, which latter, in the form of immortal joy hereafter, still lingers in the earlier Upanishads.

It is further to be observed as the crowning point of these speculations that, just as the bliss of emancipation must not be desired, although it is desirable, so too, though knowledge is the fundamental condition of emancipation, yet is delight in the true a fatal error: "They that revere what is not knowledge enter into blind darkness; they that delight in knowledge come as it were into still greater darkness" (Iç[=a], 9). Here, what is not real knowledge means good works, sacrifice, etc. But the sacrifice is not discarded. To those people capable only of attaining to rectitude, sacrifices, and belief in gods there is given some bliss hereafter; but to him that is risen above this, who knows the ego (Spirit) and real being, such bliss is no bliss. His bliss is union with the Spirit.

This is the completion of Upanishad philosophy. Before it is a stage where bliss alone, not absorption, is taught.[19] But what is the ego, spirit or self ([=a]tm[=a])? First of all it is conscious; next it is not the Person, for the Person is produced by the [=a]tm[=a]. Since this Person is the type of the personal god, it is evident that the ego is regarded as lying back of personality. Nevertheless, the teachers sometimes stop with the latter. The developed view is that the immortality of the personal creator is commensurate only with that of the world which he creates. It is for this reason that in the Mundaka (1. 2. 10) it is said that fools regard fulfillment of desire in heavenly happiness as the best thing; for although they have their 'reward in the top of heaven, yet, when the elevation caused by their good works ends, as it will end, when the buoyant power of good works is exhausted, then they drop down to earth again. Hence, to worship the creator as the [=a]tm[=a] is indeed productive of temporary pleasure, but no more. "If a man worship another divinity, devat[=a], with the idea that he and the god are different, he does not know" (Brihad [=A]ran. Up. 1. 4. 10). "Without passion and without parts" is the brahma (Mund. 2. 2. 9). The further doctrine, therefore, that all except brahma is delusion is implied here, and the "extinction of gods in brahma" is once or twice formulated.[20] The fatal error of judgment is to imagine that there is in absolute being anything separate from man's being. When personified, this being appears as the supreme Person, identical with the ego, who is lord of what has been and what will be. By perceiving this controlling spirit in one's own spirit (or self) one obtains eternal bliss; "when desires cease, the mortal becomes immortal; he attains brahma here" in life (Katha Up. 2. 5. 12; 6. 14; Br. [=A]ran. Up. 4. 4. 7).

How inconsistent are the teachings of the Upanishads in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters will be evident if one contrast the statements of the different tracts not only with those of other writings of the same sort, but even with other statements in the same Upanishads. Thus the Mundaka teaches first that Brahm[=a], the personal creator, made the world and explained brahma (1. 1. 1). It then defines brahma as the Imperishable, which, like a spider, sends out a web of being and draws it in again (ib. 6, 7). It states with all distinctness that the (neuter) brahma comes from The (masculine)

One who is all-wise, all-knowing (ib. 9). This heavenly Person is the imperishable ego; it is without form; higher than the imperishable (1. 2. 10 ff.; 2. 1. 2); greater than the great (3. 2. 8). Against this is then set (2. 2. 9) the great being brahma, without passions or parts, i. e., without intelligence such as was predicated of the [=a]tm[=a]; and (3. 1. 3) then follows the doctrine of the personal 'Lord, who is the maker, the Person, who has his birth in brahma' (purusho brahmayonis). That this Upanishad is pantheistic is plain from 3. 2. 6, where Ved[=a]nta and Yoga are named. According to this tract the wise go to brahma or to ego (3. 2. 9 and 1. 2. 11), while fools go to heaven and return again.

On the same plane stands the [=I]ç[=a], where [=a]tm[=a], ego, Spirit, is the True, the Lord, and is in the sun. Opposed to each other here are 'darkness' and 'immortality,' as fruit, respectively, of ignorance and wisdom.

In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad, taken with the meaning put into it by the commentators, the wise man goes to a very different sort of brahma—one where he is met by nymphs, and rejoices in a kind of heaven. This brahma is of two sorts, absolute and conditioned; but it is ultimately defined as 'breath.' Whenever it is convenient, 'breath' is regarded by the commentators as ego, 'spirit'; but one can scarcely escape the conviction that in many passages 'breath' was meant by the speaker to be taken at its face value. It is the vital power. With this vital power (breath or spirit) one in dreamless sleep unites. Indra has nothing higher to say than that he is breath (spirit), conscious and immortal. Eventually the soul after death comes to Indra, or gains the bright heaven. But here too the doctrine of the dying out of the gods is known (as in T[=a]tt. 3. 10. 4). Cosmogonically all here springs from water (1. 4, 6, 7; 2. 1, 12; 3. 1, 2; 4. 20).

Most striking are the contradictions in the Brihad [=A]ranyaka: "In the beginning there was only nothing; this (world) was covered with death, that is hunger;[21] he desired," etc. (1. 2. 1). "In the beginning there was only ego ([=a]tm[=a])." [=A]tm[=a] articulated "I am," and (finding himself lonely and unhappy) divided himself into male and female,[22] whence arose men, etc. (1. 4. 1). Again: "In the beginning there was only brahma; this (neuter) knew [=a]tm[=a] … brahma was the one and only … it created" (1. 4. 10-11); followed immediately by "he created" (12). And after this, in 17, one is brought back to "in the beginning there was only [=a]tm[=a]; he desired 'let me have a wife.'"

In 2. 3. 1 ff. the explicitness of the differences in brahma makes the account of unusual value. It appears that there are two forms of brahma, one is mortal, with form; the other is immortal, without form. Whatever is other than air and the space between (heaven and earth) is mortal and with form. This is being, its essence is in the sun. On the other hand, the essence of the immortal is the person in the circle (of the sun). In man's body breath and ether are the immortal, the essence of which is the person in the eye. There is a visible and invisible brahma ([=a]tm[=a]); the real brahma is incomprehensible and is described only by negations (3. 4. 1; 9. 26). The highest is the Imperishable (neuter), but this sees, hears, and knows. It is in this that ether (as above) is woven (3. 8. 11). After death the wise man goes to the world of the gods (1. 5. 16); he becomes the [=a]tm[=a] of all beings, just like that deity (1. 5. 20); he becomes identical ('how can one know the knower?' vijñ[=a]tar) in 2. 4. 12-13; and according to 3. 2. 13, the doctrine of sams[=a]ra is extolled ("they talked of karma, extolled karma secretly"), as something too secret to be divulged easily, even to priests.

That different views are recognized is evident from Taitt. 2. 6: "If one knows brahma as asat he becomes only asat (non-existence); if he knows that 'brahma is' (i.e., a sad brahma), people know him as thence existing." Personal [=a]tm[=a] is here insisted on ("He wished 'may I be many'"); and from [=a]tm[=a], the conscious brahma, in highest heaven, came the ether (2. 1, 6). Yet, immediately afterwards: "In the beginning was the non-existent; thence arose the existent; and That made for himself an ego (spirit, conscious life, [=a]tm[=a]; tad [=a]tm[=a]nain svayam akuruta, 2. 7). In man brahma is the sun-brahma. Here too one finds the brahma[n.]a[h.] parimaras (3. 10. 4 = K[=a]ush[=i]t. 2. 12, d[=a]iva), or extinction of gods in brahma. But what that brahma is, except that it is bliss, and that man after death reaches 'the bliss-making [=a]tm[=a],' it is impossible to say (3. 6; 2. 8). Especially as the departed soul 'eats and sits down singing' in heaven (3. 10. 5).

The greatest discrepancies in eschatology occur perhaps in the [=A]itareya [=A]ranyaka. After death one either "gets brahma" (i. 3. 1. 2), "comes near to the immortal spirit" (1. 3. 8. 14), or goes to the "heavenly world." Knowledge here expressly conditions the hereafter; so much so that it is represented not (as above) that fools go to heaven and return, but that all, save the very highest, are to recognize a personal creator (Praj[=a]pati) in breath (=ego=brahma), and then they will "go to the heavenly world" (2. 3. 8. 5), "become the sun" (2. 1. 8. 14), or "go to gods" (2. 2. 4. 6). Moreover after the highest wisdom has been revealed, and the second class of men has been disposed of, the author still returns to the 'shining sky,' svarga, as the best promise (3). Sinners are born again (2. 1. 1. 5) on earth, although hell is mentioned (2. 3. 2. 5). The origin of world is water, as usual (2. 1. 8. 1). The highest teaching is that all was [=a]tm[=a], who sent forth worlds (lok[=a]n as[r.]jata), and formed the Person (as guardian of worlds), taking him from waters. Hence [=a]tm[=a], Praj[=a]pati (of the second-class thinkers), and brahma are the same. Knowledge is brahma (2. 4. 1. 1; 6. 1. 5-7).

In the Kena, where the best that can be said in regard to brahma is that he is tadvana, the one that 'likes this' (or, perhaps, is 'like this'), there is no absorption into a world-spirit. The wise 'become immortal'; 'by knowledge one gets immortality'; 'who knows this stands in heaven' (1. 2; 2. 4; 4. 9). The general results are about those formulated by Whitney in regard to the Katha: knowledge gives continuation of happiness in heaven; the punishment of the unworthy is to continue sams[=a]ra, the round of rebirths. Hell is not mentioned in the [=A]itareya Upanishad itself but in the [=A]ranyaka[23] (2. 3. 2. 5). That, however, a union with the universal [=a]tm[=a] (as well as heaven) is desired, would seem to be the case from several of the passages cited above, notably Brihad [=A]ran., i. 5. 20 (sa eva[.m]vit sarve[s.][=a]m bh[=u]t[=a]n[=a]m [=a]tm[=a] bhavati, Yath[=a] i[s.][=a] devat[=a]ivam sa); 'he that knows this becomes the [=a]tm[=a] of all creatures, as is that divinity so is he'; though this is doubtless the [=a]nandamaya [=a]tm[=a], or joy-making Spirit (T[=a]itt. 2. 8).

Again two forms of brahma are explained (M[=a]it. Up. 6. 15 ff.): There are two forms of brahma, time and not-time. That which was before the sun is not-time and has no parts. Time and parts begin with the sun. Time is the Father-god, the Spirit. Time makes and dissolves all in the Spirit. He knows the Veda who knows into what Time itself is dissolved. This manifest time is the ocean of creatures. But brahma exists before and after time.[24]

As an example of the best style of the Upanishads we will cite a favorite passage (given no less than four times in various versions) where the doctrine of absorption is most distinctly taught under the form of a tale. It is the famous

DIALOGUE OF Y[=A]JÑAVALKYA AND M[=A]ITREY[=I].[25]

Y[=a]jñavalkya had two wives, M[=a]itrey[=i] and K[=a]ty[=a]yani. Now M[=a]itrey[=i] was versed in holy knowledge (brahma), but K[=a]ty[=a]yani had only such knowledge as women have. But when Y[=a]jñavalkya was about to go away into the forest (to become a hermit), he said: 'M[=a]itrey[=i], I am going away from this place. Behold, I will make a settlement between thee and that K[=a]ty[=a]yani.' Then said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'Lord, if this whole earth filled with wealth were mine, how then? should I be immortal by reason of this wealth?' 'Nay,' said Y[=a]jñavalkya. 'Even as is the life of the rich would be thy life; by reason of wealth one has no hope of immortality.' Then said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'With what I cannot be immortal, what can I do with that? whatever my Lord knows even that tell me.' And Y[=a]jñavalkya said: 'Dear to me thou art, indeed, and fondly speakest. Therefore I will explain to thee and do thou regard me as I explain.' And he said: 'Not for the husband's sake is a husband dear, but for the ego's sake is the husband dear. Not for the wife's sake is a wife dear; but for the ego's sake is a wife dear; not for the son's sake are sons dear, but for the ego's sake are sons dear; not for wealth's sake is wealth dear, but for the ego's sake is wealth dear; not for the sake of the Brahman caste is the Brahman caste dear, but for the sake of the ego is the Brahman caste dear; not for the sake of the Warrior caste is the Warrior caste dear, but for love of the ego is the Warrior caste dear; not for the sake of the worlds are worlds dear, but for the sake of the ego are worlds dear; not for the sake of gods are gods dear, but for the ego's sake are gods dear; not for the sake of bh[=u]ts (spirits) are bh[=u]ts dear, but for the ego's sake are bhuts dear; not for the sake of anything is anything dear, but for love of one's self (ego) is anything (everything) dear; the ego (self) must be seen, heard, apprehended, regarded, M[=a]itrey[=i], for with the seeing, hearing, apprehending, and regarding of the ego the All is known…. Even as smoke pours out of a fire lighted with damp kindling wood, even so out of the Great Being is blown out all that which is, Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, S[=a]ma Veda, Atharva (Angiras) Veda, Stories, Tales, Sciences, Upanishads, food, drink, sacrifices; all creatures that exist are blown (breathed) out of this one (Great Spirit) alone. As in the ocean all the waters have their meeting-place; as the skin is the meeting-place of all touches; the tongue, of all tastes; the nose, of all smells; the mind, of all precepts; the heart, of all knowledges; … as salt cast into water is dissolved so that one cannot seize it, but wherever one tastes it is salty, so this Great Being, endless, limitless, is a mass of knowledge. It arises out of the elements and then disappears in them. After death there is no more consciousness.[26] I have spoken.' Thus said Y[=a]jñavalkya. Then said M[=a]itrey[=i]: 'Truly my Lord has bewildered me in saying that after death there is no more consciousness.' And Y[=a]jñavalkya said: 'I say nothing bewildering, but what suffices for understanding. For where there is as it were duality (dv[=a]itam), there one sees, smells, hears, addresses, notices, knows another; but when all the universe has become mere ego, with what should one smell, see, hear, address, notice, know any one (else)? How can one know him through whom he knows this all, how can he know the knower (as something different)? The ego is to be described by negations alone, the incomprehensible, imperishable, unattached, unfettered; the ego neither suffers nor fails. Thus, M[=a]itrey[=i], hast thou been instructed. So much for immortality.' And having spoken thus Y[=a]jñavalkya went away (into the forest).

Returning to the Upanishad, of which an outline was given in the beginning of this chapter, one finds a state of things which, in general, may be said to be characteristic of the whole Upanishad period. The same vague views in regard to cosmogony and eschatology obtain in all save the outspoken sectarian tracts, and the same uncertainty in regard to man's future fate prevails in this whole cycle.[27] A few extracts will show this. According to the Ch[=a]ndogya (4. 17. 1), a personal creator, the old Father-god of the Br[=a]hmanas, Praj[=a]pati, made the elements proceed from the worlds he had 'brooded' over (or had done penance over, abhyatapat). In 3. 19. 1, not-being was first; this became being (with the mundane egg, etc.). In sharp contradiction (6. 2. 1): 'being was the first thing, it willed,' etc., a conscious divinity, as is seen in ib. 3. 2, where it is a 'deity,' producing elements as 'deities' (ib. 8. 6) which it enters 'with the living [=a]tm[=a],' and so develops names and forms (so T[=a]itt. 2. 7). The latter is the prevailing view of the Upanishad. In 1. 7. 5 ff. the [=a]tm[=a] is the same with the universal [=a]tm[=a]; in 3. 12. 7, the brahma is the same with ether without and within, unchanging; in 3. 13. 7, the 'light above heaven' is identical with the light in man; in 3. 14. 1, all is brahma (neuter), and this is an intelligent universal spirit. Like the ether is the [=a]tm[=a] in the heart, this is brahma (ib. 2 ff.); in 4. 3. air and breath are the two ends (so in the argument above, these are immortal as distinguished from all else); in 4. 10. 5 yad v[=a]v[=a] ka[.m] tad eva kham (brahma is ether); in 4. 15. 1, the ego is brahma; in 5. 18. 1 the universal ego is identified with the particular ego ([=a]tm[=a]); in 6. 8 the ego is the True, with which one unites in dreamless sleep; in 6. 15. 1, into par[=a] devat[=a] or 'highest divinity' enters man's spirit, like salt in water (ib. 13). In 7. 15-26, a view but half correct is stated to be that 'breath' is all, but it is better to know that yo bh[=u]m[=a] tad am[r.]tam, the immortal (all) is infinity, which rests in its own greatness, with a corrective 'but perhaps it doesn't' (yadi v[=a] na). This infinity is ego and [=a]tm[=a].[28]

What is the reward for knowing this? One obtains worlds, unchanging happiness, brahma; or, with some circumnavigation, one goes to the moon, and eventually reaches brahma or obtains the worlds of the blessed (5. 10. 10). The round of existence, sams[=a]ra, is indicated at 6. 16, and expressly stated in 5. 10. 7 (insects have here a third path). Immortality is forcibly claimed: 'The living one dies not' (6. 11. 3). He who knows the sections 7. 15 to 26 becomes [=a]tm[=a]nanda and "lord of all worlds"; whereas an incorrect view gives perishable worlds. In one Upanishad there is a verse (Çvet. 4. 5) which would indicate a formal duality like that of the S[=a]nkhyas;[29] but in general one may say that the Upanishads are simply pantheistic, only the absorption into a world-soul is as yet scarcely formulated. On the other hand, some of the older Upanishads show traces of an atheistic and materialistic (asad) philosophy, which is swallowed up in the growing inclination to personify the creative principle, and ultimately is lost in the erection of a personal Lord, as in the latest Upanishads. This tendency to personify, with the increase of special sectarian gods, will lead again, after centuries, to the rehabilitation of a triad of gods, the trim[=u]rti, where unite Vishnu, Çiva, and, with these, who are more powerful, Brahm[=a], the Praj[=a]pati of the Veda, as the All-god of purely pantheistic systems. In the purer, older form recorded above, the purusha (Person) is sprung from the [=a]tm[=a]. There is no distinction between matter and spirit. Conscious being (sat) wills, and so produces all. Or [=a]tm[=a] comes first; and this is conscious sat and the cause of the worlds; which [=a]tm[=a] eventually becomes the Lord. The [=a]tm[=a] in man, owing to his environment, cannot see whole, and needs the Yoga discipline of asceticism to enable him to do so. But he is the same ego which is the All.

The relation between the absolute and the ego is through will. "This (neuter) brahma willed, 'May I be many,' and created" (Ch[=a]nd., above). Sometimes the impersonal, and sometimes the personal "spirit willed" (T[=a]iit. 2. 6). And when it is said, in Brihad [=A]ran. 1. 4. 1, that "In the beginning ego, spirit, [=a]tm[=a], alone existed," one finds this spirit (self) to be a form of brahma (ib. 10-11). Personified in a sectarian sense, this spirit becomes the divinity Rudra Çiva, the Blessed One (Çvet[=a]çvatara, 3. 5. 11).[30]

In short, the teachers of the Upanishads not only do not declare clearly what they believed in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters, but many of them probably did not know clearly what they believed. Their great discovery was that man's spirit was not particular and mortal, but part of the immortal universal. Whether this universal was a being alive and a personal [=a]tm[=a], or whether this personal being was but a transient form of impersonal, imperishable being;[31] and whether the union with being, brahma, would result in a survival of individual consciousness,—these are evidently points they were not agreed upon, and, in all probability, no one of the sages was certain in regard to them. Crass identifications of the vital principle with breath, as one with ether, which is twice emphasized as one of the two immortal things, were provisionally accepted. Then breath and immortal spirit were made one. Matter had energy from the beginning, brahma; or was chaos, asat, without being. But when asat becomes sat, that sat becomes brahma, energized being, and to asat there is no return. In eschatology the real (spirit, or self) part of man (ego) either rejoices forever as a conscious part of the conscious world-self, or exists immortal in brahma—imperishable being, conceived as more or less conscious.[32]

The teachers recognize the limitations of understanding: "The gods are in Indra, Indra is in the Father-god, the Father-god (the Spirit) is in brahma"—"But in what is brahma?" And the answer is, "Ask not too much" (Brihad. [=A]ran. Up. 3. 6).

These problems will be those of the future formal philosophy. Even the Upanishads do not furnish a philosophy altogether new. Their doctrine of karma their identification of particular ego and universal ego, is not original. The 'breaths,' the 'nine doors,' the 'three qualities,' the purusha as identical with ego, are older even than the Br[=a]hmanas (Scherman, loc. cit. p. 62).

It is not a new philosophy, it is a new religion that the Upanishads offer.[33] This is no religion of rites and ceremonies, although the cult is retained as helpful in disciplining and teaching; it is a religion for sorrowing humanity. It is a religion that comforts the afflicted, and gives to the soul 'that peace which the world cannot give.' In the sectarian Upanishads this bliss of religion is ever present. "Through knowing Him who is more subtile than subtile, who is creator of everything, who has many forms, who embraces everything, the Blessed Lord—one attains to peace without end" (Çvet. 4. 14-15). These teachers, who enjoin the highest morality ('self-restraint, generosity, and mercy' are God's commandments in Brihad [=A]ran. 5. 2) refuse to be satisfied with virtue's reward, and, being able to obtain heaven, 'seek for something beyond.' And this they do not from mere pessimism, but from a conviction that they will find a joy greater than that of heaven, and more enduring, in that world where is "the light beyond the darkness" (Çvet. 3. 8); "where shines neither sun, moon, stars, lightning, nor fire, but all shines after Him that shines alone, and through His light the universe is lighted" (Mund. 2. 2. 10). This, moreover, is not a future joy. It is one that frees from perturbation in this life, and gives relief from sorrow. In the Ch[=a]ndogya (7. 1. 3) a man in grief comes seeking this new knowledge of the universal Spirit; "For," says he, "I have heard it said that he who knows the Spirit passes beyond grief." So in the [=I]ç[=a], though this is a late sectarian work, it is asked, "What sorrow can there be for him to whom Spirit alone has become all things?' (7). Again, "He that knows the joy of brahma, whence speech with mind turns away without apprehending it, fears not" (T[=a]itt. 2. 4); for "fear comes only from a second" (Brihad [=A]ran. Up. 1. 4. 2), and when one recognizes that all is one he no longer fears death (ib. 4. 4. 15).

Such is the religion of these teachers. In the quiet assumption that life is not worth living, they are as pessimistic as was Buddha. But if, as seems to be the case, the Buddhist believed in the eventual extinction of his individuality, their pessimism is of a different sort. For the teacher of the Upanishads believes that he will attain to unending joy; not the rude happiness of 'heaven-seekers,' but the unchanging bliss of immortal peace. For him that wished it, there was heaven and the gods. These were not denied; they were as real as the "fool" that desired them. But for him that conquered passion, and knew the truth, there was existence without the pain of desire, life without end, freedom from rebirth. The spirit of the sage becomes one with the Eternal; man becomes God.

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