[Footnote 74: The epic has a later version. This earlier form is found in Çat. Br. i. 8. 1. For the story of the flood among the American Indians compare Schoolcraft (Historical and Statistical Information), i. 17.]
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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.