A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.40

c11.40

In one of the later books of the *Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa* (X. vi. 3) this *ātman*, which has already arrived at a high degree of abstraction, is said to "pervade this universe." *Brahma* (neuter) in the *Rigveda* signified nothing more than "prayer" or "devotion." But even in the oldest Brāhmaṇas it has come to have the sense of "universal holiness," as manifested in prayer, priest, and sacrifice. In the Upanishads it is the holy principle which animates nature. Having a long subsequent history, this word is a very epitome of the evolution of religious thought in India. These two conceptions, Ātman and Brahma, are commonly treated as synonymous in the Upanishads. But, strictly speaking, Brahma, the older term, represents the cosmical principle which pervades the universe, Ātman the psychical principle manifested in man; and the latter, as the known, is used to explain the former as the unknown. The Ātman under the name of the Eternal (*aksharam*) is thus described in the *Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad* (III. viii. 8, 11):—