The History of Indian Literature c8.46

Language: English

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It was inevitable that at an early stage, and as soon as speculation had acquired some vigour, different opinions and starting-points should assert themselves, more especially regarding the origin of creation; for this, the most mysterious and difficult problem of all, was at the same time the favourite one. Accordingly, in each of the Bráhmaṇas, one at least, or it may be more, accounts on the subject may be met with; while in the more extensive works of this class we find a great number of different conjectures with regard to cosmogony. One of the principal points of difference naturally was whether indiscrete matter or spirit was to be assumed as the First Cause. The latter theory became gradually the orthodox one, and is therefore the one most frequently, and indeed almost exclusively, represented in the Bráhmaṇas. From among the adherents of the former view, which came by degrees to be regarded as heterodox, there arose, as thought developed, enemies still more dangerous to orthodoxy, who, although they confined themselves in the first place solely to the province of theory, before long threw themselves into practical questions also, and eventually became the founders of the form of belief known to us as Buddhism. The word *buddha*, "awakened, enlightened," was originally a name of honour given to all sages, including the orthodox.

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This is shown by the use both of the root *budh* in the Bráhmaṇas, and of the word *buddha* itself in even the most recent of the Vedántic writings. The technical application of the word is as much the secondary one as it is in the case also of another word of the kind, *śramaṇa*, which was in later times appropriated by the Buddhists as peculiarly their own. Here not merely the corresponding use of the root *śram*, but also the word *śramaṇa* itself, as a title of honour, may be pointed out in several passages in the Bráhmaṇas. Though Megasthenes, in a passage quoted by Strabo, draws a distinct line between two sects of philosophers, the Βραχμᾶνες and the Σαρμάναι, yet we should hardly be justified in identifying the latter with the Buddhist mendicants, at least, not exclusively; for he expressly mentions the ὑλόβιοι—*i.e.*, the Brahmachárins and Vánaprasthas, the first and third of the stages into which a Brahman's life is distributed—as forming part of the Σαρμάναι. The distinction between the two sects probably consisted in this, that the Βραχμᾶνες were the "philosophers" by birth, also those who lived as householders (Gṛihasthas); the Σαρμάναι, on the contrary, those who gave themselves up to special mortifications, and who might belong also to other castes. The *Πράμναι*, mentioned by Strabo in another passage (see Lassen, *I. AK.* i.

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836), whom, following the accounts of Alexander's time, he describes as accomplished polemical dialecticians, in contradistinction to the Βραχμᾶνες, whom he represents as chiefly devoted to physiology and astronomy, appear either to be identical with the Σαρμάναι—a supposition favoured by the fact that precisely the same things are asserted of both—or else, with Lassen, they may be regarded as Prámáṇas, *i.e.*, founding their belief on *pramáṇa*, logical proof, instead of revelation. As, however, the word is not known in the writings of that period, we should in this case hardly be justified in accepting Strabo's report as true of Alexander's time, but only of a later age. Philosophical systems are not to be spoken of in connection with this period; only isolated views and speculations are to be met with in those portions of the Bráhmaṇas here concerned, viz., the so-called Upanishads (*upanishad*, a session, a lecture). Although there prevails in these a very marked tendency to systematise and subdivide, the investigations still move within a very narrow and limited range. Considerable progress towards systematising and expansion is visible in the Upanishads found in the Áraṇyakas,∗ *i.e.*, writings supplementary to the Bráhmaṇas, and specially designed for the ὑλόβιοι;

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and still greater progress in those Upanishads which stand by themselves, *i.e.*, those which, although perhaps originally annexed to a Bráhmaṇa or an Áraṇyaka of one of the three older Vedas, have come down to us at the same time—or, it may be, have come down to us only—in an Atharvan recension. Finally, those Upanishads which are directly attached to the Atharva-Veda are complete vehicles of developed philosophical systems; they are to some extent sectarian in their contents, in which respect they reach down to the time of the Puráṇas. That, however, the fundamental works now extant of the philosophical systems, viz., their Sútras, were composed much later than has hitherto been supposed, is conclusively proved by the following considerations. In the first place, the names of their authors are either not mentioned at all in the most modern Bráhmaṇas and Áraṇyakas, or, if they are, it is under a different form and in other relations—in such a way, however, that their later acceptation is already foreshadowed and exhibited in the germ. Secondly, the names of the sages mentioned in the more ancient of them are only in part identical with those mentioned in the latest liturgical Sútras. And, thirdly, in all of them the Veda is expressly presupposed as a whole, and direct reference is also made to those Upanishads which we are warranted in recognising as the latest real Upanishads; nay, even to such as are only found attached to the Atharvan.

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The style, too, the enigmatical conciseness, the mass of technical terms—although these are not yet endowed with an algebraic force—imply a long previous period of special study to account for such precision and perfection. The philosophical Sútras, as well as the grammatical Sútra, should therefore be considered as dating from the beginning of the next period, within which both are recognised as of predominant authority.