History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.57

v7.c95.57

is brahman ('*sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahma*' Chān. Up. III. 14. 1, '*ahaṃ brahmāsmīti tasmāt tatsarvam-abhavat*' Bṛ. Up I. 4. 10). The Ait Up. quoted below is most emphatic about the identity²⁴⁵⁰ of the first principle with men, beasts, motionless beings and other passages do the same As regards the elements the Bṛ. Up. has a long passage²⁴⁵¹ (III. 7. 2-23) in which Yājñavalkya propounds to Uddālaka Āruṇi the sublime doctrine viz. that the Ātman residing in the earth and other elements is inside them, whom they (the elements) do not know, whose body is the earth and other elements, who rules from within the earth and others, that that Ātman is the soul of thee (and of mine and others), is the inner ruler and is immortal. The last part of this passage is 'the ruler within is unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, unperceived but perceiving, unknown but knowing, there is no other seer but he, there is no other hearer but he, that is no other perceiver but he, there is no other knower but he. This is the Self, the ruler within, the immortal. Everything else is distress' This whole section called antaryāmi-brāhmaṇa has a parallel in Bṛ. Up. II. 5 (Madhuvidyā). The ordinary man's conception of *brahman* as the creator was not, however, entirely given up by the thinkers in the Upaniṣads, though it was said that that concept was due to *avidyā* (ignorance about Reality). Brahman conceived as creator was called Īśvara (a personal God), though the worshipper might know that brahman in essence is above all conditions and limitations of personality. This is theism, which acknowledges three entities viz. a real world, the Paramātman (creative Ātman) and the individual self dependent on Paramātman. But the real thought of the Upaniṣads is centred round the non-difference of *brahman* and *ātman* and the physical world. This thought that *brahman* entered into what are called individual souls and also the material universe is the third aspect of Vedānta. On V. S II 3 43 Śaṅkarācārya quotes passages from the Brahmasūkta belonging to the Atharvaveda²⁴⁵² and from the Śv. Up. expressive of the identity with *brahman* of fishermen, slaves, gamblers, of men and women, of boys and girls and old men tottering on a staff The faith that the same Spirit animates the universe, from the stone, worms and beasts to man, is an elevating one, may make one feel that all creatures are brethren seeking the Creator and may, in a world dominated by egoism and urged to activities for individual prosperity and benefit, introduce some sweetness and consolation. Deussen in 'The philosophy of the Upanishads' (translated by A. S. Geden, Edinburgh, 1906) pays a glowing tribute to the sages of the Upanishads in the following eloquent passage 'It was here that for the first time the original thinkers of the Upanishads, to their immortal honour, found it (key) when they recognized our *ātman*, our inmost individual being, as the *Brahman*, the inmost being of universal nature and of all her phenomena' (p. 40). Vide also J. Royce in 'The world and the individual', First series of Lectures, particularly pp. 156-175 for the exposition of Chān. Up. III. 14 and VI. 2-15 and the Bṛ. Up dialogue between Yāj. and Maitreyī