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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10: Second Part of the System of the Upanishads: Cosmology, or the Doctrine of the Universe

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10

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Second Part of the System of the Upanishads: Cosmology, or the Doctrine of the Universe

VI. Brahman as Creator of the Universe

1. Introduction to the Cosmology

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THE sûtras of Bâdarâyaṇa define Brahman as that *janma-âdi asya yata' iti*, " whence is the origin, etc. (*i.e.* the origin continuance and end) of this (universe)." This definition goes back in the first instance to Taitt. 3. 1:—" That in truth out of which these creatures arise, whereby they having arisen live, and into which they at death return again, that seek thou to know, that is Brahman." It is to be noted however that in this passage of the Upanishad there is no mention as in the sûtra of an origin continuance and end of the universe as a whole, but only of the individual beings. The case would be different with a still older passage, Chând. 3. 14. 1, if we could follow S'ankara :—" Assuredly this universe is Brahman; it should be worshipped in silence as *Tajjalân*." The word *Tajjalân* is a mysterious name of the universe as identified with Brahman that occurs only here, and it is explained as follows by S'ankara on Chând. 3. 14. 1:—" From this (*tad*) Brahman by development into fire, water, earth, etc. the universe has arisen (*jan*); therefore it is called *taj-ja*. So on the reverse path to that by which it has arisen it disappears (*lî*) into the very same Brahman, *i.e.* it is absorbed into his essence; therefore is it called *tal-la*. And in the same way finally it is Brahman in whom the universe at the time of its origin breathes (*an*), lives and moves; therefore is it called *tad-anam*. Therefore in the three periods (past, present and future) it is not distinct from the essential Brahman, since there is nothing which lies outside of and beyond these.”¹ When Böhtlingk² declares this explanation of S'ankara to be ungrammatical, on the ground that *upâsîta* must have an object, and accordingly proposes to find the secret name in *jalân* alone, he is met by the entirely analogous case of Kena 31, *tadd ha tad-vanam nâma, tad-vanam ity upâsîta-vyam*; in other respects no alteration would be introduced. According to S'ankara’s view therefore we should have before us already in the name *tajjalân* (= *tad-ja-la-an*) a summarising of the three attributes of Brahman as creator preserver and destroyer of the universe. Whether this is correct, whether in so ancient an Upanishad it is possible to assume already the doctrine of the destruction of the universe, and whether we ought not rather here also to think of a simple destruction of individual beings, will later on become a subject of investigation. Meanwhile we propose to arrange our presentation of the cosmology according to these three attributes of Brahman, and accordingly to treat in order of Brahman as creator preserver and destroyer of the universe. When moreover S'ankara asserts in the passage quoted, and in many others, that the whole doctrine of the creation is not to be understood in a literal sense, but should be employed merely to teach the essential identity of the universe and Brahman, this also needs a fuller investigation and discussion of the question how far a creation of the universe is possible from the standpoint of the âtman doctrine.

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¹ cp. the consistent explanation which S'ankara gives on Brahmasûtra 1. 2. 1, for which see p. 87 of my translation.

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² *Berichte der Sächs. Ges. d. W.*, 1896, p. 159 f.; 1897, p. 83.

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2. The Creation of the Universe and the Doctrine of the Âtman

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We have above in the first part of our work learnt to recognise a series of descriptions of the creation of the universe from the Hymns and Brâhmaṇas, and to point out as a feature common to many of them that (1) the original principle, (2) creates matter out of itself, and then (3) as first-born enters it. We propose in the first place briefly to survey here the chief passages that set forth this doctrine.

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Rigv. X. 129:—In the beginning there is only ‘that one’ (*tad ekam*). It exists as a dark undulation, shut in by a shell (*apraketam salilam*), out of which by tapas that one was first born as *Kâma* or *Manas* (that is to say, according to the conception of vers. 4).

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Rigv. X. 121:—Prajâpati begets the primeval waters, and issues forth from them as golden germ (*hiraṇyagarbha*).

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Rigv. X. 81, 82:—Vis’vakarman fashions the worlds sunk in the primeval slime, *i.e.* in the primeval waters, and then issues forth from these waters as the primeval germ that conceals all the gods.

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Rigv. X. 72:—Brâhmaṇaspati fashions the *aditi* (*salilam, uttânapad, sad*), and himself issues forth from it as Daksha.

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Rigv. X. 125:—It is Vâc’ that at the beginning actuated the father of the universe, and then was again born in the waters of the sea, in order to distribute herself over living beings.

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Rigv. X. 90:—From Purusha (as *Âdipurusha*, Sây.) is born Virâj, and from the latter again Purusha (as *Nârâyaṇa*, the “son of Purusha,” or “son of the waters,” *i.e. Hiraṇyagarbha*).

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S'atap. Br. 6. 1. 1 :—Purusha Prajâpati creates the waters, enters into them as an egg in order to be born from them, and issues forth from them as Brahman.

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Atharvav. 11. 4 :—Prâṇa begets the universe, and issues forth from it as first-born (as apâm garbha, v. 26).

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Atharvav. 10. 7. 8 :—Skambha, in whom Prajâpati sustained and nourished the whole universe, entered into the universe with a part of himself.

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Taitt. Âr. 1. 23 :—Prajâpati, building up the worlds, entered as first-born of the creation with his own self into his own self.

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Vâj. Samh. 34. 1-6 :—The mind (manas) includes all things in itself, and dwells in men as immortal light.

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The motive of the conception that dominates all these passages may be described to be the recognition of the first principle of the universe as embodied in nature as a whole, but especially and most of all in the soul (the universal and the individual soul). Hence the idea arose that the primeval being created the universe, and then as the first born of the creation entered into it. This traditional view we shall find appearing frequently even in the Upanishads.

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In what way however is this possible, since the entire doctrine of the creation of the universe and of the entrance of the creator into the universe that he has created is in contradiction to the âtman doctrine of the Upanishads, strictly interpreted?

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The assertion is frequently made by the Upanishads, as we saw,—and this is involved in the very conception of the âtman,—that the âtman is the sole reality, that there can be nothing beside it, and therefore with the knowledge of the âtman all is known. From this point of view no creation of the universe by the âtman can be taught, for there is no universe outside of the âtman. But the loftiness of this metaphysical conception forbade its maintenance in the presence of the empirical consciousness which teaches the existence of a real universe. It was necessary to concede the reality of the universe, and to reconcile with this the idealistic dogma of the sole reality of the âtman by asserting that the universe exists, but is in truth nothing but the âtman. Even from this standpoint, which declares the identity of the âtman and the universe, no doctrine of the creation of the universe was possible. It was only by making a further concession to the empirical consciousness, and maintaining no more than an actual identity of the âtman and the universe, never carried out in detail, but framed on a causal relation between the âtman as first cause and the universe as its effect,—it was only then possible and necessary to formulate a theory to explain how the universe as effect had proceeded from or been created by the âtman. This step involved a further inevitable consequence. According to the creation doctrine the universe had come forth from the âtman as another distinct from it. It was necessary to secure its return into the âtman if the original fundamental doctrine of the sole reality of the âtman were not to be absolutely rejected. This motive gave rise to the doctrine that the âtman as soul (universal and individual soul) had entered into the universe that it had created, as we find the doctrine set forth in the Upanishads. It was then possible for the authors of the Upanishads side by side with their fundamental idealistic view to maintain in a modified and more developed form the traditional doctrine of the Rigveda, according to which the first principle creates the material universe and then as first-born enters into it. When therefore the professors of the Vedânta, Bâdarâyaṇa,¹

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¹ Sûtra 2. 1. 14.

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Gauḍapâda,¹ and S'ankara,² maintain that the sacred writings teach a creation of the universe only by way of concession to man's faculty of understanding, their assertion is not to be entirely rejected. It needs to be modified only in the one point that this is not a conscious but an unconscious concession made to the empirical view that demands a real universe held together by causal connections of space and time ; and with this limitation even the Upanishads, in spite of their âtman doctrine that denies the existence of the universe, teach its creation by the âtman and the latter's entrance into it, as the following passages show :—

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¹ Mâṇḍûkya-kârikâ 1. 18, 3. 15.

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² On Brahmasûtra 4. 3. 14, and frequently.

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Bṛih. 1. 4. 7 :—"The universe before us was once not unfolded ; it was then unfolded in name and form ; . . . that âtman has entered into it up to the finger-tips, as a knife is hidden in a sheath, the all-sustaining (fire) in the fire-preserving (wood)."

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Chând. 6. 2, 3 :—"Alone existing, my dear sir, was this in the beginning, one only without a second. . . . It proposed :—I will become many, will propagate myself; thereupon it created the heat." From heat water proceeds, from water food (i.e. the earth). "That divinity proposed :—I will now enter into these three divinities (heat water and food) with this living self (the individual soul), and unfold thence name and form."

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Taitt. 2. 6 :—"He (the âtman) desired :—I will become many, will propagate myself. Accordingly he practised self-mortification. After having practised self-mortification he created the entire universe, whatever exists. After having created it, he entered into it."

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Ait. 1. 1 :—"In the beginning this universe was the âtman alone; there was nothing else there to strike the eye. He deliberated :—I will create worlds; accordingly he created these worlds, the ocean, atmosphere, death, the waters." Further in 1. 3. 11 :—"He deliberated :—How can this (human frame) exist apart from me? And he deliberated :—In what way shall I enter into it? . . . accordingly he split open the crown of the head, and entered by this door."

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As far as the relative age of the passages quoted is concerned, the order that I have chosen may be expected to prove the order also of history. Bṛih. 1. 4. 7 is the least developed. Chând. 6. 2, 3 describes the process of creation in detail, but recognises only three elements. Taitt. 2. 1 represents the five elements as proceeding from the âtman. Ait. 3. 3 cites the five elements, and describes them for the first time with the later technical term *pañc'a mahâbhûtâni*; the finished picture moreover in Ait. 1. 3. 11 of the âtman's entering into man by the seam of the skull makes this passage appear as the latest among those quoted.

3. The Creation of Inorganic Nature

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In the whole of nature no distinction is so sharply drawn as that between the inorganic and the organic; and this distinction dominates the Indian view of nature also, in so far as they both, the inorganic no less than the organic, are derived from the âtman, but in quite a different sense. All organic bodies, and therefore all plants, animals, men and gods, are wandering souls, are therefore in essence the âtman itself, as it, for reasons which have still to be considered, entered into this manifold universe as wandering individual soul. Inorganic bodies, on the contrary,¹ *i.e.* the five elements, ether, wind, fire, water, earth, though they are ruled by Brahman,¹ and remain under the protection of individual deities,² yet are not wandering souls, as are all plants, animals, men, and gods, but are only the stage erected by Brahman on which the souls have to play their part. Before we consider the origin of the elements from Brahman, and in the immediately following section of the entrance of Brahman into them as the soul, a few words of introduction are necessary on the creation myths of the Upanishads.

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¹ Named *mahâbhûtâni* on account of their bulk by Ait. 3. 3, Maitr. 3. 2, Prâṇagnihotrop. 4.

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 7. 3–14.

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² Bṛih. 2. 1. 5–8, 2. 5. 1–10.

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It was shown above (pp. 183–186) how it became possible for the teachers of the Upanishads, in spite of the doctrine of sole existence which they defended, and which denied the existence of the universe outside of the âtman, by an unconscious approximation to the empirical view to adopt the traditional scheme of the creation myths. Thus in Chând. 4. 17. 1–3, and in a briefer form Chând. 2. 23, a creation myth is reproduced, in part verbally, which we have already come to know from Ait. Br. 5. 32 and S'atap. Br. 11. 5. 8.³ A creation myth is attached to the conception of the egg of the universe, whose earliest origin we have found in the "vital force that was enclosed in the shell,"⁴ and in the "golden germ";⁵ and the progressive development of the same idea met us already in S'atap. 6. 1. 1 and 11. 1. 6. This myth is preserved in Chând. 3. 19:—"This universe was in the beginning not-being; this (not-being) was being. It arose. Then an egg was evolved. It lay there a whole year long. Thereafter it split open; the two halves of the shell were, the one of silver, the other of gold; the silver half is this earth, the golden is yonder heaven," etc. (On these predecessors the representation in Manu 1. 9–13 depends.)

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³ Deussen, *Allgemeine Einleitung u. Philosophie des Veda*, pp. 183, 189.

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⁴ Rigv. X. 129. 3.

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⁵ *hiraṇyagarbha*, Rigv. X. 121. 1.

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The conception of the egg of the universe appears in a more characteristic context together with that of the premundane purusha¹ in the creation myth at the beginning of the Aitareya Upanishad that belongs to the Rigveda :—"In the beginning the âtman alone was this universe; there was nothing else at all to meet the eye. He deliberated:—I will create worlds." Accordingly after he had created the earth and the atmosphere, the waters above and below, he drew forth the purusha from the waters, and gave him shape. Brooding over these waters they opened "like an egg," the mouth, nose, eyes, etc. of which are then developed, and from them the eight psychical organs, and from these in turn Agni, Vâyu, Âditya, etc. as the eight guardians of the universe, who finally take up their abode in men as speech, breath, sight, etc. Although however the human frame is thus animated by the organs of sense that spring from the purusha, it can only exist after the creator through the fissure of the skull (*vidriti*) has entered into it as individual soul. The tendency of this myth is clear. The purusha, that in Rigv. X. 90 had been the first principle, becomes here a power dependent on the âtman; and similarly only the organs of man's soul are ascribed to the purusha, but the soul itself to the âtman.

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¹ Rigv. X. 90.

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The most original and significant creation myth of the Upanishads is the representation of the evolution of the universe from the âtman in Brih. 1. 4. Here the traditional form of the creation myth appears only as a veil lightly thrown over the whole. The aim is not to relate a consistent history of the creation, but rather in a series of loosely connected creation pictures to teach the absolute dependence of all existing beings on the âtman. Accordingly the perpetual return of created things into the âtman is used to show how the division of the universe into male and female, and then into the different species of animals by the flight of the female before the male, how the evolution of name and form, and the entrance of the âtman into them, together with the creation of the castes of the gods and afterwards of men, etc., how all this signifies only the self-evolution of the âtman to become the manifold universe, and the essential identity of all its phenomena with the âtman. Through the consciousness “I am Brahman” (*aham brahma asmi*)¹ the âtman becomes the universe, “and to this day whoever knows this ‘I am brahman’ he becomes this universe; nor have even the gods power to prevent his so becoming. For he is its soul (*âtman*).” Thus the traditional doctrine of the creation is preserved only as an external form. It serves merely to exhibit the sole reality of the âtman under the different phenomena of the universe.

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 4. 10.

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From this lofty standpoint we see the Upanishads ever turning back to the realism natural to us, in order to teach in detail a creation of the universe, and of the elements of which it consists.

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Like the Greek philosophers, Philolaus, Plato and Aristotle, most of the Indian thinkers distinguish five elements, — ether, wind, fire, water and earth. A dependence however of the Greek idea on the Indian, or the Indian on the Greek, is not to be thought of for this reason, if for no other, that the order of the elements is different, inasmuch as the Greeks place fire between ether and air, the Indians air between ether and fire. Further also because on both sides independently of one another the simple observation of nature led to the thought of the five compound states of matter, viz. the solid, fluid, gaseous, permanently elastic and the imponderable, as the five component parts of the material universe, to which correspond, as we shall see, the five specific energies of the organs of sense. The result is that both in the Greek and in the Indian philosophy we see the doctrine of the fivefold character of the elements gradually formed out of simpler conceptions.

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The oldest element with the Indians is water. As early as Rigv. X. 129. 3 the first principle appeared as a "dark undulation" (apraketam salilam). In Rigv. X. 121. 9 Prajâpati begets "the great sparkling waters." These again appear in Rigv. X. 82. 1 as the primeval slime in which in the beginning heaven and earth were plunged; and in Rigv. X. 72. 4-6 as the "wave-surge," that is identical with Aditi, etc. In the Upanishads also the conception of the primeval waters still survives. "The waters are the body of that prâṇa!"¹ "This earth, the air, the heavens, the mountains, gods and men, domestic animals and birds, vegetables and trees, wild creatures down to worms, flies and ants, are nothing but this water under solid conditions, they are all nothing but this water under solid conditions."² In Kaush. 1. 7 also Brahman speaks to the soul that knows itself to be identical with him:—"The primeval waters in truth are my universe (as hiraṇyagarbha), and it is thine." In Kâṭh. 4. 6 again it is said of the purusha that he existed before the primeval waters; and the latter are to be understood in the following verse³ by "Aditi the sustainer of the god that springs forth together with them to life." It also "dwells in the cavity of the heart" (in which according to Chând. 8. 1. 3 heaven and earth are confined), that is the primeval waters also are a product of the âtman dwelling in the heart. Therein, according to Îśâ 4, Mâtaris'van, (i.e. probably the prâṇa) has already interwoven the primeval waters; according to Mahânâr. 1. 4 he has sown by water the germ of life on the earth. The cosmogony also of Ait. 1. 1 is to be explained on the same principle. It seems to be especially closely connected with Ṛigv. X. 82. 1. There it is said that in the beginning the worlds were plunged in the *ghṛitam* of the primeval waters, and that the creator, having first fastened the extreme ends (which could only stand fast out of the waters), spread out heaven and earth between them. This gives the key to Ait. 1. 1, where it is said:—"He deliberated:—I will create worlds, the ocean, the realms of light, death, the waters (*ambho, marīcīr, maram, āpas*). That is the ocean, beyond the heaven; the heaven is its floor. The atmosphere is the realms of light. Death is the earth. The waters are whatever is beneath it." After this description we have the waters as the two ends of the universe, above and below, and between them the clear atmosphere (hence called *marīcīr*), and the dark earth (hence dead), *i.e.* the *sūrtam* and the *asūrtam rajas* of Ṛigv. X. 82. 4. By a reference to this passage the otherwise isolated description of the construction of the parts of the universe in Ait. 1. 1 seems to find a complete explanation. The same Upanishad further on¹ enumerates the five elements as usually given by later writers.

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¹ Brih. 1. 5. 13.

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² Chând. 7. 10. 1.

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³ cp. Rigv. X. 72. 5, supra.

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¹ Ait. 3. 3.

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A further step is taken in Bṛih. 1. 2. 2, where we find the one element of the primeval waters replaced by three. Here also Prajāpati forms the water by his song of praise. From its churning the earth arises, fire from the labour and heat involved in the movement.

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The leading authority for the number three of the elements is Chānd. 6. 2. Here the waters are no longer the starting-point, but take their place between the subtler fire and the grosser earth. The tendency to choose for common subjects mystical terms intelligible only to the initiate (which in the Brahmasūtras is carried to an absurd extreme) is exhibited in the description side by side with water whose name is retained of fire as *tejas* (heat), of earth as *annam* (food). The evolution of these three elements from one another and ultimately from the self-existent, *i.e.* Brahman, is systematically described and established:—"He proposed:—I will be many, will propagate myself. Accordingly he created heat (*tejas*). This heat proposed:—I will become many, will propagate myself. Accordingly it created the waters (*âpas*). Therefore when a man feels the heat of pain or perspires, water (*i.e.* tears, sweat) is produced from the heat. These waters proposed:—We will become many, will propagate ourselves. Accordingly they created food (*annam*).

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Therefore when it rains, abundant food is produced, for from the waters is produced food for man's eating." Then after the account of the entrance of the self-existent as individual soul (*jîva âtman*) into the three deities that he has created, *i.e.* into the elements, there follows next the order of development from one another, how the self-existent "made threefold" the elements that he had created, and alloyed each of them with constituent parts of the other three. Thus for example it is shown of fire, sun, moon and lightning, that the red in them consists of heat, the white of water, the black of food. According to this the substances recurring in nature are not pure elementary substances, but compounds of which, as Bâdarâyaṇa says,¹ *vais'eshyât tu tadvâdas tadvâdaḥ*; which admits of a literal rendering, *denominatio fit a potiori*. In this theory of the threefold division of the primitive elements lies the earliest germ of the later distinction of pure substances (*tanmâtra*) and gross elements (*sthûlabhûtâni*). This distinction is first drawn in Pras'na 4.

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8, where there are distinguished—"The earth and the earth-substance (*prithivî c'a prithivîmâtrâ* ca), the water and the water-substance, heat and the heat-substance, the wind and the wind-substance, the ether and the ether-substance.” The expressions here used, prithivîmâtrâ, apomâtrâ, tejomâtrâ, vâyumâtrâ, âkâśamâtrâ, were later comprehended under the term tanmâtra, “subsisting from this alone,” which is found first in Maitr. 3. 2, and later on in Prâṇâgnihotrop. 4, Mahop. 1. (A derivation from tanu-mâtra, as might perhaps be maintained, is not to be thought of, after what has been said.) In the verse Manu 1. 27 (which is disconnected from the context) the tanmâtras are referred to as aṇvyomâtrâḥ, and in the Sânkhya philosophy they play an important part, as will later be shown. Bâdarâyaṇa does not name them, and Śankara¹ mentions them as technical terms of the Sânkhya only to reject them, although in his doctrine of the subtle body a kindred conception finds a place. The three elements having been increased to five, each was then conceived as fivefold instead of threefold, in such a way, according to the Vedântasâra, that half of each of the fivefold elements was pure, and the other half was made up of the remaining four elements; so that e.g. natural water consists of a half water together with an eighth of earth, fire, air and ether.

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The theory however propounded in Vedântasâra 128 in connection with this triple or fivefold distribution, according to which the earth can be smelt, tasted, seen, felt and heard, water be tasted, seen, felt and heard, fire be seen, felt and heard, the wind felt and heard, and the ether merely heard, must not be regarded as suggesting it. For this theory implies not the compounded but the uncompounded elements, which as they proceed forth from one another preserve the attributes of the elements from which they have proceeded (the wind can be heard as well as felt, because it has proceeded from the audible ether). On the contrary, the theory is opposed to the triple or fivefold distribution, since for example the fivefold ether, for the very reason that the four other elements are intermingled in it, can no longer be merely audible, but must be capable also of being felt, seen, tasted and smelt. Beyond however the observation that in all of them there are traces of all,¹ we were able to indicate, as suggesting the triple or fivefold distribution, only the fact that the human organism, although it takes up nothing but simple substances as food, yet assimilates from them all three elements, food water and heat, which according to the description attached to the threefold distribution of the elements in Chând. 6. 5 are requisite for its growth.

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¹ Sûtra 2. 4. 22.

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¹ In his commentary on 2. 2. 10, 14.

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¹ cp. πᾶν ἐν παντὶ μεμῖχθαι, Anaxagoras in *Ar. Phys.* 1. 4. 187, *b* 1.

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A great advance on the passage discussed,² which represents only three elements, viz.—fire water and earth, as proceeding forth from Brahman, is found in the later insertion of ether (or space, *âkâśa*) and wind (*vâyu*), which in earlier times, as we saw, had themselves been regarded as symbolical representations of Brahman, as the two subtlest elements between Brahman and fire. By this means the number of five elements was obtained, and this with few exceptions was assumed by all the later philosophers of India. The earliest passage that represents the five elements as proceeding forth according to the scheme laid down in Chând. 6. 2, the first from Brahman and each in succession from its immediate predecessor, is Taitt. 2. 1 (enumerations like Bṛih. 4. 4. 5 do not enter into consideration), a passage which has acquired a fundamental meaning in Indian philosophy:—"From this âtman, in truth, has the ether (space) arisen, from the ether the wind, from the wind the fire, from the fire the water, from the water the earth." This number of five elements corresponds, as we shall see later, to the number of five organs of knowledge (hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell) which has suggested if not the primary enunciation, yet the definite arrangement of the five elements. Each element has its assigned quality (sound, resistance, colour, flavour, odour), and besides this, as already remarked above, the qualities of those elements out of which each has proceeded. Later passages of the Upanishads, in which the five elements are partly enumerated, partly referred to, are Ait. 3. 3 (still unarranged); S'vet. 2. 12, 6. 2 (cp. also Kâth. 3. 15); Pras'na 6. 4, Maitr. 3. 2, 6. 4, Âtma 2, Piṇḍa 2, Prâṇâgnihotra 4.

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² Chând. 6. 2 f

4. Organic Nature

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The essential identity of the universe with Brahman is thus represented as a creation of the universe by Brahman with a view to suit man's intellectual capacity, which is adjusted to relations of cause. According to the meaning of the Indian word for creation, *sṛiṣṭi*, this is to be thought of as a discharge, a setting free or emission, an emergence therefore of the universe from Brahman; although this is really in contradiction with the fundamental dogma of the sole reality of Brahman. The doctrine therefore of the creation of the universe, if this last were not to be contrasted with Brahman as a second and foreign, demanded for its completion the idea that Brahman himself having created the universe entered into it as soul. "Into it (the universe) that one (the âtman) has entered up to the finger-tips."¹ "Thereupon that deity (Brahman) entered into these three deities (the elements) with this living self (*jîva âtman*, the individual soul), and separated out thence name and form."² "After he had created it, he entered into it."³ "Thereupon he cleft asunder here the crown of the head, and entered through this gate."⁴ Brahman creates the organisms as citadels (puras), and then enters into them as citizen (purusha, i.e. as the soul), cp. Bṛih. 2. 5. 18 :—

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 4. 7.

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² Chând. 6. 3. 3.

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³ Taitt. 2. 6.

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⁴ Ait. 1. 3. 12.

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As citadels he created the bipeds,
As citadels the quadrupeds also ;
Into the citadels he entered as a bird,
Into the citadels as citizen.

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All living creatures, and therefore all plants, animals, men and gods, are abodes of this character, into which Brahman has entered as individual soul.

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From him the gods in their many forms have sprung,
The blessed ones also ; from him, men, cattle and birds,
Inspiration and exspiration, rice and barley,

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as it is expressed in Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 7, echoing Ṛigv. X. 90. 8 and Atharvav. XI. 4. 13. Accordingly all living creatures are Brahman :—" This (consciousness, i.e. the âtman) is Brahman, this is Indra, this is Prajâpati, this is all the gods ; it is the five elements, earth, wind, ether, water, lights ; it is the tiny living creatures, and whatever is similar to them ; it is the seed of one and another kind ; it is that which is born of an egg or the mother's womb, of sweat or from a shoot ; it is horses, cattle, men, elephants,—all that lives, all that walks or flies, all that is motionless."¹ By the "motionless" (sthâvaram) the plant world is to be understood. On the entire passage S'ankara remarks :—" Thus in the individual bodily forms from Brahman down to a blade of grass (brahmâdi-stambaparyanteshu, an expression frequently employed later) Brahman assumes this or that name and form." A division of organic beings into three classes, " born from the egg, born alive, and born from the germ," is found as early as Chând. 6. 3. 1, to which the foregoing (later) passage adds as a fourth class, " born from sweat" (insects and the like). In each of these phenomenal forms the entire Brahman dwells.

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¹ Ait. 3. 3.

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Brahman is called *Sâman*, "because he is equivalent (*sama*) to the ant, the gnat, the elephant, these three world-regions, to this entire universe."¹ Chând. 6. 11. 1 furnishes an example of the animation of plants in the case of the tree which exists "penetrated through and through by the living self (*jîva âtman*, the individual souls), exuberant and joyful." That the migration of soul extends to the plant world also is taught by Kâth. 5. 7:—

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 3. 22.

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The one enters into the maternal womb,
Incorporating himself in bodily form,
Into a plant another moves,
Each according to his works or knowledge.

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According to the above the migration of souls extends to the world of the gods:—"As a sculptor takes the material from a statue, and chisels therefrom another newer fairer form, so this soul also, after it has shaken off the body and rid itself of ignorance (temporarily), creates for itself another newer fairer form, whether of the fathers or the Gandharvas or the gods or Prajâpati or Brahmân or other beings."² The coming forth of the creatures from Brahman, after their entrance into him (in deep sleep and in death), like the nectar of the flowers into the honey or the rivers into the ocean, takes place unconsciously:—"Therefore in truth none of all these creatures when they come forth again from the self-existent one know that they come forth again from the self-existent one; that whether they were tiger here or lion or wolf or boar or worm or bird or gadfly or gnat, whatever they may have been, thereto are they again fashioned."³ Cp. the similar and perhaps borrowed enumeration in Kaush. 1. 2—"Whether in this world he be worm or fly or fish or bird or lion or boar or stinging insect or tiger or man, whatever he was formerly, in this or that place is he reborn, each according to his works or according to his knowledge."

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² Bṛih. 4. 4. 4.

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³ Chând. 6. 10. 2.

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A mythical description of the origin of human and animal kinds is given in Bṛih. 1. 4. 3–4. The âtman is originally neither male nor female, but (as in the myth of Aristophanes in Plato Symp. 189 C seq.) an undistinguished union of the two, which is cleft asunder, and in the act of begetting attains to a fresh unity. Thereupon the female flees, and hides herself successively in the different species of animals, the cow, horse, ass, goat, sheep, down to the ant; the âtman however pursues her through all the forms, and thus begets individual creatures of each kind. We might be tempted to read a deeper meaning into this myth. The male principle would be the will which desires to manifest itself, the female the essence of the forms (the Platonic idea) which although derived from the will is yet distinct from it and flees from it, until the creative will gains the mastery, in order it to give expression to all its own being. In any case the myth asserts that all animal and human forms are essentially similar, and are alike incarnations of the âtman.

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In what follows¹ is described how the âtman creates above and beyond himself the various classes of gods:— "Because he created the gods to be higher (than he himself is), and because he being mortal created the immortal, therefore is he called the overplus of creation (atisṛishṭi)." This much at least is implied, that the âtman incorporated in man contains in himself the principle of all higher worlds and beings.

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 4. 6, 11–15.

5. The Soul of the Universe (Hiraṇyagarbha, Brahmân)

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The soul of the universe is related to the body of the universe as the individual soul to its body. This as denoted by Brahmân (masc.), distinguished from Brahman (neut.) the first principle, or even by Hiraṇyagarbha, which according to Rigv. X. 121. 1 came forth as the first-born of creation from the primeval waters which were created by the first principle. Because it is the first principle itself which appears in its creation as first-born, therefore the latter also is denoted by Brahmân with change of gender and accent, as though it were Brahman personified. In the texts of the older Upanishads this conception is but little developed. In Brih. 4. 4. 4, as quoted above, Brahmân (unquestionably to be taken as masc.) also appears together with Prajâpati and the other gods as an example of a soul subject to transmigration. In Ait. 3. 3 Brahmân is named at the head of the living beings, in whom the âtman manifests himself.¹ In Kaush. 1 again, where this Brahmân conceived as a person receives the souls as they arrive in the other world, his identity with Hiranyagarbha is indicated by the closing words:—"The primeval waters, in truth, are my universe, and they are thine."² Otherwise in older texts the personal Brahmân³ is mentioned only as the bearer of the divine revelation⁴ who communicates it to mankind. So in Chând. 3. 11. 4, 8. 15, Mund. 1. 1. 1–2, and frequently in later Upanishads.

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¹ In this passage also it is natural to read esha brahmâ instead of esha brahma, as it is printed by an oversight in Ait. Âr. 2. 6. 1. 5, p. 299. 3 ; cp. also the words of Sâyaṇa that immediately follow:—anena pul-lingena brahmas'abdena ‘Hiranyagarbhaḥ samavartata agre’ ity-âdi-s'âstra-prasiddhaḥ prathamaḥ s'arîrî vivakshitah.

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² Kaush. 1. 7.

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³ Or occasionally in his place Parameshthin or Prajâpati, e.g. Brih. 2. 6. 3, 4. 6. 3, 6. 5. 4.

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⁴ As Vena before him, cp. Allgemeine Einleitung, p. 252 f.

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This conception of the first-born of creation as the original source of all wisdom is carried further first in the S'vetâs'vatara Upanishad (which in general inclines towards a personification of the divine), and here it is described as the Brahmân, Hiranyagarbha the "golden germ," or even in one passage⁵ with a poetic and metaphorical use of the word as the "red wizard," *kapila ṛishi*,¹ an expression that has led many into the mistaken belief that here, in a Vedic Upanishad, Kapila the founder of the Sânkhya system was named as the first-born of creation! Had the author of our Upanishad, so strongly opposed to all dualism and atheism, known him (which we do not believe), he would have assuredly characterised him with altogether different epithets. The opinion that Kapila is here named is only possible so long as the passage is isolated and treated without regard to the connection of the Upanishad as a whole, which in four other passages gives expression to the very same thought that occurs here. It celebrates Rudra (Śiva), in whom it sees the primeval being, as the original source of all wisdom:—"from him wisdom emanated at the very beginning";² "he is called the primal purusha, the great one";³ it is he "who created the god Brahmân in the beginning, and who communicates to him the Vedas also";⁴ "who formerly begat Hiranyagarbha";⁵ "who himself saw Hiranyagarbha arise";⁶ and with reference to the last passage it is then said:—"He who in spirit went pregnant with that first-begotten red wizard (*kapilam ṛishim*),⁷ and saw him born."⁸ The word *tam* pointing back, and the expression *jâyamânam c'a pas'yet*, compared with *pas'yata jâyamânam* 4. 12, assuredly place the reference to the latter passage, and consequently to Hiranyagarbha, beyond doubt.

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⁵ 2.

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¹ i.e. red like gold.

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² S'vet. 4. 18; cp. Brih. 2. 4. 10.

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³ *agryaḥ purusho mahân*, 3. 19; cp. mahân âtmâ, Kâṭh. 3. 10, 6. 7.

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⁴ 6. 18.

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⁵ 3. 4.

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⁶ 4. 12.

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⁷ Mentioned in 3. 4 and 4. 12.

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⁸ 5. 2.

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Of later Upanishads mention must be made that according to Nârâyana 1 Brahmân originates from Nârâyana, and that according to Atharvas'iras 6 the egg of the universe originates from Rudra, according to Mahâ 3 from Nârâyana, and Brahmân from this in turn. He is also indicated as the source of knowledge in Pinda 1, Gâruḍa 3, and (under the name *Hiranyagarbha*) Mahâ 4. In contrast with the self-conscious *jīva* (the individual soul) *Hiranyagarbha* is described in Nṛisimhott. 9 as “self-conscious of all” (*sarvâhammânin*).

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To the series of primeval beings, primeval waters, and first-born (*Brahmân, Hiranyagarbha*) there corresponds the description of *purusha, avyaktam*, and *mahân âtmâ* given after abandoning the mythological form in Kâṭh. 3. 10–11, 6. 7–8, as the three earliest principles. Here, in contrast with the individual *âtman*, the *mahân âtmâ* (the great self, corresponding to the *mahân purusha* of S’vet. 3. 19), is the soul of the universe, *i.e.* the “self-conscious of all” *Hiranyagarbha*. *Buddhi* is still subordinated to the *mahân âtmâ* in Kâṭh. 3. 10. A combination of the two leads later on to the cosmical intellect (*mahân, buddhi*) of the Sânkhya philosophy. On other lines the *νοῦς* of the Neoplatonists that emanates from *ἕν*, just as the “pure knowing subject” (the eternal eye of the universe) of the philosophy of Schopenhauer, corresponds to the cosmical intellect as sustainer of the universe (*Hiranyagarbha, Mahân*). For the metaphysical comprehension of the universe this idea is indispensable. We know (and the Indians knew also as early as Bṛih. 2. 4. 5) that the entire objective universe is possible only in so far as it is sustained by a knowing subject. This subject as sustainer of the objective universe is manifested in all individual subjects, but is by no means identical with them. For the individual subjects pass away,¹ but the objective universe continues to exist without them; there exists therefore the eternal knowing subject also (*Hiranyagarbha*) by whom it is sustained. Space and time are derived from this subject. It is itself accordingly not in space and does not belong to time, and therefore from an empirical point of view it is in general non-existent; it has no empirical, only a metaphysical reality.

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¹ “After death there is no consciousness,” Bṛih. 2. 4. 12; cp. 3. 2. 12.

VII. Brahman as Preserver and Ruler

1. Brahman as Preserver of the Universe

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Since in reality the âtman alone exists, and the universe, so far as it has a general existence, is essentially only the âtman, it follows that the things of this universe, so far as we may concede to them a reality at all, can only hold it in fee from the âtman. They are related to the latter as the sparks to the fire whence they leap forth, and with which they are essentially identical in nature:—"As the tiny sparks leap forth from the fire, so from this âtman all vital spirits spring forth, all worlds, all gods, all living creatures."¹ This illustration is expanded in greater detail in Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 1:—

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 1. 20; cp. Kaush. 4. 20.

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As from the well-kindled fire the sparks,
Essentially akin to it, leap forth a thousandfold,
So, my dear sir, from the imperishable
The varied living creatures come forth,
And return into it again.

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All the things of the universe are, as this passage asserts, "essentially akin to it,"² are the âtman himself, and it is he alone who lies outspread before our eyes as the entire universe:—

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² *sarûpa*, or *svarûpa*, "having its form."

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Fire is his head, sun and moon his eyes,
His ears the regions of the sky,
His voice is the revelation of the Veda,
Wind is his breath, the world his heart, from his feet arises the earth,
He is the inner self in all creatures.³

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³ Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 4.

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How the one âtman is expanded into the manifold universe remains a mystery, and can only be explained by illustrations. Thus in Chând. 6. 12 the teacher causes a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree (whose shoots grow downwards and strike new roots in the earth, so that a whole grove springs up from one tree), to be brought and opened, and after the student has found in it only a quite small kernel, and within this nothing at all, the teacher addresses him:—"The subtle essence, which you do not observe, my dear sir, from this subtle essence in truth this great Nyagrodha tree has sprung up. Be confident, my dear sir, whatever this subtle essence is, of which this universe is a subsistence (a 'having this as its essence,' aitadâtmyam), that is the real, that is the soul, that art thou, O S'vetaketu."

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The expansion of the unity into plurality is elucidated also by the frequently misunderstood comparison of Kâṭh. 6. 1:—

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With its root on high, its shoots downwards,
Stands that eternal fig-tree.

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All who here take mûla in ûrdhvamûla as plural, and render "die Wurzeln," "the roots," "les racines," etc., have failed to grasp the meaning of the comparison, which consists precisely in showing how from the one Brahman as root the multiplicity of the phenomena of the universe arises. The universe therefore is likened to an as'vattha tree, in the case of which, like our own linden, from the one root the rich variety of its branches and shoots springs. The difference is that in the as'vattha which represents the universe the one root Brahman is above, and the many shoots of its manifestations are here below on the earth. It is altogether misleading to think here of the Nyagrodha tree (ficus indica), which sends its shoots into the earth where they strike new roots. The as'vattha (ficus religiosa) is entirely distinct from it in growth and foliage. It is interesting to see that the passage of the Kâṭhaka discussed is to all appearance already referred to in S'vet. 3. 9.¹ When it is said in this passage:—"rooted in heaven like a tree the One stands,”¹ the explanation is found in the passage Kâṭh. 6. 1, and only there.

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¹ As also Mahânâr. 10. 20.

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¹ cp. also the tree of the universe in Śvet. 6. 6.

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From the universal diffusion of the âtman its omnipresence in the phenomenal forms of the universe results, as is described in Kâṭh. 5. 2, where use is made of the verse Ṛigv. IV. 40. 5:²—

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² Mahânâr. 10. 6, cp. the further references there.

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In the ether he is the swan of the sun, in the air Vasu,
The priest at the altar, the guest on the threshold,
He dwells in man and at a distance, in law, in space,
He as supreme Right springs forth from the waters, from cattle, right,
and the hills.

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With a reference to the verse Vâj. Saṃh. 32. 4, the divine omnipresence is depicted in Śvet. 2. 16–17:—

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He is god in all the regions of the universe,
Born of older time and in the body of a mother;
He was born, and will be born,
Is present in men, and omnipresent.
The god, who is in the fire and in the water,
Who has entered into the entire universe,
Who dwells in vegetables and in trees,
To this god be honour, be honour!

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It is a consequence of the omnipresence of the âtman that all creatures share in the bliss which is his essence (sup. p. 140 ff.):—“From a small portion only of this bliss other creatures have their life”;³ “for who could breathe, who live, if that bliss were not in the âkâśa; for it is he who creates bliss.”⁴ Therefore longing for the âtman is innate in all beings, and equally for him who knows himself as the âtman:—“His (Brahman’s) name is ‘longing for him’ (tadvanam), as ‘longing for him’ ought he to be worshipped. He who knows himself as such, for him assuredly all beings long.”⁵

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³ Bṛih. 4. 3. 32.

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⁴ Taitt. 2. 7.

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⁵ Kena, 31; cp. the saying of Aristotle, κινεῖ δὲ ὡς ἐρώμενον.

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Every effect in the universe is wrought by the âtman :—" It is he who causes the man whom he will lead on high from these worlds to do good works, and it is he who causes the man whom he will lead downwards to do evil works."¹ Even the gods do their work only by virtue of the power which he confers on them; no blade of grass can be consumed by Agni, or swept away by Vâyu, apart from the will of Brahman.²

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¹ Kaush. 3. 8.

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² Kena, 17-23.

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The most beautiful picture of the omnipotence of the imperishable one, *i.e.* the âtman, is found, partly dependent on the hymn to Prajâpati in Ṛigv. X. 121, in Yâjñavalkhya’s discourse with Gârgî, Bṛih. 3. 8. 9 :—

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"At the bidding of this imperishable one, O Gârgî, sun and moon are kept asunder; at the bidding of this imperishable one, O Gârgî, heaven and earth are kept asunder; at the bidding of this imperishable one, O Gârgî, the minutes and the hours are kept asunder, the days and nights, the fortnights, the months, the seasons and the years; at the bidding of this imperishable one, O Gârgî, the streams run from the snow-mountains, some to the east and others to the west, whithersoever each goes; at the bidding of this imperishable one, O Gârgî, men praise the bountiful givers, the gods desire the sacrificer, the fathers the offerings to the dead."

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This passage, in which all dispositions in space and time, as well as every effect in nature and every desire of men, gods, and manes are ascribed to the âtman, has been often imitated. The comparison of the âtman in Bṛih. 4. 4. 22³ to a *setu*, a word that denotes not only the (connecting) "bridge," but also the (separating) "dike," depends probably upon its first part which speaks of the power of the âtman to keep asunder :—" he is the Lord of the universe, he is the ruler of living beings, he is the protector of living beings; he is the bridge which (the dike which) keeps asunder these worlds, to prevent their clashing together.” The last words recur in Chând. 8. 4. 1 :—“The âtman, he is the bridge (the dike) that keeps asunder these worlds to prevent their clashing together.” When however it is further said:—“This bridge neither day nor night cross, nor old age, nor death, nor suffering,” etc., we have, with a sudden change of the point of view, in place of the dike that separates the relative parts of the universe, a bridge that connects the present with the future world. And this circumstance affords probably a reliable proof of the important conclusion that the similarly sounding words are derived from Bṛih. 4. 4. 22, and their original meaning being lost were reproduced in Chând. 8. 4. 1. The conception thus modified of the bridge of immortality is then further taken over, apparently from Chând. 8. 4. 1, by S'vet. 6. 19 and Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 5. The entire preceding paragraph in Muṇḍ. 2. 1 is in reality an interweaving of the passage quoted¹ with Ṛigv. X. 90 and other additions.²

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³ Quoted in Maitr. 77.

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 8.

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² See Deussen, Upan., p. 550 f.

2. Brahman as Ruler of the Universe

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When it is said in the words quoted from Bṛih. 4. 4. 22, and also in Kaush. 3. 8 (probably in imitation of this passage):—“He is the protector of the universe, he is the ruler of the universe,” two things are implied: (1) that the âtman as protector of the universe maintains things in their condition. This point has been already discussed,—and (2) that he as ruler of the universe guides the creatures in their action. For this latter statement the principal chapter to be considered, together with several that have been already quoted, is Bṛih. 3. 7, which treats of the âtman as the antaryâmin, i.e. the “inner guide.” Yâjñavalkhya begins his instruction on this subject in Bṛih. 3. 7. 3 with the words:—“He who dwelling on the earth is distinct from the earth, whom the earth knows not, whose body the earth is, who rules the earth from within, he is thy soul, the inner guide, the immortal.” What is here asserted of the earth is then further affirmed, with continual repetition of the same formula, of eleven other natural phenomena (water, fire, atmosphere, wind, sky, sun, heavenly regions, moon and stars, ether, darkness and light), then of all living creatures, and finally of the eight organs (breath, speech, eye, ear, manas, skin, intellect, seed); all these natural phenomena, living creatures, and organs are thus the body of the âtman, but are distinct (antara) from him, do not know him, and yet are ruled by him from within. The passage also is frequently used in the sequel. This is especially the case in Mâṇḍûkya 6, and in its reproduction in Nrisiṁhap. 4. 1, Nrisiṁhott. 1, Râmott. 3; also Brahmop. 1 and Bâshkala. A (worthless) definition of the Antaryâmin is given in Sarvopanishatsâra No. 19 :— “ When the âtman as the cause of the natural constitution of compounds endowed with the supreme (consciousness) etc., appears in all bodies, like the string threaded through the store of pearls, he is then called the inner guide” (antaryâmin). In the Vedântasâra § 43 the antaryâmin is identified with Îśvara. A similar place is held by it in the system of Râmânuja.

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