The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s2.t5.29

c10.s2.t5.29

Astronomical conceptions are only slightly developed in the Upanishads. Sun and moon enter principally into consideration, in so far as they form stations for the soul on its journey to the other world, a subject that will later demand treatment. If the texts of Chând. 4. 15. 5, 5. 10. 2 are to be followed, the sun is nearer to us than the moon. The red white and black aspects of the sun depend, according to Chând. 3. 1 f., on the juices of the different Vedas dissolved in it. According to Chând. 6. 4. 2–3, sun and moon also, like everything else in the universe, consist of the three elements; the red in them of fire, the white of water, the black of earth. The sun moves in winter and summer alternately for six months to the south and six to the north.¹ It is disc-shaped (*maṇḍalam*).² The purusha of the sun dwells therein, who is usually hidden by the rays,³ but by these same rays is brought into connection with the purusha in the eye,⁴ or with the veins of the heart.⁵ The moon is (as in Ṛigv. X. 85. 5) the soma cup of the gods, which is alternately drained by them and again filled;⁶ on the other hand, the waxing and waning of the moon depend on the arrival of the dead therein and their return.⁷ The two conceptions are combined in Bṛih. 6. 2. 16. According to Bṛih. 1. 5. 14, the moon is Prajâpati as prâṇa, whose fifteen parts alternately disappear and are again restored. At an eclipse the moon is held in the jaws of *Râhu*.⁸ All night long the moon holds on her course among the other constellations (*nakshatram*), on which she depends like the Sâman on the Ṛic.⁹ The same 27 constellations are traversed, according to Maitr. 6. 14, by the sun on his yearly journey, and therefore on each of the twelve months 27/12 aksha tras, i.e. nine quarters (navâṁs'akam) of them are covered. The planets (grahâḥ) are first mentioned in Maitr. 6. 16. In a very late text¹ their number is given as nine, and therefore together with sun and moon Râhu and Ketu also (the head and tail of the dragon) are reckoned with them. S'ukra, Venus,² and S'ani, Saturn are especially mentioned with Râhu and Ketu.³ Of movements affecting the cosmos there are mentioned in Maitr. 1. 4:—"the drying up of great seas, shattering of mountains, oscillations of the pole-star (dhruva), straining of the ropes of the wind (which bind the constellations to the pole-star), sinkings of the earth, and overthrow of the gods from their place."