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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s3: VIII. Brahman as Destroyer of the Universe

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s3

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VIII. Brahman as Destroyer of the Universe

1. The Kalpa Theory of the later Vedânta

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Before we trace in the Upanishads the development of the doctrine of Brahman as destroyer of the universe, it is worth while to glance at the theory of the later Vedânta, which is the result of this development. According to the Vedânta system, the actions of each life-history find their precisely equivalent recompense in the next succeeding life. Each life both in doing and in suffering is only the fruit of the actions of a preceding birth. Hence it follows that each existence always presupposes an earlier, that consequently no existence can be the first, and that the migration (saṃsâra) of souls is maintained from all eternity. The absence of a beginning of the saṃsâra (saṃsârasya anâditvam) is therefore a necessary consequence of the Vedânta teaching; and this is not only assumed by Gauḍapâda¹ and defended by Śankara, but occurs also already in the sûtras of Bâdarâyaṇa,² and is actually found in some of the later Upanishads.³ This absence of a beginning to the circuit of the souls' migration is in contradiction to the numerous creation theories of the Upanishads, which collectively teach a creation of the universe at one time, as is at once proved by the constantly recurring expression, “At the beginning.”⁴ In order to assert the absence of a beginning of the saṃsâra as demanded by their system, and yet to uphold the Upanishad doctrine of a creation, the theologians of the Vedânta conceive the creation of the universe as an event recurring periodically from all eternity. The universe created by Brahman persists through an entire world-period (kalpa), after which it returns into Brahman, only to issue again from him; since at each dissolution of the universe there are works of the soul that still survive, and these demand for their expiation a renewed existence and therefore a re-creation of the universe:—

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¹ Mâṇḍukya-kârikâ 4. 30.

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² 1. 35.

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³ e.g. Sarvop. 23; cp. the drastic description of Yogatattva 3–5.

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⁴ agre, Ait. 1. 1. 1, Chând. 3. 19. 1, 6. 2. 1, Bṛih. 1. 2. 1, 1. 4. 1, 10, 17, 5. 5. 1, Taitt. 2. 7. 1, Maitr. 2. 6, 5. 2.

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All living beings, O Kaunteya,
Return back into my nature
At the end of the world; at the world's beginning
I re-create them anew.⁵

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⁵ Bhag. Gîtâ 9. 7, cp. 8. 17–19.

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For proof S'ankara relies, as perhaps Bâdarâyaṇa before him,¹ on the verse in Ṛigv. X. 190. 3:—

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¹ 2. 1. 36.

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*Sûryâ-c'andramasau dhâtâ yathâpûrvam akalpayat*, in which according to the context *yathâpûrvam* signifies only "one after the other," not as S'ankara maintains,² "as before." The other passage also, on which his theory rests:—"I will enter into these three divinities with this living self,"³ does not prove, as he believes, that the "living self" existed already before the creation. This entire conception of a periodically recurring creation and destruction of the universe is still entirely foreign to the older Upanishads. In order to trace its origin we shall have to distinguish, (1) the return of individuals into Brahman, (2) that of the universe.

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² p. 495. 7.

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³ Chând. 6. 3. 2.

2. Return of Individuals into Brahman

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The first starting-point of the conception of Brahman as destroyer of the universe is formed probably by the fact of death, which presents itself as the result of experience, and engages attention at all times, and therefore also as early as that ancient period. After men had become accustomed to see in Brahman the power which as *prâṇa* brings forth and sustains life, it was an easy step to restore it to the same power "when it wearies of bearing the burden," and to see in Brahman as *prâṇa* "the cause of death and of life."⁴ Therefore as early as S'atap. Brâh. 11. 3. 3. 1 we find it said:—"Brahman handed over the creatures to death"; and in S'atap. Brâh. 13. 7. 1. 1 again:—"He sacrificed himself in all beings, and all beings in himself." This thought is further expanded by the Upanishads. In Bṛih. 1. 2. 1 "death and hunger" (*mṛityur, as'anâyâ*) figure as creators of the universe:—"all that he created he resolved to devour;

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⁴ Taitt. Âr. 3. 14. 1-2, Atharvav. 11. 4. 11.

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because he devours (ad) everything, therefore is he the Aditi (the infinite).” And in Bṛih. 1. 5. 3 Prajâpati creates the all-embracing principles, manas, speech and prâṇa, as food for himself. In the words of Kâṭh. 2. 25 :—

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He consumes both the Brâhman and the warrior,
As though they were bread soaked in the sauce of death,

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a poetical echo of passages of this kind seems to be before us. In Chând. 1. 9. 1 it is said of the âkâś'a (ether, space, as the symbol of Brahman) :—“It is the âkâś'a whence all these creatures proceed, and into which they again descend.” And in Taitt. 3. 1 a distinctive mark of Brahman is given :—“That in truth out of which these beings arise, by which they when they have arisen live, into which they at death again enter, that seek to know, that is Brahman.” In all these passages the reference is solely to the descent of individual beings into Brahman, not to that of the universe. So also in Muṇḍ. 1. 1. 7, where Brahman is compared to the spider, which sends forth the threads and draws them in again; and in Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 1, where living beings in their numerous kinds issue forth from the imperishable and enter into him again. In the same sense it is said of the âtman in Mâṇḍ. 1. 6 :—“He is the cradle of the universe, for he is the creation and the end of living beings”; and in Nârây. 1 of Nârâyaṇa :—“All gods, all ṛishis, all metres, and all creatures originate solely from Nârâyaṇa, and are lost in Nârâyaṇa.” We may compare also the beautiful verses of C'ûlikâ 17–18 :—

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In him in whom this universe is interwoven,
Whatever moves or is motionless,
In Brahman everything is lost,
Like bubbles in the ocean.
In him in whom the living creatures of the universe
Emptying themselves become invisible,
They disappear and come to light again
As bubbles rise to the surface.

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To these passages also the doctrine of the disappearance of the universe in Brahman appears to be still unfamiliar. And therefore we must hesitate to find it with S'ankara in the mystical name *Tajjalân*,¹ discussed above;² since this idea is still foreign to all the rest of the Upanishads, and the conception of Brahman as the cause of the rise, continuance and disappearance of individual beings is sufficient to explain the term. Still less can we refer the words of Vâj. Samh. 32. 8,

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¹ Chând. 3. 14. 1.

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² p. 180 f.

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*tasmin idam sam- c'a vi- c'a eti sarvam,*

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to a dissolution and re-creation of the universe. Judging from the entire context, they signify only that the vein is "the centre and circumference of the universe."³ The case stands otherwise with the repetition of these words in S'vet. 4. 11.⁴ Here from their relation to the other passages of the S'vet. Up. they gain a new significance, which we now proceed to discuss.

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³ cp. the translation, *Allgemeine Einleitung u. Philosophie des Veda*, p. 294.

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⁴ And in Mahânâr. 1. 2, which is dependent upon it.

3. Return of the Universe as a Whole into Brahman

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Among the new and fruitful thoughts in which the S'vet. Up. is so rich is to be counted that also of the periodical dissolution and re-creation of the universe by Brahman. "He (Rudra as a personification of Brahman) dwells in the creatures, and burning with fury at the end of time he as lord dashes to pieces all created things";⁵ he regulates all the aims of the creatures, "until finally the whole is lost in him, who is the beginning."⁶ And we must understand similarly the words of Vâj. Samh. 32. 8 quoted above, when they recur in this connection;⁷ it is god, "in whom the universe is lost and reappears" (*yasmin idam sam- c'a vi- c'a eti sarvam*). This process however of the creation and dissolution of the universe is not unique, but is continually being repeated. In S'vet. 5. 3 "the god, who many times spreads forth one net after another in space and again draws it in," is compared to a spider.¹ The reason also for this periodically recurring re-creation of things is indicated in S'vet. 6. 3-4, where it is said, following upon a description of the work of creation :—

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⁵ S'vet. 3. 2.

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⁶ S'vet. 4. 1.

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⁷ S'vet. 4. 11.

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¹ As in Muṇḍ. 1. 1. 7; cp. S'vet. 3. 1, 6. 10.

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That which he created he then takes back again,
Becoming one with the being of being;
In order then . . .
To begin afresh the work rich in the guṇas,
Apportioning to each their attributes.

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That it is only the soul's actions which prompt the creator to "apportion to each all their attributes (*sarvân bhâvân viniyojayet*) is asserted by the immediately succeeding words :—

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Where they are not there action comes to nought,
Thither he departs actionless, in reality another;

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*i.e.* where the *bhâvas* which constitute the empirical nature are destroyed by knowledge, actions come to nought, and a re-creation no longer takes place.

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The following passages from later Upanishads that treat of Brahman as destroyer of the universe are noteworthy :—

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"It is he who, when the universe is dissolved, alone remains on the watch; and it is he who then (again) from the depths of space wakens to life the pure spirits."²

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² Maitr. 6. 17.

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"When Rudra lies in the coils of the snake, then created things are absorbed into him. When he draws breath, the darkness arises, from the darkness water," etc. ;³ cp.

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³ Atharvac'iras 6.

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the preceding passage :—" He who consuming all the forces of life, while consuming them, as the eternal one gathers together and again evolves them," etc.¹ This passage may however also be understood of sleeping and waking.

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¹ Atharvaciras 4.

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The fire that destroys the universe (*saṃvartako 'gniḥ*) is mentioned in Atharvas'ikhâ 1, and in the two reproductions of this passage, Nṛisiṃhap. 2. 1 and Nṛisiṃhott. 3. We close with the beautiful verse Kaivalya 19, where he who knows himself as the âtman speaks :—

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In me the universe had its origin,
In me alone the whole subsists,
In me it is lost,—this Brahman,
The timeless, it is I myself!

4. On the Origin of the Doctrine of the Dissolution of the Universe in Brahman

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Brahman is the womb whence all living beings proceed, and it was very natural to assume that they return at death into Brahman whence they have come forth ; for as Anaximander already says :—" that from which existing things originate, into it they necessarily also disappear." Accordingly we see formulated, as was shown above, in the texts of the oldest Upanishads and even earlier, the doctrine of Brahman as destroyer of individual creatures. Thence has been developed first in later times, from the S'vetâs'vatara Upanishad and onward, the doctrine of the periodical destruction of the universe by Brahman, precisely as the teaching of Heracleitus that all things come forth from fire (ὁδὸς κάτω), and return into it (ὁδὸς ἄνω), signified originally a twofold process linked together everywhere in the universe in the rise and disappearance of individual creatures, which was then however generalised, whether by Heracleitus himself or by his successors the Stoics, into a periodically recurring dissolution of the universe in fire (ἐκπύρωσις) and reconstruction out of it (διακόσμησις). Of the causes which in Greek philosophy may have led to this generalisation we learn nothing more precisely. In India to a great extent it gave support to the doctrine of recompense, inasmuch as the latter, as already shown, was only capable of being reconciled with the doctrine of a creation, if for the single creation taught in the ancient Upanishads there was substituted an eternally recurring process, a re-creation of the universe occurring after each dissolution, and determined by the actions of the souls. On its very first appearance the doctrine of the dissolution of the universe is connected with that of recompense, as is shown by the passages quoted above,¹ and especially S'vet. 6. 4 (" where they are not, there work comes to nought"). Whether however the original motive for the doctrine of the dissolution and periodical reconstruction of the universe lay in the wish to maintain, after the manner of the later Vedânta, the traditional doctrine of creation side by side with the later doctrine of recompense; or only in the natural attempt to generalise the dissolution of objects, which experience showed to be the case, into a universal dissolution, just as the entire doctrine of a creation of the universe originally rested on a generalisation of the observed origin of individuals,—to decide this is perhaps not possible in presence of the partial and ambiguous expressions of the S'vet. Upanishad.

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¹ p. 224 f.

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