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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s1: XI. The Supreme and the Individual Souls

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s1

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XI. The Supreme and the Individual Souls

1. The Theory of the later Vedânta

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THE Vedânta of S'ankara and his school makes a distinction between the supreme soul (*paramâtman*) and a multitude of individual souls (*jîva âtman, s'arîra âtman*). The former is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent; the latter are limited in wisdom, power and capacity of movement. The former is neither active nor passive, and is therefore free from the very beginning; the latter are active and receptive, and are therefore entangled in the eternal round of saṃsâra, and stand in need of deliverance. Yet the individual âtmans are not properly distinct from the supreme âtman. Each of them is in full and complete measure the supreme âtman himself, as he manifests himself, though his real nature is concealed by the upâdhis (manas, indriyas, etc.). These upâdhis are unable to change his real nature, as little as the purity of the rock crystal is destroyed by the red colour with which it is externally smeared. Rather is it solely avidyâ, ignorance, which imposes the upâdhis on the supreme âtman, and thus comes to regard him as an individual âtman. Accordingly the entire individual soul as such has no reality, and yet the system cannot avoid treating it as a reality, and discussing in detail its organs and attributes, its wandering and final deliverance. This internal contradiction inherent in the system, as well as the designation of two different and yet not different entities by the one word âtman, points to the conclusion that the whole theory of a twofold soul, supreme and individual, is of secondary origin. We have now to trace its rise in the Upanishads.

2. Originally only one Soul

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The texts of the oldest Upanishads do not recognise two souls, but only one. “It is thy soul, which is within all.”¹ He who while dwelling in the earth, the water, the fire, in space, wind, heaven, sun, etc., is distinct from them, whose body they are, who rules them all from within, “he is thy soul, the inner guide, the immortal. He sees but is not seen, hears but is not heard, comprehends but is not comprehended, knows but is not known; there is none beside him that sees or hears or comprehends or knows.”² This âtman who alone exists is the knowing subject in us, and as such sustains the whole universe of conceptions, in which is everything and beyond which nothing, and with the knowledge of the âtman therefore all is known.³ This is the point of view of pure idealism, which denies the existence of a manifold universe, and of everything outside the knowing subject. It becomes pantheism, when it concedes a relative existence to the universe, but identifies this entire universe with the âtman, the knowing subject. Such an identification however, often as it is repeated, is always very obscure, and in order to bring it within the range of empirical comprehension a return is effected to the old cosmogony, and it is taught that the âtman created the universe and then entered into it as soul:—*anena jīvena ātmanā anupraviśya*.¹ Here for the first time we meet with the word *jīva ātman*, which later denotes “the individual soul” as contrasted with the supreme. But no such contrast yet exists here. It is the ātman himself who alone exists and creates the universe, who as *jīva ātman* enters into the universe that he has created. Neither from the point of view of pure idealism, nor in its empirical varieties of pantheism and cosmogonism, does any opposition exist between the supreme and individual souls. The contrast between them is first seen at the moment in which the ātman who creates the universe and then enters into his creation becomes a duality, the parts of which are set over-against one another. We have described this further accommodation to the empirical consciousness as theism, since here the original unity of the ātman is divided into God and the soul.

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 4. 1, 3. 5. 1.

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² Bṛih. 3. 7. 3–23.

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³ Bṛih. 2 4. 5.

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¹ Chând. 6. 3. 2.

3. The Individual Souls by the side of the Supreme

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All the Upanishads, even the oldest, when they discuss the conditions of bondage in the *saṃsāra* and of deliverance therefrom, distinguish between the imprisoned soul and that which has been delivered, between the soul entering on deliverance and that to which it enters in; and thus often enough a poetical personification of the two conditions is arrived at, as of the souls imprisoned in *saṃsāra*, and of the divine emancipated souls. An example is furnished by Chând. 3. 14. 4:—“To him shall I departing hence enter in”; or Kaush. 1, where a description is given how the souls that reach the other world appear before the throne of Brahmân (masc.), and are questioned by him with regard to their knowledge. The answer however that is rendered:² “The self of every being art thou, and what thou art, that am I,” proves that these poetical contrasts remain throughout dominated by the consciousness of the unity of the âtman. A real distinction between the individual and the supreme soul is first found in those texts in which the latter becomes concrete in the idea of a personal god over-against the souls, whose “grace” then is the condition of deliverance. This first occurs, as we saw before, in the Kâṭhaka Upanishad, and in harmony with this we meet the first real distinction of supreme and individual souls in Kâṭh. 3. 1:—

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² Kaush. 1. 6.

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Two, quaffers of the recompense for their deeds,
Yonder in the other world, entered into the pit;
Light and shadow are they called by him who knows Brahman.

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The unity of the two souls here distinguished is expressed in the fact that the “quaffing of the recompense” which is true only of the individual souls is ascribed to both, and also that the supreme soul is designated as the light, to which the individual soul clings as mere unsubstantial shadow.¹ On this passage Pras'na 3. 3 probably depends:—“From the âtman this prâṇa originates; as the shadow on a man, so it projects itself on the other.” In the words that immediately follow² we meet also for the first time with the description of the individual soul as the bhoktar, the “enjoyer,” that through the whole course of life has to enjoy, i.e. to expiate the fruit of the works of the preceding life. This enjoyer, the individual soul, results from the union of the âtman (the supreme soul) with the organs, manas and the indriyas.³ The description of the individual soul as bhoktar recurs in S'vet. 1. 8, 9, 12; 5. 7. The borrowing from Kâṭh. 3. 4 is, to judge from the entire relation of the two works, quite beyond doubt. Precisely the same contrast between individual and supreme souls is stated with remarkable heightening of the effect in S'vet. 4. 6-7,¹ adapting the verse Rigv. I. 164. 20 :²—

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¹ cp. Kâṭh. 6. 5.

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² Kâṭh. 3. 4.

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³ Kâṭh. 3. 4.

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¹ Mund. 3. 1. 1-2 also is probably dependent on it.

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² On the original meaning, cp. Allgemeine Einleitung, pp. 112, 113.

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Two fair-plumaged close friends
Surround one and the same tree;
One of them tastes the sweet berries,
The other, without eating, only gazes downwards.³

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³ Rigv. I. 164. 20.

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To such a tree the spirit sunk down
In its impotence mourns, a prey to delusion,
Yet when it worships and beholds the other
The omnipotence and majesty, then its grief departs.

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The entire adhyâya, S'vet. 5, serves as a further exposition of this contrast. Here, to begin with, vv. 2-6 depict the supreme soul, how at the beginning it gave birth to Hiranyagarbha (*kapila rishi*) as first-born, how it ever expands and contracts the web of the broad universe, how as Îs'vara exacting recompense it makes to grow and brings to maturity the fruit of all works. Then follows in vv. 7-12 the description of the "other" (the expression links itself with the verses 4, 7 already quoted), i.e. the individual soul :—

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7. The doer of works of inevitable result, abundant in fruit, Yea and the enjoyer of that which he does, He wanders as lord of life, in every form, Wrought of the three gunas, on triple path, even according to his work.

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8. An inch in height, shining like the sun, Endowed with thought and self-consciousness, By virtue of his buddhi, his âtman, The other appears, small as a needle's point.

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9. Split a hundred times the tip of a hair, And take therefrom a hundredth part, That deem I the size of the soul, And yet it wins immortality.

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10. He is neither male nor female, And yet is he not neuter; Even according to the body which he chooses, He resides in this or in that.

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11. Through the delusion of thought, touch, sight, He moves as soul, in harmony with his work, By the eating, drinking, begetting, which he himself effects, Changing here and there into various forms.

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12. As soul he selects many gross forms, Many subtle also, corresponding to his virtue; And that which fetters him by force of his deeds and self To these, fetters him also to others.

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The individual soul is here contrasted with the supreme soul as being endowed with *saṅkalpa* (the activity of the *manas*), *ahaṅkāra* and *buddhi*, enjoying the fruit of its action; and is described in a descending scale as “an inch in height,” “small as a needle’s point,” small as the ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair,—“and it,” so it is further said, “wins immortality”; *i.e.* after getting rid of the delusion of empirical reality, we recognise this infinitely small individual soul as identical with the infinitely great supreme soul. The clear distinction and yet repeatedly asserted identity of the two is already the standpoint of the later Vedānta, as it has been characterised above at the beginning of this Chapter.

4. Reason for the Assumption of Bodily Form

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If however the individual soul is a mere apparition as compared with the supreme soul, how comes the eternally free and blessed supreme soul to assume this apparitional form, and as individual soul, having strayed from its true being to become fettered, to wander and to suffer? This question first arises in the latest Upanishads, and the answers to it are very indefinite and unsatisfactory.

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In Pras'na 3. 1 the question is proposed :—“Whence does this prâṇa (the individual soul) originate, and how does it enter into this body? and the answer runs:—From the âtman (the supreme soul) this prâṇa originates; as the shadow on a man, so he projects himself on it; and he enters into this body *manokṛitena*.” This term Śaṅkara explains as *manaḥ-saṅkalpa-ic’châ-âdi nishpanna-kar-manimittena*, “because of his works which have originated from the will, desire, etc. of the manas”; thus actions and imprisonment in the saṃsâra as their inevitable consequence would be the result of the free will of the soul. It must be admitted that this explanation is disputable on grammatical grounds, since *manokṛitena* can only be resolved as *mano-(a)kṛitena*, and would mean,—Without assent of its will, contrary to its will the soul is involved in the saṃsâra.

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The answer which is given to the same question in Maitr. 3. 2, falling back upon the terminology current later in the Sâṅkhya, shows a deeper insight. After establishing the distinction between the immortal (supreme) âtman and the natural (individual), it goes on to say here:—“Assuredly his immortal âtman continues to exist (uncontaminated) like the drops of water on the lotus flower (which only apparently assume its colouring); but yet this âtman is overcome by the guṇas of prakṛiti. Being thus overcome then it falls into an illusion, and because of this illusion it fails to recognise the august and holy creator subsisting in itself; but torn asunder and defiled by the stream of guṇas it becomes without support, weak, broken down, sensual, disordered, and a prey to delusion fancies ‘This is I,’ ‘This is mine,’ and fetters itself by its own action, as a bird by its nest.”

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Finally the verse may be quoted which forms the conclusion of the Maitr. Up. 7. 11:—

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To taste of reality and illusion
The great Self becomes twofold.

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According to this the individual soul would be dependent on the desire of the supreme soul to experience the illusion of a life in the world as well as eternal reality.

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In ancient times therefore the same difficulties were encountered which meet us when we search for causal relations in a sphere which by its very nature is beyond the reach of the entire rule of causality.

Cites (9)