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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t2: 2. The Âtman and the Organs

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t2

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2. The Âtman and the Organs

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“In the beginning the âtman alone in the form of a man was this universe. He gazed around; he saw nothing there but himself. Thereupon he cried out at the beginning:—‘It is I.’ Thence originated the name I. Therefore to-day, when anyone is summoned, he answers first ‘It is I’; and then only he names the other name which he bears.”¹ According to this passage, the first consciousness, and therefore the starting-point and vehicle of all certainty is self-consciousness,² and that for the supreme as well as for the individual soul, for the two are one. Only later, when this original idealism had been obscured by the advancing realism, and a distinction had been set up between supreme and individual soul, does *ahaṅkāra* appear among the functions or organs of the latter,³ as though the âtman the creator of the universe were something other than the self in me; a proposition which to the Indians as well as to Descartes serves already as the alpha and omega of all knowledge of the truth. “The self is the basis (*âśraya*) for the validity of proof, and therefore is constituted also before the validity of proof. And because it is thus formed it is impossible to call it in question. For we may call a thing in question which comes up (*âgantuka*) to us (from without), but not our own essential being. For if a man calls it in question, yet is it his own essential being.”¹ This thought is found expressed in the Upanishads, besides the passage above quoted from Bṛh. 1. 4. 1, in S’vet. 1. 2 also, in so far as it is there said:—

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 4. 1.

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² In Chând. 7. 25. 1 termed *ahaṅkāra*.

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³ For the first time in S'vet. 5. 8 and Pras'na 4. 8; so later on in Maitr. 2. 5, 3. 2, 6. 5, Prâṇâgnihotra 4, Mahâ 1, and in the Sâṅkhya.

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¹ S’aṅkara on Brahmasûtra 2. 3. 7.

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There are time, nature, necessity, chance,
Primitive matter, spirit,—is the union of these
As primal basis conceivable? Not so. For it is one Self.

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All the first principles proposed by other schools, time, nature, necessity, etc., are to be abandoned, *âtmabhâvât*, because the self, the *âtman*, is to be assumed as the first principle of things, since it is the necessary presupposition of them all.

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This *âtman* which in each one of us, as before the beginning of things is conceived as the I, as the passage from the Bṛh. sets forth further from the empirical standpoint, created the universe of names and forms, and then as soul entered into it :—“right to the tips of the fingers” he fills the body, and is hidden in it like the knife in the sheath or the fire in the fuel. “Therefore he is not seen, for he is divided ; as breathing he is called breath, as speaking speech, as seeing eye, as hearing ear, as understanding mind ; all these are only names for his effects.”² As eye he is the centre (*ekâyanam*) of all forms, as ear the centre of all sounds, etc.³ “When the eye directs itself into space, it is the spirit in the eye, the eye (itself) serves (only) for seeing ; and if a man desires to smell, that is the âtman, the nose serves only for odours,”¹ etc. The eye is nothing but eye, the ear nothing but ear, of that he who knows Brahman is aware,² and abandons the hearing of hearing, the thought of thinking, the speaking of speech, etc., in order to grasp that by which speech, breath, eye, ear and manas are harnessed and dismissed to their occupations.³ This essential identity of the organs with the âtman, when regarded empirically, appears as a creation of them from it:—“from it originates breath, the mind, and all the senses.”⁴ According to Chând. 6. 5, manas, prâṇa and speech are the most subtle product of the elements, food, water and heat, created by the âtman. To the organs of the individual âtman there correspond in the universe the forces of nature (nature gods) as organs of the cosmical âtman. Following up the ideas, which we learnt to know from the hymn of the purusha,⁵ Ait. 1. 1–2 represents the gods Agni, Vâyu, Âditya, Dis’, etc. as originating from the mouth, nose, eyes, ears, etc. of the primeval man, and these then enter into the individual man as speech, smell, sight, hearing. According to the Bṛih. Up., on the contrary, which in general prefers to start from the individual,⁶ the individual organs, speech, smell, eye, ear, manas, which are born at first as children of Prajâpati, are filled with evil by the demons, and then by the prâṇa are led beyond the reach of evil and death, to enjoy a continued existence as fire, wind, sun, the heavenly regions and the moon.⁷ The later theory⁸ of the protectorate which the nature gods exercise over the psychical organs depends upon conceptions of this kind. It makes its appearance first in Bṛih. 4. 4. 1, where a description is given how at death the material eye is set free,¹ and the spirit that dwells in the eye returns outwards to the sun,² while the psychical organ of the faculty of sight gathers with the rest of the organs in the heart around the soul, in order to journey forth in its company.

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² Bṛh. 1. 4. 7.

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³ Bṛh. 2. 4. 11.

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¹ Chând. 8. 12. 4.

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² Bṛih. 4. 4. 18.

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³ Kena 1–2; cp. the paraphrase of this passage in Maitr. 6. 31.

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⁴ Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 3.

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⁵ Rigv. X. 90. 13–14; cp. Allgemeine Einleitung, p. 157.

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⁶ cp. especially Bṛih. 1. 4. 6 ad fin.

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⁷ Bṛih. 1. 3. 11–16; cp. Chând. 1. 2.

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⁸ e.g. Pras’na 3. 8.

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¹ Bṛih. 4. 3. 36.

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² cp. the amplifications in Bṛih. 3. 2. 13.

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The names and number of the organs are still uncertain in the older texts. In Chând. 3. 1. 3 and Bṛih. 6. 4. 5 f. the word *indriyam* has still the meaning of "force"; it is first employed by Kaush. 2. 15, Kâṭh. 3. 4 as a name for the organs, as the physical forces in man. In the older texts the organs collectively are called the *prâṇas*, the "vital breaths," by virtue of a *denominatio a potiori*, from the organ of breathing (*prâṇa*), as being the most important and that upon which the life is dependent. "Therefore they are not called voices, eyes, ears, minds, but vital breaths (*prâṇâḥ*), for the breath (*prâṇa*) is all of them."³ As regards the number also of the organs, no agreement exists. It is frequently mentioned that man, like Prajâpati in his character as the moon,⁴ consists of sixteen parts. This is the case in the narrative of Chând. 6. 7.⁵ How little what was intended by the sixteen parts was understood is shown by Śatap. Br. X. 4. 1. 17, where the sixteen syllables of the words *loman, tvac, asṛij, medas, mâṃsam, snâvan, asthi, majjâ* (hair, skin, blood, sap, flesh, sinew, bones, marrow) do duty as such. In Pras'na 6 the sixteen parts are enumerated as (1) *prâṇa*, (2) *s'raddhâ*, faith, (3–7) the five elements, (8) *indriyam*, the organs of sense considered as one, (9) *manas*, (10) *annam*, food, (11) *vîryam*, strength, (12) *tapas*, (13) *mantrâḥ*, (14) *karman*, (15) *lokâḥ*, (16) *nâman*. The same are to be understood in S'vet. 5. 14, according to the commentary. It is perhaps on this sixteenfold enumeration of the parts of a man that the later summary of the organs as the ten indriyas with manas and the five prāṇas depends. By the “seven prāṇas” of Muṇḍ. 2. 18 should be understood, as in S'atap. Br. VI. 4. 2. 5 and elsewhere, the seven openings in the head; these with the two lower are described in S'vet. 3. 18 and later¹ as the nine gates of the city of the body. Adding the navel and Brahma-randhram² the number becomes eleven.³ An older verse⁴ describes the head as a drinking bowl with the opening at the side, on whose edges (the seven openings in the head) seven ṛishis (the seven organs of sense) dwell, who are identical with the seven guardians of the universe. A modification of this verse⁵ names speech as the eighth, and therefore by the seventh ṛishi (after ears, eyes, nostrils) vāc must again be understood as the organ of taste, and to this the explanation that follows⁶ refers.

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³ Chând. 5. 1. 15.

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⁴ Bṛih. 1. 5. 14.

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⁵ cp. Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 7, Pras'na 6.

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¹ e.g. Yogas'ikhâ 4, Yogatattvam 13, Bhag. G. 5. 13.

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² Ait. 1. 3. 12.

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³ Kâth. 5. 1.

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⁴ Atharvav. X. 8. 9.

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⁵ Bṛih. 2. 2. 3.

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⁶ Bṛih. 2. 2. 4.

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The seven so-called openings of the head have undoubtedly been the starting-point for the original enumeration of the organs of sense, as is clear from the fact that in the texts of the older Upanishads only speech, breath (smell), eye, ear and manas as a fifth are usually named as organs of sense (prāṇas).⁷ Where the number is fewer, special reasons are generally present, as in Bṛih. 3. 1. 3–6, where the number four is found, or Chând. 3. 13. 5, 5. 23. 2, where the surprising omissions are perhaps to be explained by the fact that smell was supposed to be already included in the five prāṇas.⁸ Where more than five organs are named the additions are usually appended to, or even made to precede the original speech, breath, eye, ear, manas. Thus in Bṛih. 2. 5. 1–7 (s'arīram, retas), 3. 2.

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⁷ This is the case in Bṛih. 1. 3. 2–6, 1. 4. 7, 2. 2. 3, Chând. 1. 2. 2–6, 2. 7. 1, 2. 11. 1, 3. 18. 1–6, 8. 12. 4–5, Kena 1. 4–8.

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⁸ cp. Taitt. 1. 7.

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13, 3. 7. 16-23 (*tvac*, *vijñānam*, *retas*), 4. 1. 2-7 (*hṛidayam*).¹ Bṛih. 3. 2. 2-9 is peculiar, where eight organs of sense are enumerated as the eight *grahas* or seizers (organ of smell, speech, tongue, eye, ear, *manas*, hands, skin), to which their objects correspond as *atigrahas* or over-seizers (smell, name, taste, form, sound, desire, action, touch). The assigning here of the names *prāṇa* and *apāna* severally to the organ of smell and to smell itself will be discussed later on. The name *graha* (seizer) for the organs of sense, according to S'aṅkara ² would signify that by them the soul is fettered to objects (*badhyate kṣetrajño 'nena graha-sañjñakena bandhanena iti*). In this may be found a confirmation of our conjecture ³ that the later conception of the "bands of the heart" ⁴ is derived from this passage or the view contained in it, that *graha* and *atigraha* tie the knots, which are unloosed on deliverance. The name *indriyas* for the organs of sense first meets us in the Upanishads in the rite of Kaush. 2. 15. The later enumeration of ten together with *manas* is followed with one exception. In the summary at the close they are again described by the old name of *prāṇas*. The oldest passage which cites the ten later *indriyas* complete, with the addition of *manas* and *hṛidayam*, is Bṛih. 2. 4. 11.⁵ With *manas* but without *hṛidayam* in the later total of eleven they appear first in Pras'na 4. 2, in evident contrast with the five *prāṇas*; while in the continuation of the passage ⁶ there are enumerated the five elements, five *tanmātras*, ten *indriyas* with their objects, together with *manas*, *buddhi*, *ahaṅkāra*, *c'ittam*, *tejas* and *prāṇa*. This passage is at one and the same time the precursor of the Vedânta’s sixteenfold enumeration of the psychical organs, and of the Sânkhya’s twenty-five principles.

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¹ cp. Ait. 1. 1. 4, Kaush. 3. 5.

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² On Brahmásûtra 2. 4. 6.

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³ See Deussen, Upan., p. 430.

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⁴ First in Chând. 7. 26. 2, then Kâth. 6. 15, Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 8, 3. 2. 9, and as "bands of ignorance" in Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 10.

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⁵ = 4. 5. 12.

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⁶ Pras'na 4. 8.

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