The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t2.8

c11.s2.t2.8

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.