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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t3: 3. Manas and the Ten Indriyas

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t3

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3. Manas and the Ten Indriyas

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The earliest passage in which, as in the later Vedânta, the indriyas are specified as neither more nor less than ten, subordinated to the manas as the central organ, and with it placed in contrast with the five prâṇas as the forces of unconscious life that are active even in sleep, is Pras'na 4. 2. As the rays of light are gathered into the sun at sunset “so also (on falling asleep) all this becomes one in the manas as supreme deity; therefore it comes to pass that then nothing is heard by a man, nothing seen, nothing smelt, nothing tasted, and nothing felt, nothing spoken, nothing comprehended, nothing begotten, nothing evacuated, no motion hither and thither, but as it is said he is asleep. Then the fires of prâṇa awaken (prâṇa, apâna, vyâna, samâna, udâna, which are then further explained) in this city (of the body).” This conception of manas as the central organ of the faculties of knowledge and action, of the powers of perception and conscious determination, and therefore of that which we call “mind” and “conscious will,” was at first gradually elaborated. Originally manas had a more general meaning, and in its indefinite character corresponded nearly to our “disposition,” “feeling,” “heart,” “spirit.” As such manas represents not infrequently the spiritual principle in general, and becomes sometimes a name for the first principle of things, Brahman or the âtman.¹ Even in the Upanishads, epithets of Brahman like manomaya, “consisting of manas,” are occasionally found,² and manas is one of the symbols under which Brahman is worshipped.¹ In Ait. 3. 2 also manas appears still among the functions or modifications of Brahman described as "consciousness" (*prajñānam*):—"what this heart and manas is, reflection, imagination, meditation, invention, mind, insight, resolve, purpose, desire, emotion, recollection, conception, force, life, love, will,—all these are names of consciousness." Nay, even in the section Kaush. 3, where generally manas appears in its later signification as an organ side by side with speech, sight, hearing,² and as such is subordinated to "consciousness" (*prajñā = prāṇa = brahman*; cp. 3. 8:—"we should not seek for manas, but to know the thinker), even here in 3. 7, in contradiction to the ordinary usage, manas is again employed in the old way as a synonym for "consciousness":—"For speech bereft of prajñā (consciousness) cannot bring any name whatever to consciousness, for it is said, 'My manas (mind) was elsewhere (*anyatra me mano 'bhût*), therefore have I not become conscious of that name." Precisely the same is then further said of the remaining organs, breath, eye, ear, tongue, etc., until the series reaches manas, where the formula is dropped, in order to conceal the contradiction in the double use of the word. In its second narrower meaning as the psychical organ of conception and will manas stands originally on a line with the organs of sense, (*prāṇas*) quoted above, and frequently repeated as speech, breath, eye, ear and manas. All five are subordinated to the âtman:—"As breathing he is called breath, as speaking speech, as seeing eye, as hearing ear, as understanding mind (*manas*); all these are only names for his effects."³

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¹ cp. the tendency pointed out, Allgemeine Einleitung, pp. 205, 206, to conceive Prajâpati as manas, and especially the beautiful hymn Vâj. Saṃh. 34. 1-6 (translated ib., p. 335), which as S'ivasaṅkalpa was included by the Oupnek'hat even in the Upanishads.

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² Chând. 3. 14. 2, Bṛih. 5. 6. 1, Taitt. 1. 6. 1, Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 7.

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¹ sup. p. 111 f.

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² cp. 3. 3:—"men live even without manas, for we see fools," and so in what follows.

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³ Bṛih. 1. 4. 7.

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In Bṛih. 1. 3. 2–6 all five are filled with evil by the demons, and then by the vital breath in the mouth (*āsanya prāṇa*) are led beyond evil and death. But the true knowledge that every sensible perception is a work of the mind (*manas*), from which it follows that the rest of the organs of sense are subordinated to the *manas*, comes to the front in the Upanishads, appearing in the famous oft-quoted saying of Bṛih. 1. 5. 3.¹ “‘I was elsewhere with my mind (*manas*), therefore I did not see; I was elsewhere with my mind, therefore I did not hear,’ so it is said; for only with the mind do we see, and only with the mind do we hear. Desire, judgement, doubt, belief, unbelief, firmness, weakness, modesty, knowledge, fear,—all this is only *manas*. When then anyone is touched from behind, he knows it through the *manas*.” This passage which is reproduced in Maitr. 6. 3, and countless times subsequently, and which all future ages regarded as authoritative, asserts that the *manas*, although only the organ of the *ātman*, is yet the central organ of the entire conscious life; which not only as “the primary root of the five faculties of knowledge”² shapes into ideas³ the impressions of sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, since we “see only with the mind, hear with the mind,” but stamps these ideas further as resolves of the will (*saṅkalpa*, cp. Chānd. 7. 4), so that in the latter sense the *manas* becomes the organ of the will and its expression by the five organs of action (speech, grasp, movement, evacuation, begetting). “For by the *manas* is a man impelled towards his wife, and begets with her a son, who is like him”;⁴ “And when a man directs his *manas* to the study of the sacred hymns and sayings, then he studies them; or to the accomplishment of works, then he accomplishes them; or to the desire for sons and cattle, then he desires them; or to the desire for the present and the future world, then he desires them.”¹ Accordingly in Taitt. 2. 3 also, of the purusha consisting of manas (manomaya) “the Yajus is the head, the Ṛic is the right side, the Sâman the left side,” etc.; because the sacrificial cult depends upon the Vedas, and this is founded on the selfish desires of the gods for offerings, and of men for the blessings of the gods. The superiority of manas to the indriyas is further expanded in Kâṭh. 6. 7:—“Manas stands higher than the senses”; and in Kâṭh. 3. 3, where the senses are represented as the horses yoked to the waggon of the body, but the manas as their bridle. This illustration is changed in a sense still more favourable to the manas in Maitr. 2. 6, where the organs of knowledge (buddhi-indriyâṇi) are the five reins, the organs of action (karma indriyâṇi) are the horses, the manas is the driver, and the prakṛiti his whip. By means of this manas drives the organs of action (speech, grasp, movement, evacuation, begetting) to their work, and they are then guided and controlled by manas by means of the organs of knowledge (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch). Later passages which exhibit manas side by side with the buddhîndriyâṇi and karmendriyâṇi are Garbha 4 and Prâṇâgnihotra 4. Mention is made in Mahâ 1 of ten indriyâṇi with manas as an eleventh. Their ten functions are already named in the passage quoted above from Pras'na 4. 2. An enumeration of the ten corresponding organs is not found within our recollection earlier than Manu 2. 89 f.

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¹ Forming a counterpart to the verse of Epicharmus :—νοῦς ὁρῇ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει, τἆλλα κωφὰ καὶ τυφλά.

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² *pañca-buddhi-ādimūlam*, S'vet. 1. 5.

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³ *saṅkalpa* = “the definition of a presented object as black, white, etc.”; S'aṅkara on Bṛih. 1. 5. 3.

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⁴ Bṛih. 4. 1. 6.

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¹ Chând. 7. 3. 1.

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