The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t3.1

c11.s2.t3.1

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