The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t3.7

c11.s2.t3.7

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.