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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s2.t4: 4. The Doctrine of Emancipation in Empirical Form

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s2.t4

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4. The Doctrine of Emancipation in Empirical Form

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(1) The âtman is unknowable.
(2) The âtman is the sole reality.
(3) The intuitive knowledge of the âtman is emancipation.

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In these three propositions is contained the metaphysical truth of the teaching of the Upanishads. Its further development consists in bringing down, though illegitimately, this metaphysical truth into the sphere where knowledge is possible (just as among the Greeks and in later philosophy), and clothing it in empirical form. (1) The âtman becomes an object of knowledge, which in truth it is not. (2) The reality of the universe is maintained, and the consequent contradiction is adjusted by the oft-repeated assertion that the universe is identical with the âtman. (3) Emancipation appears finally and wrongly in the phenomenal form of causality as a becoming something which previously had no existence, and in the phenomenal forms of time and space as the removal of a temporal and spiritual separation from the âtman, which never really existed and therefore does not need to be removed.

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This is the origin of the empirical and therefore mistaken view that deliverance (which actually subsisted from the very beginning, and in the very instant of recognition becomes ours perfectly and consciously) is first attained fully with the dissolution of the body. “To him shall I enter in when I depart hence”;¹ “to this (worldly sphere) shall I belong only until I am delivered; then shall I go home”;² “and when he has been delivered from the body (or, after that he has been delivered through knowledge), then (first ultimately in death) is he delivered,” *vimuktas' c'a vimuc'yate*.³ The comparison (of life) to the potter's wheel which ceases turning when the vessel (deliverance) is finished belongs to a later period,⁴ like the distinction between those who are first delivered in the hour of death (*videhamukti*), and those who are already delivered during their life-time (*jîvanmukti*). This distinction and the above comparison have their origin primarily from the realistic age of the Vedânta that finds itself drifting towards the Sânkhya. Neither of them meet us in the Upanishads (with quite late exceptions), and are opposed to the original meaning of the doctrine of emancipation. According to it, every man, as soon as he is in possession of the knowledge of the âtman, is *jîvanmukta*. The continuance or cessation of his bodily existence is to him, as everything else in the world, a matter of indifference. He gains nothing by death of which he was not in possession already beforehand, and is released from nothing from which he had not been already released previously by knowledge.

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¹ Chând. 3. 14. 4.

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² Chând. 6. 14. 2.

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³ Kâth. 5. 1.

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⁴ Syst. d. Ved., p. 459; Garbe, Sânkhyaphil., p. 182.

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As the theory of the *videhamukti* together with the passages of the Upanishads that anticipate it rests upon the false supposition that between us and the âtman a temporal separation exists; so the hypothesis of a spatial separation between the two, so that a departure hence is necessary in order to reach the âtman, is not less mistaken and depends upon an unwarranted application of the methods of empirical knowledge. Nevertheless this mode of representation also is not rare in the Upanishads, under the influence of the ancient ideas of a departure to the gods, to Brahman, to the âtman.¹ That the ideas which thus emerge are far from being consistent lies in the nature of things. We propose briefly to survey the most important passages.

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¹ sup. p. 343 f.

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In Bṛih. 3. 3 we have an altogether mythical description (though it is put into the mouth of Yâjñavalkhya) of the way by which the offerers of the *aśvamedha* as the highest sacrifice are led hence, between the two shells of the egg of the universe, into the other world where the wind receives them. The averting also of renewed death which is promised at the close to him who knows the mind as particular and universal (individual and cosmical prâṇa) proves that this chapter is still to be ascribed to the age preceding the Upanishad teaching. Bṛih. 5. 10 may be regarded as a continuation of it. Here a description is given of the reception of the departed (without distinction) by the wind in the other world, after which through the sun and moon they attain “the world that is free from heat and cold (*aśokam ahimam*, i.e. free from the contrasts of earthly existence).

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in order to remain there "perpetual years." The dying man takes his way to the sun in Bṛih. 5. 15¹ also. There however he recognises himself as identical with the purusha in the sun, an idea that already contains a suggestion of the âtman doctrine, although it is subordinated to traditional mythological conceptions. The same is true of Chând. 5. 13, where in the first instance the five prâṇas together with the five corresponding organs of sense and the five nature gods are called the five "openings of the gods" (devasushayas), and are described as "the five ministers of Brahman and doorkeepers of the heavenly world"; but then "the light which shines there on yonder side of heaven," which is to be reached through them, is identified with the light "which is here within in men." The eschatology also of Chând. 8. 1-6 exhibits this intermingling of mythological and philosophical ideas. Thus in Chând. 8. 6. 1-5 the way hence to the sun is described that leads by the veins and the sun's rays that join them, although previously in 8. 3 the world of Brahman had been shown to be not at an incalculable distance, but in the heart. That the fundamental view here is philosophical, and the mythical colouring a later embellishment, is proved quite unmistakably by the fact that in 8. 5. 3 from the word araṇyam, the "solitude," into which he who seeks Brahman retires, are invented "two seas in the world of Brahman in the third heaven from here" with the names ara and nya. To this a later hand added further glories of the world of Brahman (the lake Airammadîyam, the fig-tree Somasavana, the mountain Aparâjitâ, and the palace Prabhuvimitam). Perhaps the still more detailed description of the world of Brahman in Kaush. 1. 3 is already derived from this passage. Here among other things not only does the palace Aparâjitam (in this place neuter) recur, and a tree *Ilya* appear, but mention is made also of "the sea *Ara*." This latter name might well be a secondary formation from the sea *ara* of Chând. 8. 5. 3; and it would then be evidence for the dependent character of this passage. A different view from Chând. 8. 6. 1-5 is represented in the appended verse, Chând. 8. 6. 6, which recurs in Kâṭh. 6. 16. Here the separation of the emancipated as they ascend by the 101st vein is made to take place not on entrance into the sun, but immediately on quitting the body. With this is connected the path of the emancipated by the crown of the head, by fire, wind and sun, up to Brahman, as is described in Taitt. 1. 6. All these passages are under the influence of the thought of the Upanishads, which they clothe in empirical forms, while blending it with the traditional mythological ideas. This becomes obtrusive in Ait. 3. 4; Vâmadeva having recognised himself as the âtman has "ascended from this world, in yonder world of heaven attained all his desires, and has become immortal,"—very unnecessarily after he had already realised himself to be identical with the âtman, the first principle of all things.

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¹ Îśâ. 15-18.

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These conceptions are made clearer by the development of the theory of the *Devayâna*, as found in Chând. 4. 15. 5, and its connection with the analogous formation of the *Pitṛiyâna* in the doctrine of the five fires, the principal text of the doctrine of transmigration, which has been already discussed. We saw¹ how the souls of the emancipated were represented as attaining to Brahman through a series of bright stations (flame, day, bright half of the month, bright half of the year, year, sun, moon and lightning), whence "they no longer return on the downward path to this human existence." The Pitriyana was then next explained after the analogy of the Devayâna by means of the corresponding dark stations;¹ this however involved, as was shown, the making the moon common to both ways. This drawback the author of Kaush. 1. 2 endeavours to remove by omitting or ignoring the preliminary steps on either side that lead to the moon, and bringing all thither, whence the ignorant return back, and the wise tread the Devayâna, to which by way of compensation for the omitted stages a series of new stations are assigned (moon, the worlds of fire, wind, Varuṇa, Indra, Prajâpati and Brahman). By the later Vedântists these are simply placed side by side with the previous stations.² In other respects also the theory of the less authoritative Kaushîtaki has won a consideration not inferior to that of the Pañc’âgnividyâ supported by the authority of Chând. 5. 3–10 and Bṛih. 6. 2. On it depend almost all the later representations of the Devayâna, for example those especially that are found in Muṇḍ. 1. 2. 11, 3. 1. 6, Pras’na 1. 10. By its side the thought of Yâjñavalkhya that the knowledge of the âtman is in itself emancipation continues to hold its ground, and is often associated without any attempt at accommodation with the theory of the Devayâna, giving rise as a consequence to abrupt contradictions; compare for example Kâṭh. 6. 14–15 with 6. 16, or Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 2 with 3. 1. 10.

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¹ *sup.* p. 335.

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¹ sup. p. 335 f.

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² Syst. d. Ved., p. 475.

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An adjustment of this contradiction was sought by the later theory of the kramamukti or release by stages, according to which the souls that for their devotion ascend on the Devayâna to Brahman are not yet emancipated, since they still fall short of perfect knowledge; nevertheless they do not return back to earth, (for it is said:—“For such there is no return”),³ but attain perfect knowledge and therefore eternal deliverance in the world of Brahman before the end of the *kalpa*, when that world also is destroyed.¹ In the Upanishads the *kramamukti* appears to be already advocated by the S'vet. Up. 1. 4, 1. 11, 5. 7. The verse in Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 6 may however be still older :²—

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³ Bṛih. 6. 2. 15, Chând. 4. 15. 5, 8. 15.

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¹ cp. Syst. d. Vedânta, pp. 430, 472.

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² cp. Mahânâr. 10. 22, Kaivalya, 3–4.

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They who have grasped the meaning of the Vedânta doctrine,
Perfectly resigned, penitent, of unsullied purity,
In the world of Brahman at the end of time
Will all be set free by the Indestructible.

Cites (11)