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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s4: XVII. Retrospect of the Upanishads and Their Teaching

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s4

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Contents

XVII. Retrospect of the Upanishads and Their Teaching

1. Introduction

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The Upanishads (apart from the later and less important books) have been handed down to us as Vedânta, *i.e.* as the concluding part of the Brâhmaṇas and Âraṇyakas, which teach and expound allegorically the ritual of sacrifice. They are nevertheless radically opposed to the entire Vedic sacrificial cult, and the older they are the more markedly does this opposition declare itself. "He who worships another deity (than the âtman, the self) and says ‘It is one, and I am another,’ is not wise. But he is like a house-dog of the gods. Just, then, as many house-dogs are of use to men, so each individual man is useful to the gods. If one house-dog only is stolen it is disagreeable, how much more if many! Therefore it is not pleasing to them that men should know this." ¹

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¹ Bṛih. 1. 4. 10.

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This antagonism of the âtman doctrine to the sacrificial cult leads us to anticipate that at the first it would be greeted with opposition by the Brâhmans. An instance of this is preserved to us in Yâjñavalkhya, who in Bṛih. 3-4 meets with jealousy and contradiction at the hands of the Brâhmans, but with enthusiastic assent from King Janaka. This antagonism may have been the reason why the doctrine of the âtman, although originally proceeding from Brâhmans like Yâjñavalkhya, received its earliest fostering and development in the more liberal-minded circles of the Kshatriyas; while among the Brâhmans it was on the contrary shunned for a longer period as a mystery (*upanishad*), and continued therefore to be withheld from them. The Brâhman Bâlâki does not know that the âtman is Brahman, and is instructed on the point by king Ajâtas'atru.¹ Six Brâhmans "of great learning" first gain from king As'vapati the knowledge that they must seek the âtman vais'vânara before all else in themselves.² Similarly the Brâhman Nârada is instructed by Sanatkumâra the god of war,³ and three Brâhmans by king Pravâhaṇa.⁴ While the same king Pravâhaṇa enlightens the Brâhman Uddâlaki Âruṇi on the subject of the transmigration of souls with the remark:—"This knowledge has never up to the present time been in the possession of a Brâhman."⁵

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 1 (Kaush. 4).

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² Chând. 5. 11–18.

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³ Chând. 7.

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⁴ Chând. 1. 8–9.

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⁵ Chând. 5. 3–10 (Bṛih. 6. 2); Bṛih. 6. 2. 8.

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According to these testimonies, which carry all the greater weight because they have reached us through the Brâhmans themselves, the Brâhmans had received the most important elements of the science of the âtman first from the Kshatriyas, and then in course of time had attached them to their own Vedic curriculum, so that the Upanishads became what they now are, the Vedânta. The hostility towards the sacrificial cult was then by means of allegorical interpretations, in which each school struck out its own path,⁶ concealed rather than laid to rest. That the Brâhmans later on asserted a claim to the doctrine of the âtman as their peculiar heritage seems to be asserted by the verse:—"Only he who knows the Veda comprehends the great omnipresent âtman."⁷ In any case the progress and regular development of the âtman doctrine was in their hands. And the oldest Upanishads are to be regarded as the latest fruits of this activity, to which were added in course of time other works produced in the same spirit, which with more or less right bore the names of Upanishad and Vedânta. Probably only at a considerably later period did they assume a written form. It seems a fair inference from Kâth. 2. 7–9:

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⁶ sup. p. 120 f.

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⁷ Taitt. Br. 3. 12. 9. 7.

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—"Without a teacher there is no access here,"—that the older Upanishads were at that time not yet committed to writing.

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No satisfactory chronology of the Upanishads can be framed, since each of the principal Upanishads contains earlier and later texts side by side with one another. On the whole and generally, however, the classification and order here adopted¹ may be expected to correspond also to the historical succession. A more precise confirmation of this is to be inferred from the general course of our exposition. Of especial weight in our view is the proof advanced that Bṛih. 1–4 (not the appendix 5–6) together with Śatap. Br. 10. 6 is older than all other texts of importance, especially older than the Chândogya Upanishad. The last confessedly is dependent not only on Śatap. Br. 10,² but also on the Yâjñavalkhya texts,³ as is proved by the fact that often thoughts of the latter are reproduced by the Chând. Up., and at the same time misunderstood.⁴ Thus we shall have to look for the earliest form of the doctrine of the Upanishads above all in the Yâjñavalkhya discourses of the Bṛihadâraṇyaka.

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¹ *sup.* pp. 23–26.

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² Chând. 3. 14, 4. 3, 5. 11–18.

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³ Bṛih. 3–4 compared with 1. 4, 2. 4.

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⁴ *cp.* *sup.* pp. 205 f., 233 f., 105 f.

2. Idealism as the Fundamental Conception of the Upanishads

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In the conception of unity as it is expressed in the words of Rigv. 1. 164. 46:—*ekam sad viprâ bahudhâ vadanti*, "the poets give many names to that which is one only,"—the fundamental thought of the whole teaching of the Upanishads lay already hidden in germ. For this verse, strictly understood, really asserts that all plurality, consequently all proximity in space, all succession in time, all relation of cause and effect, all interdependence of subject and object, rests only upon words (*vadanti*) or, as was said later, is “a mere matter of words (*vâc’ârambhaṇa*),¹ and that only unity is in the full sense real. An attempt was made in the first instance to conceive this unity in the mythological idea of Prajâpati, then in the ritualistic idea of Brahman, and finally without allowing the latter to drop, and by a mere strengthening of the subjective element already contained in it, in the philosophical idea of the âtman. But even the âtman idea is not at first free from definitions (of the gods, Prajâpati, and Brahman) that it has inherited from the mythology. Thus for example in S’atap. Br. 10. 6. 3, after the âtman has been described as pervading all worlds, and at the same time, inconceivably small, dwelling at the centre of a man’s being, it is said in conclusion :—“He is my soul, to him on my departure hence, to this soul shall I enter in.” Everyone feels the contradiction in these words, and that there is no need of entering in after death if the âtman really “is my soul.” The first to recognise this, and to grasp the conception of the âtman in its complete subjective precision, who therefore laid the foundation of the Upanishad doctrine proper, is the Yâjñavalkhya (himself mythical throughout) of the Bṛihadâraṇyaka Upanishad.

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¹ Chând. 6. 1. 4.

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The teaching of Yâjñavalkhya (whatever may lie concealed behind this name) is a daring, uncompromising, eccentric idealism (comparable to that of Parmenides), which is summed up in three propositions :—

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(1) *The âtman is the knowing subject within us.* “In truth, O Gârgî, this imperishable one sees but is not seen, hears but is not heard, comprehends but is not comprehended, knows but is not known. There is beside him none that sees, there is none that hears beside him, there is none that comprehends beside him, there is none that knows beside him. In truth, in this imperishable one is space inwoven and interwoven.”² Here the above fundamental proposition is clearly expressed. At the same time two further propositions are inferred from it, which other passages abundantly confirm.

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² Bṛih. 3. 8. 11.

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(2) *The âtman, as the knowing subject, is itself unknowable.* “Thou canst not see the seer of seeing, thou canst not hear the hearer of hearing,” etc.¹ “How could he know him through whom all this is known, how could he know the knower?”²

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 4. 2.

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² Bṛih. 2. 4. 14.

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(3) *The âtman is the sole reality.* In it, as the above passage declares, space with all that it contains is inwoven and interwoven. “He who has seen, heard, comprehended and known the âtman, by him this entire universe is known.”³ “The universe is given up to him who knows the universe apart from the âtman.”⁴ Only “where there is as it were duality does one see another,”⁵ etc. “There is however no second outside of him, no other distinct from him for him to see”:—

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³ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5.

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⁴ Bṛih. 2. 4. 6.

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⁵ Bṛih. 2. 4. 14.

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In the mind should this be perceived,
Here there is no plurality anywhere;
From death to death is he led blindly,
Who here gazes on a plurality.⁷

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⁷ Bṛih. 4. 4. 19.

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These three thoughts are the kernel of the Upanishad teaching, and with it became permanently the innermost kernel of the entire religious and philosophical belief of India. This kernel however was eventually surrounded by a husk which, growing ever thicker as time advanced, concealed it in many ways, until finally on the one hand the kernel utterly perished and only the husk remained (the Sâṅkhya), while on the other (the Vedânta) an attempt was made to separate absolutely the two elements by distinguishing between a higher esoteric knowledge (*parâ vidyâ*) and a lower exoteric (*aparâ vidyâ*). This process is quite intelligible. For the ideas of Yâjñavalkhya, which depend upon immediate intuition, though they won a hearing in the consciousness of his contemporaries and of posterity, yet did not find this consciousness unoccupied, but already in the possession of two elements, to which they had to accommodate themselves. The first was the tradition bequeathed by the past, the second was the empirical view of the universe and its orderly constitution in space, time and causal relations, which is natural to us all. The entire subsequent development with its phenomena often apparently inconsistent is completely explained by a gradually increasing accommodation to these two elements. This we propose to show briefly in the following pages for the different parts of the teaching of the Upanishads.

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⁶ Bṛih. 4. 3. 23.

3. Theology (Doctrine of Brahman or the Âtman)

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The âtman is the knowing subject within us. This knowing subject is “the loftiest height of all that can be described as âtman” (*sarvasya âtmanaḥ parâyaṇam*).¹ To this height, attained in the teaching of Yâjñavalkhya, Indian thought has climbed, with a gradual intensifying of the subjective element, through conceptions of *purusha* (man), *prâṇa* (life), *âtman* (self), to which were attached the more symbolical representations of the first principle of the universe as *âkâśa* (space), *manas* (will), *âditya* (sun), etc. In these conceptions the thought of the times preceding the Upanishads, and in part also of these times themselves, moves. Perhaps, therefore, it may be possible in the future to distinguish successfully those portions which belong to a period before the recognition of the âtman as knowing subject from those which, like all that succeeds, have come under the influence of the thought of Yâjñavalkhya. In the older texts the ultimate principle is still the *purusha-prâṇa*,¹ the *prâṇa*,² *âditya*,³ the *âkâśa*,—"It is the *âkâśa* from which all these living beings proceed, and into which they again return, the *âkâśa* is older than they all, the *âkâśa* is the ultimate starting-point."⁴ Combinations also occur. For example, when the *âtman* (still transcendentally conceived) is described as the "*prâṇasya âtmâ*," and as *mano-maya*, *prâṇa-śarīra*, *bhâ-rûpa*, *âkâśa-âtman*;⁵ or when it is said:—"Brahman is life (*prâṇa*), Brahman is joy (*kam* = *ânanda*), Brahman is extension (*kham* = *âkâśa*)."⁶

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 9. 10.

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¹ Ait. Âr. 2. 1–3.

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² Bṛih. 1. 1–3, Chând. 1. 2–3, 4. 3, Kaush. 2.

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³ Chând. 3.

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⁴ Chând. 1. 9. 1.

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⁵ Śatap. Br. 10. 6. 3 (Chând. 3. 14).

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⁶ Chând. 4. 10. 5.

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It is otherwise in the later texts. Now it is no longer the *purusha* that is the first principle, but the *âtman* that draws it from the primeval waters;⁷ no longer the *âkâśa*, but that which is in it;⁸ no longer the *prâṇa*, but the *bhûman*, the "unlimited," reached by prolonged and deepening insight into the nature of the *prâṇa*, *i.e.* the knowing subject which comprehends everything in itself, nothing outside of itself:—"When no other (outside of self) is seen, no other is heard, no other is known, that is the infinite; when he sees, hears or knows another, that is the finite."⁹ The revolution is very clearly seen when in Ait. 1 it is no longer the *prâṇa-purusha*¹⁰ that makes its appearance as the ultimate principle, but the *âtman*, and the latter is then explained as the consciousness that comprehends all things in itself (*prajñâ*).¹¹ Still more clearly does it appear in Kaush. 3–4, where the equation "*prâṇa* = *prajñâ*," which is only intelligible as arising from a compromise between series of heterogeneous conceptions, is repeatedly emphasised. All these changes seem to have been carried out under the influence of the thought, in its first original freshness in the discourses of Yâjñavalkhya, that the âtman is the knowing subject which, itself unknowable, is conceived as sustaining all things in itself. How entirely this thought dominated the whole succeeding development of Indian theology, a few examples may show.

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⁷ Ait. 1. 1.

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⁸ *tasmin yad antar*, Chând. 8. 1; *te yad antarâ*, 8. 14.

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⁹ Chând. 7. 15–24.

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¹⁰ As formerly in Ait. Âr. 2. 1–3.

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¹¹ Ait. 3.

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(1) *The âtman is the knowing subject.* He is “the spirit, consisting of knowledge, vijñânamaya, shining within in the heart,”¹ the light that enlightens when sun, moon, stars and fire are extinguished,² the “light of lights,”³ the light “which is here within in men,” and at the same time shines on yonder side of heaven in the highest, the highest of all worlds,⁴ the “supreme light,” into which the soul enters in deep sleep, and “issues forth in its own form.”⁵ And of this light of consciousness, which first invests all with intelligibility, we are to think when it is said:—

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¹ Bṛih. 4. 3. 7 f.

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² Bṛih. 4. 3. 2–6.

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³ Bṛih. 4. 4. 16, Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 9

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⁴ Chând. 3. 13. 7.

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⁵ Chând. 8. 3. 4, 8. 12. 3.

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There no sun shines, nor moon, nor glimmer of stars,
Nor yonder lightning, earthly fire is quenched;
All other light is inferior to him who alone gives light,
The whole universe shines with his brightness.⁶

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⁶ Kâṭh. 5. 15, S'vet. 6. 14, Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 10.

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This light that alone is self-shining is the “seer” (*vipas'cit*), who, according to Kâṭh. 2. 18, neither is born nor dies, the “all-beholder” (*paridrashtar*),⁷ the “spectator” (*sâkshin*), as the âtman is so frequently called in the later Upanishads.⁸

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⁷ Pras'na 6. 5.

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⁸ From S'vet. 6. 14 and onwards.

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(2) *The âtman as the knowing subject can never become an object for us, and is therefore itself unknowable.* “Thou canst not see the seer of seeing,” etc.⁹ Whatever conception we may form of it, it is always said:—neti, neti, “it is not so, it is not so.”¹⁰ It is that “before which words and thought recoil, not finding it;”¹ “not known by the wise, known by the ignorant.”²

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⁹ Bṛih. 3. 4. 2.

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¹⁰ Bṛih. 4. 2. 4, 4. 4. 22, 4. 5. 15, 3. 9. 26, 2. 3. 6.

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¹ Taitt. 2. 4.

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² Kena 11.

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Not by speech, not by thought,
Not by sight is he comprehended;
“He is,” by this word alone
And in no other way is he comprehended.³

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³ Kâṭh. 6. 12.

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The âtman therefore can only be defined negatively. He is “not big and not slender, not short and not long, not red and not fluid, not cloudy and not dark, not wind and not ether, not adhesive, without taste or smell, without eye or ear, without speech, without understanding, without vital force and without breath, without mouth and without size, without inner or outer;⁴ invisible, incomprehensible, without pedigree, colourless, without eyes or ears, without hands or feet.”⁵ The threefold definition also as “being thought and bliss” (*sac-cid-ânanda*), by which a later age characterised the âtman, and to the separate elements of which reference is frequently made even in the older Upanishads,⁶ is essentially only negative. For the “being” of the âtman is no being as revealed in experience, and in an empirical sense is rather a not-being; and similarly the “thought” is only the negation of all objective being, and the “bliss” the negation of all suffering, as this exists in deep dreamless sleep. On the observation of which last state, as was shown,⁷ this description was originally based.

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⁴ Bṛih. 3. 8. 8.

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⁵ Muṇḍ 1. 1. 6.

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⁶ sup. pp. 128–146.

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⁷ sup. p. 142 f.

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(3) *The âtman is the sole reality (satyam, satyasya satyam);* for it is the metaphysical unity which is manifested in all empirical plurality. This unity however is not to be found elsewhere than in ourselves, in our consciousness, in which, as with splendid elaboration Bṛih. 3. 8 shows, the whole of space with all that it contains, with earth atmosphere and heaven, is “inwoven and interwoven.” Therefore with the knowledge of the âtman (the reference here is not to knowledge in an empirical sense) all is known,¹ as with the comprehension of the instrument all its notes are comprehended. He is abandoned by men, gods and all worlds, who knows a universe outside of the âtman.³ All besides him exists only “as it were” (iva). There is really no plurality,⁴ and no becoming, “change is a mere matter of words, a simple name.”⁵ The later Upanishads breathe the same spirit; the entire universe should be immersed in God (i.e. the âtman);⁶ nature is a mere mâyâ (illusion);⁷ and the striking remark is added that no demonstration of the existence of a duality is ever possible, and that only the timeless âtman (the knowing subject) admits of proof.⁸

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5, Chând. 6. 1. 2, Muṇḍ. 1. 1. 3.

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³ Bṛih. 2. 4. 6.

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⁴ Bṛih. 4. 4. 19, Kâṭh. 4. 10–11.

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⁵ Chând. 6. 1. 4 f., cp. 8. 1. 3.

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⁶ Îsâ 1.

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⁷ S'vet. 4. 10.

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⁸ Nṛisiṁhott. 9.

4. Cosmology and Psychology

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PANTHEISM.—Metaphysical knowledge impugns the existence of any reality outside of the âtman, i.e. the consciousness. The empirical view on the contrary teaches that a manifold universe exists external to us. From a combination of these antagonistic propositions originated the doctrine which in all the Upanishads occupies the largest space, and which may conveniently be described as pantheism (though in its origin very different from the pantheism of Europe),—the universe is real, and yet the âtman remains the sole reality, for the âtman is the universe. This identity of universe and âtman is already taught by Yâjñavalkhya (who is as little able as Parmenides to avoid placing himself again temporarily at the empirical standpoint), when he celebrates the âtman as the antaryâmin;¹ or when he describes how the âtman upholds and maintains sun and moon, heaven and earth, the entire universe and its frame;² or when the knowing subject in us is made suddenly to expand into the universe around us on every side.³ The later passages are numerous and do not need to be repeated here, which identify the âtman as the infinitely small within us with the infinitely great outside of us; and in this way the identity of the two, the âtman and the universe, is incessantly emphasised, as though it were a matter which stood greatly in need of emphasis.

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² Bṛih. 2. 4. 7–9.

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 7. ² Bṛih. 3. 8. 9. ³ Bṛih. 4. 2. 4. ⁴ Chând. 6. 3. 2. ⁵ Taitt. 2. 6.

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COSMOGONY.—None the less the equation “âtman = universe” remained very obscure. The one âtman and the manifold universe, often as they were brought together, always fell asunder again. A natural step therefore was taken, when more and more as time went on instead of this unintelligible identity the familiar empirical category of causality made its appearance, by virtue of which the âtman was represented as the cause chronologically antecedent, and the universe as its effect, its creation; and thus a connection with the ancient Vedic cosmogony became possible. Such a connection is not yet to be traced in Bṛih. 1. 4, where the cosmological form merely serves to explain the dependence of all the phenomena of the universe on the âtman. It is present however in all probability in Chând. 3. 19, 6. 2, Taitt. 2. 6, Ait. 1. 1, etc. It is characteristic at this point that the âtman, after having evolved the universe from himself, enters himself into it as soul. “That deity resolved :—‘Verily into these three deities (heat, water, food) I will enter with this living self’”;⁴ “After he had created the universe he entered into it”;⁵ “He reflected :—‘How could this subsist without me?' . . . accordingly he cleft here the crown of the head, and entered in through this gate."¹ The individual soul maintains even at this stage its identity with the âtman. It is not, like everything else, a created work of the âtman; but it is the âtman himself, as he enters into the world that he has created. A distinction between the supreme and the individual soul does not even yet exist.

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¹ Ait. 1. 3. 11.

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THEISM.—Theism is a further and chronologically later stage of development, which first arises at the point at which the supreme and individual souls appear contrasted with one another. This was early anticipated;² but later on the individual soul became more and more definitely opposed to the supreme soul as "another."³ At the same time a theory of predestination was established, as an inevitable consequence of theism:—

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² By passages like Bṛih. 4. 4. 22, Kaush. 3. 8 (ad fin.).

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³ First in Kâṭh. 1. 3, then S'vet. 4. 6–7, 5. 8, etc.

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Only by him whom he chooses is he comprehended;
To him the âtman reveals his nature.⁴

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⁴ Kâṭh. 2. 23 (Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 3).

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The chief monument of this theism is the S'vetâs'vatara Upanishad. It must be remembered however that here all the earlier stages of development, the idealistic, pantheistic and cosmogonistic, continue to exist side by side; as indeed generally in the religious sphere the old is accustomed to assert its time-honoured right by the side of the new, the fruits of which are readily seen in far-reaching inner contradictions.

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ATHEISM and DEISM (Sânkhya and Yoga Systems).—With the recognition of a real universe external to the âtman, and the division of the latter into the supreme soul and a multitude of individual souls, the preliminary conditions of the later Sânkhya system were satisfied.

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For that division necessarily led to the destruction of the one branch, viz.:—the supreme soul, since from the very beginning this had in reality derived its vitality from the existing fact of individual souls. When powers of creation and movement were assigned to matter itself God became superfluous, and there were left only prakṛiti and the multitude of individual purushas,—the precise assumptions of the Sâṅkhya system, which admits probably of philosophical explanation in no other way than that we have followed. A reconstruction of theism was attempted in the Yoga system; which in harmony with its later origin builds upon the basis of the Sâṅkhya system, very little fitted as that was for the purpose, a yoga practice which depends upon the teaching of the Upanishads. While then it certainly reintroduces the idea of God, it finds it impossible to give to the conception any real vitality on such a basis as this. So that this theory (practically, if not on the ground of its origin) may be fitly placed in a line with the Deism of later philosophy.

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5. Eschatology (Transmigration and Emancipation)

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In proportion as Brahman usurped the place of the ancient Vedic gods, and was interpreted in harmony with the idea of the âtman, the hope also which finds expression in the Ṛigveda of entering in after death to the gods was transformed in course of time into a hope of attaining “community of world,” “community of life” with Brahman, or later on with the âtman. At the same time the idea of the âtman also, by virtue of the continued influence of that which it had displaced, was at first still conceived in a transcendental way, and it is said:—“He is my soul (âtman); to him, to this soul, shall I departing hence enter in.”[¹] If however the âtman is really my soul, my self, no entering in is necessary, but only the knowledge of this fact, in order to become partaker of a full and complete deliverance. He who has recognised that *aham brahma asmi*, "I am Brahman," he already is, not will be delivered; he sees through the illusion of plurality, knows himself as the sole real, as the substance of all that exists, and is thereby exalted above all desire (*kâma*), for "what can he desire who possesses all?"¹ This also Yâjñavalkhya is the first to teach in the words:—"He who without desire, free from desire, his desire laid to rest, is himself his own desire, his vital spirits do not journey forth. But he is Brahman, and to Brahman he ascends."²

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¹ S’atap. Br. 10. 6. 3. 2.

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¹ Gauḍap. 1. 9.

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² Bṛih. 4. 4. 6.

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Deliverance is not effected by the knowledge of the âtman, but this knowledge is itself already deliverance. He who knows himself as the âtman has thereby recognised the world of plurality and the desire occasioned by plurality to be an illusion, which can no longer lead him astray. His body is no longer his body, his actions no longer his actions; whether he still continues to live and to act or not is, like everything else, a matter of indifference.³ But the semblance of empirical knowledge persists, and it is a consequence of this that deliverance appears to be first attained in all its completeness after the dissolution of the body. And a still more far-reaching influence of the empirical mode of thought combined with the traditions of the past caused this internal deliverance from the world, the fruit of the emancipating knowledge of the âtman, to be represented as an ascent from the world to a transcendent distance, in order there for the first time to become united with Brahman, with the âtman. The theory therefore was formed of the way of the gods (*devayâna*), on which the emancipated were led after death through a series of bright stages to union with Brahman, whence "there is no return."⁴

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³ Îs'â 2.

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⁴ Chând. 4. 15. 5.

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What becomes however of those who die without having known themselves as the âtman? The Brâhmaṇas set before them for their good or evil deeds a recompense of joy or suffering in the other world. To the evil-doers was assigned also “recurrent death” (*punarmṛtyu*). In contrast with the immortality (*amṛtatvam*, literally the “no more being able to die”) of the perfected there remained for others the prospect of enduring in the other world together with other misfortune a “renewed necessity of death”; and this, since it has to do with those who have already died, is not to be thought of as experienced in the body, but indefinitely as a state of sufferings, which are in store in the other world as a recompense for evil-doing. It is the Upanishads first—and again for the first time by the mouth of Yâjñavalkhya—that transfer this retribution with its threat of recurrent death from an imaginary future into the present, since they place before it a renewed earthly existence. This is the origin of the theory of the Indian doctrine of transmigration (*saṃsāra*), which does not rest on superstitious ideas of the return of the dead in other forms, such as are found amongst other peoples and even in India itself, but as the texts prove, on observation of the variety of the character and fate of individual men, which were explained as resulting from the actions of a previous existence. “In truth a man becomes good by good works, evil by evil.”¹ “Verily according as he acts, according as he lives, so is he born; he who does good is born good, he who does evil is born evil, he becomes righteous by righteous works, evil by evil . . . according to the work which he does, so is he rewarded.”²

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 2. 13.

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² Bṛih. 4. 4. 5.

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These words of Yâjñavalkhya (the oldest in which a doctrine of transmigration is found) substitute a recompense in this world for one in the other, and this takes place by means of a re-birth on earth, apparently immediately after death.¹ While this theory met with acceptance, the ancient Vedic conception of a recompense for all alike, good and evil, in the other world held its ground by its side; and finally the two were combined in the doctrine of a double retribution, the first in the other world, lasting yâvat sampâtam “as long as a remnant (of works) remains,”² after which everything is once again recompensed by means of a renewed existence upon earth. This recompense of those already recompensed contradicts so entirely the whole conception of recompense, that it is impossible to understand it otherwise than as a combination of ideas derived from various sources. This is the point of view of the “doctrine of the five fires” (pañcâgnividyâ),³ which constructs, on the analogy of the way of the gods (devayâna) that leads to Brahman without return, a way of the fathers (pitṛiyâna) that leads to the moon and then back again to earth; and this was subsequently still further modified,⁴ and has become the permanent basis of the whole of the later development.

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¹ cp. the illustration of the caterpillar, Bṛih. 4. 4. 3.

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² Chând. 5. 10. 5.

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³ Chând. 5. 3-10 (Bṛih. 6. 2).

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⁴ Kaush. 1.

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The clothing of the doctrine of emancipation in empirical forms involved as a consequence the conceiving of emancipation, as though it were an event in an empirical sense, from the point of view of causality, as an effect which might be brought about or accelerated by appropriate means. Now emancipation consisted on its external phenomenal side:—

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(1) In the removal of the consciousness of plurality.

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(2) In the removal of all desire, the necessary consequence and accompaniment of that consciousness.

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To produce these two states artificially was the aim of two characteristic manifestations of Indian culture.

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(1) Of the *yoga*, which by withdrawing the organs from the objects of sense and concentrating them on the inner self endeavoured to shake itself free from the world of plurality and to secure union with the *âtman*.

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(2) Of the *sannyâsa*, which by the "casting off from oneself" of home, possessions, family and all that stimulates desire seeks laboriously to realise that freedom from all the ties of earth, in which a deeper conception of life in other ages and countries also has recognised the supreme task of earthly existence, and will probably continue to recognise throughout all future time.

Cites (16)