The Philosophy of the Upanishads c5.s3.41

c5.s3.41

Another explanation of the word *upanishad* has been recently put forward by Oldenberg, according to which *upanishad*, precisely as *upâsanâ*, would have originally meant “adoration,” *i.e.* reverential meditation on the Brahman or Âtman.¹ The suggestion deserves attention, but is open to the following objections. (1) The words *upa* + *âs*, “to sit before someone or something (in adoration),” and *upa* + *sad* (*upa* + *ni* + *sad* does not occur in the Upanishads), “to seat oneself before someone (for the purpose of instruction),” are, according to prevailing usage, to be carefully distinguished from one another. Even if in the older texts the linguistic usage was not yet rigorously fixed, yet in the Upanishads (as a glance at Jacob’s concordance proves), *upa* + *âs* is always “to worship,” never “to approach for instruction,” and *upa* + *sad* always “to approach for instruction,” never “to worship"; and the reason for forming the substantive *upanishad* not from *upa + sad*, but from the rarer *upa + ni + sad*, was perhaps merely that the substantive *upasad* had been already adopted as the name of a well-known ceremony preliminary to the Soma sacrifice. (2) Even if mention is frequently made of worship of Brahman or the *âtman*, especially under a definite symbol (as *manas*, *prâna*, etc.), yet, strictly speaking, the *âtman* is not like the gods an object of worship, but an object of knowledge. Kena 1. 4 f.,—"that shouldest thou know as Brahman, not that which is there worshipped" (*na idam yad idam upâsaté*); Chând. 8. 7. 1,—"the self (*âtman*) . . . that ought man to search after, that endeavour to know"; Bṛih. 2. 4. 5,—"the self, in truth, should be seen, heard, understood, and reflected upon, O Maitreyî," etc. The two passages of the Upanishads also, which Oldenberg cites in proof of worship offered to Brahman, tell in reality in the opposite direction. In Bṛih. 2. 1, Gârgya declares his worship of this or that as Brahman, until finally the king breaks off the inquiry with the words, "with all that it is not yet known" (*na etâvatâ viditam bhavati*). Then he imparts the teaching concerning the deep sleeper, and closes with the words, "his *upanishad*" (secret name, not worship) "is 'the reality of realities,'" *i.e.* the essence which is implied in all empirical existence. And if in Bṛih. 1. 4 the proposition is laid down that not the gods but the *âtman* alone should be worshipped, by this is to be understood merely a polemic against the worship of the gods, not a demand to "worship" the *âtman* as though it were only a god. This word is applicable, therefore, solely to the gods, and is used of the *âtman* only by zeugma,¹ and the proof of this is found in what follows when it is said,—“He who worships another deity, and says ‘He is one, and I am another,’ that man is not wise.”¹ Without, however, such a conception of the âtman as “He is one, and I am another,” which is here interdicted, worship is altogether inconceivable, but not perhaps knowledge by immediate intuition (*anubhava*). (3) An attempt to apply the hypothesis under consideration throughout to the existing facts would demonstrate its impossibility. Thus in Taitt. 1. 3 the secret meaning (*upanishad*) of the combination of letters (*samhitâ*) is explained, and this being concluded various rewards are held out in prospect to him “who knows these great combinations as thus expounded” (*ya evam etâ mahâsamhitâ vyâkhyâtâ veda*). Here merely a knowledge of the combination of the letters is required; there is no mention of any worship in the entire paragraph. Or if we take the certainly ancient passage Kaush. 2. 1–2, where it is said of the beggar, who knows himself as the Self of all beings,—*tasya upanishad ‘na yâc’ed’ iti*, “his secret sign is not to beg”; it would be very difficult to say what suggestion of “worship” is found in phrases like these.