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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c6.s1: 1. The earliest Origin of the Upanishads

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c6.s1

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1. The earliest Origin of the Upanishads

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The word *Upanishad* occurs with three distinct meanings as—

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(1) Secret word.
(2) Secret text.
(3) Secret import.

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(1) Certain mysterious words, expressions, and formulas, which are only intelligible to the initiated, are described as *Upanishad*. These contain either a secret rule for action and behaviour, as the *na yâc'et* of Kaush. 2. 1, 2, quoted above, or secret information on the nature of Brahman. When, then, the latter is described as *satyasya satyam*¹, or *tad-vanam*² (the final goal of aspiration), there is added, “thou hast been taught the Upanishad.” Of a similar nature are secret words like *tajjalân*³ “in him (all beings) are born, perish, and breathe,” or *neti neti*⁴. And when the worship of Brahman under such formulas is enjoined, it is not implied that *upanishad* signifies “worship,” but only, as already pointed out, that meditation on Brahman under these mysterious terms must take the place of the worship of the gods.

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 1. 20, 2. 3. 6.

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² Kena 31 (4. 6).

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³ Chând. 3. 14. 1.

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⁴ Bṛih. 2. 3. 6, and often.

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(2) The extant texts themselves, as well as the older texts underlying them, are called Upanishads. Accordingly in the Taittirîyaka school especially a section often ends with the words,—*iti upanishad*.

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(3) Very frequently it is not a word or a text, but the secret allegorical meaning of some ritual conception or practice, which is described as *upanishad*; *e.g.* in Chând. 1. 1. 10,—“for that which is executed with knowledge, with faith, with the upanishad (knowledge of the secret meaning of Udgîtha as *Om*), that is more effective.”

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The question suggests itself, which of these three significations is the original. We might decide for the third, and suppose that an allegorical interpretation was assigned to the ritual, and the Upanishad doctrine developed thence. This, however, apparently was not the case, and there is much to be said for the view that, as already observed above, the conceptions of the Upanishads, though they may have originated with the Brâhmans, were fostered primarily among the Kshatriyas and not within Brâhman circles, engrossed as these were with the ritual.

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The Upanishads have come down to us, like the rest of the texts of the three older Vedas, through the Brâhmans. All the more striking is it, therefore, that the texts themselves frequently trace back some of their most important doctrines to kings, *i.e.* Kshatriyas. Thus, in the narrative of Chând. 5. 11-24, five learned Brâhmans request from Uddâlaka Âruṇi instruction concerning the Âtman Vais’vânara. Uddâlaka distrusts his ability to explain everything to them, and all the six therefore betake themselves to the king As’vapati Kaikeya, and receive from him the true instruction, the defectiveness of their own knowledge having first been made clear. In Bṛih. 2. 1 (and the parallel passage, Kaush. 4), the far-famed Vedic scholar Gârgya Bâlâki volunteers to expound the Brahman to King Ajâtas’atru of Kâs’î, and propounds accordingly twelve (in Kaush. 16) erroneous explanations; whereupon to him, the Brâhman, the king exhibits the Brahman as the âtman under the figure of a deep sleeper, prefacing his exposition with the remark, “that is a reversal of the rule, for a Brâhman to betake himself as a pupil to a Kshatriya in order to have the Brahman expounded to him; now I proceed to instruct you.” In this narrative, preserved by two different Vedic schools, it is expressly declared that the knowledge of the Brahman as âtman, the central doctrine of the entire Vedânta, is possessed by the king; but, on the contrary, is not possessed by the Brâhman “famed as a Vedic scholar.”¹ In Chând. 1. 8–9, two Brâhmans are instructed by the king Pravâhaṇa Jaivali concerning the âkâśa as the ultimate substratum of all things, of which they are ignorant. And although it is said in Chând. 1. 9. 3 that this instruction had been previously imparted by Atidhanvan to Udarasâṇḍilya, yet the names allow of the conjecture that in this case also a Brâhman received instruction from a Kshatriya. Similarly Chând. 7 contains the teaching given by Sanatkumâra, the god of war, to the Brâhman Nârada. Here the former pronounces inadequate the comprehensive Vedic learning of the Brâhman with the words: “all that you have studied is merely name.”² Finally the leading text of the doctrine of the soul’s transmigration, which is extant in three different recensions,³ is propounded in the form of an instruction given to Âruṇi by the king Pravâhaṇa Jaivali.⁴ The king here says to the Brâhman :—“Because, as you have told me, O Gautama, this doctrine has never up to the present time been in circulation among Brâhmans, therefore in all the worlds the government has remained in the hands of the warrior caste.”⁵

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¹ Kaush., l.c.

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² Chând. 7. 1. 3.

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³ Chând. 5. 3–10, Bṛih. 5. 2, and with considerable variations Kaush. 1.

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⁴ In Kaush., l.c., by C’itra Gângyâyana.

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⁵ Chând. 5. 3. 7 ; in Bṛih. 6. 2. 8 the words are :—“As surely as I wish that you, like your ancestors, may remain well-disposed to us, so surely up to the present day this knowledge has never been in the possession of a Brâhman.”

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When we consider that the passages quoted discuss such subjects as the knowledge of Brahman as âtman,⁶ the knowledge of this âtman as the all-quickener,⁷ and the fate of the soul after death,¹ that is, precisely the most important points of Upanishad teaching; that not only is the king represented in them as endowed with wisdom, but is expressly contrasted with the Brâhman who is ignorant or deluded; and that these narratives are preserved to us by the Vedic S'âkhâs, and therefore by the Brâhmans themselves; we are forced to conclude, if not with absolute certainty, yet with a very high degree of probability, that as a matter of fact the doctrine of the âtman, standing as it did in such sharp contrast to all the principles of the Vedic ritual, though the original conception may have been due to Brâhmans, was taken up and cultivated primarily not in Brâhman but in Kshatriya circles, and was first adopted by the former in later times. The fact, moreover, which is especially prominent in the last quoted passages, that the Brâhmans during a long period had not attained to the possession of this knowledge, for which they nevertheless display great eagerness, is most simply explained on the supposition that this teaching with regard to the âtman was studiously withheld from them; that it was transmitted in a narrow circle among the Kshatriyas to the exclusion of the Brâhmans; that, in a word, it was upanishad. The allegorical method of interpreting the ritual in the light of the âtman doctrine, though it may have been already practised among the Kshatriya circles, was probably undertaken on a larger scale after the adoption of the new doctrine by the Brâhmans. It would follow that the third of the above-mentioned meanings of the word upanishad as "secret import" (of some ritual conception) is probably in the first instance secondary. If we ask further, which of the two other meanings, (1) secret word, (2) secret text, is the more primitive, it would seem that a transition from the second to the first is with difficulty intelligible.

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⁶ Bṛih. 2. 1, Kaush. 4.

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⁷ Chând. 5. 11 f.

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¹ Chând. 5. 3 f., Bṛih. 6. 2.

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but that the first passes into the second by a natural and readily comprehended change.

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We may therefore assume that the doctrine of the âtman as the first principle of the universe, the gradual rise of which we have traced through the hymns of the Ṛigveda and Atharvaveda, was fostered and progressively developed by the Kshatriyas in opposition to the principles of the Brâhmanical ritual; whence the new knowledge was expressed in brief words or formulas, intelligible only to the initiated, such as tadvanam, tajjalân, satyasya satyam, samyadvâma, vâmaní, bhâmaní, etc. A formula of this kind was then called an upanishad, inasmuch as the condition of its communication and explanation was the absence of publicity. Such formulas were naturally accompanied by oral explanations, which also were kept secret, and from these were gradually developed the earliest texts that bore the name of Upanishad. The manner in which the formulas tad vai tad¹ or vi-ram² are discussed may serve as examples of such secret words accompanied by secret explanation.³

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¹ Bṛih. 5. 4.

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² Bṛih. 5. 12.

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³ The explanations given of these secret words are not always in agreement. The definition of Brahman as pûrṇam apravarti is approved in Chând. 3. 12. 7, but in Bṛih. 2. 1. 5 (Kaush. 4. 8) is regarded, on the contrary, as inadmissible. Of still greater interest is the case of the Upanishad Bṛih. 16. 3, amṛitam satyena c'hannam, understood by others as anṛitam satyena c'hannam; so also Bṛih. 5. 5. 1 (anṛitam ubhayataḥ satyena parigṛihitam), which again is otherwise explained in Chând. 8. 3. 5. Similarly the saying of the ancient ṛishis, pâṅktam idam sarvam, is differently construed in Bṛih. 1. 4. 17 and Taitt. 1. 7.

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In these and similar ways the secret doctrines, *i.e.* the vidyâs, arose, of which mention is so frequently made in the Upanishads. Their authors or exclusive possessors were renowned in the land. Pilgrims sought them, pupils served them for many years,⁴ and rich gifts were offered to them⁵ in order thereby to gain the communication of the *vidyâ*. In the case of some of these *vidyâs* the name of the author is preserved. Several of them, in fact, are equipped with a formal genealogy, which recounts the original author and his successors, and usually closes with the injunction to communicate the doctrine only to a son or trusted pupil.

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⁴ Chând. 4. 10. 2.

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⁵ Chând. 4. 2. 1.

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A suitable field, however, for the successful development of these doctrines was first opened up when they passed from the Kshatriya circles, where they had originally found a home, by ways that a few illustrations have already taught us to recognise, into the possession of the Brâhmans, whose system of scholastic traditions was firmly established. The latter eagerly adopted the âtman doctrine, although it was fundamentally opposed to the Vedic cult of the gods and the Brâhmanical system of ritual, combined it by the help of allegorical interpretation with the ritualistic tradition, and attached it to the curriculum of their schools. The Upanishads became the Vedânta.

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Soon also the Brâhmans laid claim to the new teaching as their exclusive privilege. They were able to point to princes and leaders, as Janaka, Jânas'ruti, etc., who were said to have gone for instruction to Brâhmans. Authorities on the ritual like S'ânḍilya and Yâjñavalkhya were transformed into originators and upholders of the ideas of the Upanishads, and the âtman doctrine was made to presuppose the tradition of the Veda :—" Only he who knows the Veda comprehends the great omnipresent Âtman," as it is said in a passage of the Brâhmaṇas.¹

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¹ Taitt. Br. 3. 12. 9. 7.

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After the Upanishad ideas had been adopted by the S'âkhâs, and had been made a part of their Vedic system of instruction, they passed through a varied expansion and development under the hands of the Vedic teachers. To begin with they were brought into accord with the ritual tradition by interpreting the latter (in the Âranyakas) in the spirit of the âtman doctrine; and thus the adherents of the Rigveda brought it into connection with the uktham (hymn), those of the Sâmaveda with the sâman, and those of the Yajurveda with the sacrifice, especially the horse-sacrifice as being its highest form. The new doctrine, however, was further developed in a manner which altogether transcended the traditional cult, with which, indeed, it often found itself in open contradiction. In regard to this an active communication and exchange must have existed between the different schools. Definitions which by the one were highly regarded failed to meet with acceptance in another. Teachers who in the one S'âkhâ exercised supreme authority are found in another in a subordinate position (Âruṇi), or are altogether unknown (Yâjñavalkhya). Texts appear with slight variations in the different Vedic schools, whether borrowed directly or going back on either side to a common original. Other texts are met with side by side in one and the same S'âkhâ in numerous recensions, often very similar, often widely divergent from one another. This rich mental life, the details of which can scarcely be further reproduced, may not improbably have lasted for centuries; and the fundamental thought of the doctrine of the âtman have attained an ever completer development by means of the reflection of individual thinkers in familiar intercourse before a chosen circle of pupils, and probably also by public discussions at royal courts. The oldest Upanishads preserved to us are to be regarded as the final result of this mental process.

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