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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s2: 2. The Conception of the Upanishads in its Relation to Philosophy

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s2

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2. The Conception of the Upanishads in its Relation to Philosophy

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The whole of religion and philosophy has its root in the thought that (to adopt the language of Kant) the universe is only appearance and not reality (*Ding an sich*); that is to say, the entire external universe, with its infinite ramifications in space and time, as also the involved and intricate sum of our inner perceptions, is all merely the form under which the essential reality presents itself to a consciousness such as ours, but is not the form in which it may subsist outside of our consciousness and independent of it; that, in other words, the sum-total of external and internal experience always and only tells us how things are constituted for us, and for our intellectual capacities, not how they are in themselves and apart from intelligences such as ours.

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It is easy to show how this thought, which met with adequate recognition first in the philosophy of Kant, but which existed in less clearly defined form from the earliest times, is the basis and tacit presumption, more or less consciously, of all philosophy, so far at least as this name is not made to serve as a mere cloak for empirical sciences. For all philosophy, as contrasted with empirical science, is not content to learn to know objects in their circumstances and surroundings, and to investigate their causal connections; but it rather seeks beyond all these to determine their nature, inasmuch as it regards the sum-total of empirical reality, with all the explanations offered by the empirical sciences, as something which needs to be yet further explained; and this solution is found in the principle which it sets forth, and from which it seeks to infer the real nature of things and their relation. This fact, then, that philosophy has from the earliest times sought to determine a first principle of the universe, proves that it started from a more or less clear consciousness that the entire empirical reality is not the true essence of things, that, in Kant’s words, it is only appearance and not the thing in itself.

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There have been three occasions, as far as we know, on which philosophy has advanced to a clearer comprehension of its recurring task, and of the solution demanded: first in India in the Upanishads, again in Greece in the philosophy of Parmenides and Plato, and finally, at a more recent time, in the philosophy of Kant and Schopenhauer. In a later work we shall have to show how Greek philosophy reached its climax in the teaching of Parmenides and Plato, that this entire universe of change is, as Parmenides describes it, merely phenomenal, or in Plato’s words a world of shadows; and how both philosophers endeavoured through it to grasp the essential reality, τὸ ὄν, τὸ ὄντως ὄν, that which Plato, in an expression that recalls the doctrine of the Upanishads no less than the phraseology of Kant, describes as the αὐτὸ (âtman)

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καθ’ αὑτό (*an sich*). We shall then see further how this same thought, obscured for a time under the influence of Aristotle and throughout the Middle Ages, was taken up again in quite a different way, and shone forth more clearly than ever before in the philosophy founded by Kant, adopted and perfected by his great successor Schopenhauer. Here we have to do with the Upanishads, and the world-wide historical significance of these documents cannot, in our judgement, be more clearly indicated than by showing how the deep fundamental conception of Plato and Kant was precisely that which already formed the basis of Upanishad teaching.

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The objects which lie around us on every side in infinite space, and to which by virtue of our corporeal nature we ourselves belong, are, according to Kant, not “things in themselves,” but only apparitions. According to Plato, they are not the true realities, but merely shadows of them. And according to the doctrine of the Upanishads, they are not the âtman, the real “self” of the things, but mere *mâyâ*,—that is to say, a sheer deceit, illusion. It is true that the term *mâyâ* occurs for the first time in S’vet. 4. 10; and therefore some writers, whose recognition of a fact is obscured by the different language in which it is clothed, have hazarded the assertion that the conception of *mâyâ* is still unknown to the more ancient Upanishads. How in the light of this assertion they find it possible to comprehend these older Upanishads (Bṛihad. and Chând.) they themselves perhaps know. The fact is they are penetrated throughout by the conception which later was most happily expressed by the word *mâyâ*. In the very demand which they make that the âtman of man, the âtman of the universe, must be sought for,¹ it is implied that this body and this universe which reveal themselves to us unsought are not the âtman, the self, the true reality; and that we are under a delusion if, like the demon Viroc'ana,¹ we regard them as such. All worldly objects and relationships are, as Yajñavalkhya explains in Bṛih. 2. 4. 5, of no value for their own sake (as "things in themselves"), but for the sake of the âtman; nay, they exist solely in the âtman, and that man is utterly and hopelessly undone who knows them "apart from the Self" (*anyatra âtmano*). This âtman, he concludes,² is Brâhman and warrior, is space, gods, and creatures, "this âtman is the entire universe" (*idam sarvam yad ayam âtmâ*). As when a man touches the instrument³ he at the same time elicits the notes, so when a man has comprehended the âtman he has with it comprehended all these things:—"Verily he who has seen, heard, comprehended and known the Self, by him is this entire universe known."⁴

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5: *âtmâ vâ’ are drashṭavyaḥ, s’rotavyo, mantavyo, nididhyâ-sitavyo*; Chând. 8. 7. 1: *so’ nveshṭavyaḥ, sa vijijñâsitavyaḥ*.

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¹ Chând. 8. 8. 4.

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² L.c. 2. 4. 6.

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³ Bṛih. 2. 4. 7 f.

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⁴ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5b.

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Immediately connected with these conceptions, and probably even with this passage from the Bṛihadâraṇyaka, is the expression in the Chândogya Up. 6. 1. 2, where that which in the former place was the climax of a development is assumed and becomes the theme advanced for discussion:—"Dost thou then ask for that instruction, by which the unheard becomes (already) heard, the uncomprehended comprehended, the unknown known?" "What then, most noble sir, is this instruction?" "Just as, my dear sir, from a lump of clay everything that consists of clay is known, the change is a matter of words alone, a mere name,⁵ it is in reality only clay,—thus, my dear sir, is this instruction." Here the manifold change of the one substance is explained as mere word-play, mere name, exactly as Parmenides asserts that all which men regard as real is mere name.¹ Later passages employ language that is based on these conceptions, “nor is this even a plurality,”² and the verses preserved in Bṛih. 4. 4. 19:³

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⁵ *vâcârambhaṇam vikâro, nâmadheyam.*

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¹ τῷ πάντ’ ὄνομ’ ἔσται, ὅσσα βρότοι κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ.

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² Kaush. 3. 8

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³ cp. Kâṭh. 4. 10–11.

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In the spirit should this be perceived,
Here there is no plurality anywhere.
From death to death again he rushes blindly
Who fancies that he here sees difference.

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Apt and striking also is the remark of a later Upanishad⁴ that no proof of plurality can even be offered, “for no proof is possible of the existence of a duality, and only the timeless âtman admits of proof,” (*i.e.* we are incapable of knowing anything outside of our own consciousness, which under all circumstances forms a unity).

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⁴ Nṛisiṃhott. 9.

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It is clear from the foregoing :—(1) That the view which later was most explicitly set forth in the doctrine of *mâyâ* is so far from being strange to the oldest Upanishads that it is assumed in and with their fundamental doctrine of the sole reality of the âtman, and forms its necessary complement; and (2) that this fundamental doctrine of the Upanishads is seen to be in marvellous agreement with the philosophies of Parmenides and Plato, and of Kant and Schopenhauer. So fully indeed is this true, that all three, originating from different epochs and countries, and with modes of thought entirely independent, mutually complete, elucidate, and confirm one another. Let this then suffice for the philosophical significance of the Upanishads.

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