The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s2.11

c7.s2.11

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