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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s1.t2: 3. The Sacrifice

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s1.t2

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3. The Sacrifice

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The older Upanishads were so deeply conscious of the hostile character of the entire ritualistic system of the Brâhmans that they could concede to it only a relative recognition. It is true that direct attacks are rarely found in the extant texts. Antagonistic explanations, however, of the sacrificial rites are all the more frequently offered by way either of allegorical interpretation or of the substitution of other and usually psychological ideas in their place.

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There is a note almost of mockery in Bṛih. 1. 4. 10 when it is said :—" He who worships another divinity (than the âtman), and says ‘it is one and I am another,’ is not wise, but he is like a house-dog of the gods. Therefore just as many house-dogs are useful to men, every individual man is useful to the gods. Now the theft of only one house-dog is displeasing, how much more of many? Therefore it is displeasing to them that men do not know this." The remark of Yâjñavalkhya also, in Bṛih. 3. 9. 6, sounds very contemptuous :—" What is the sacrifice ?—brute beasts!" nor is it less so in Bṛih. 3. 9. 21, where it is said that Yama (the god of the dead) has his abode in the sacrifice, but the sacrifice in the fees.

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Daring remarks like these we do not find in the Chândogya, unless it be in the "Song of the Dog" in Chând. 1. 12, which seems to have been originally a satire on the greedy begging propensities of the priests, to which in later times an allegorical interpretation was given. In Chand. 1. 10-11 also the story is told, not without a malicious pleasure, how the three priests assembled at the sacrifice were put to confusion by a wandering beggar; and in Chând. 4. 1-3 Jânas'ruti, "rich in faith, open-handed, munificent" (s'raddhâdeyo, bahudâyî, bahupâkyaḥ), is compelled not without humiliation to seek instruction from a poor vagrant.

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According to the general view, sacrifice and good works give admission only to the "way of the fathers" (pitriyâna), which after a temporary sojourn in the moon leads back to a new earthly existence. As early as Bṛih. 1. 5. 16 it is said :—" by the labour (of the sacrifice) is the world of the fathers won, by knowledge the world of the gods”; and other passages describe the way of the fathers which leads back again to earth as the fate of those “who worship in the village with the words ‘Sacrifice and deeds of piety are our offering,’”¹ “who by sacrifice, almsgiving and ascetic practices gain the (heavenly) worlds,”² “who worship with the words ‘Sacrifice and deeds of piety are our work,’”³ “regarding sacrifice and deeds as the highest good, they know no better and are befooled.”⁴

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¹ Chând. 5. 10. 3.

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² Bṛih. 6. 2. 16.

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³ Praśna 1. 9.

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⁴ Muṇḍ. 1. 2. 10.

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Not rarely a meaning suitable to the new doctrine is read into the existing sacrificial rites. In Bṛih. 1. 4. 6, for example, the five daily offerings (*mahâyajñâḥ*) are interpreted as a sacrifice to the âtman; and in Chând. 4. 11–14 the three sacrificial fires are explained as forms of the âtman’s manifestation (*eṣhâ asmadvidyâ âtmavidyâ ca*).

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Yet more frequently conditions of the âtman, as embodied in the world of nature or of man, were substituted for the ceremonies of the ritual. In Bṛih. 3. 1, in place of the four priests as organs of the gods, there are found speech, eye, breath and manas as organs of the âtman. In Chând. 4. 16 the wind is explained to be the essence of the sacrifice, mind and speech the essence of the sacrificing priests. In Ait. Âr. 3. 2. 6, Bṛih. 1. 5. 23, and Kaush. 2. 5, inhalation and speech replace the *agnihotram*; and this thought is further developed on the basis of Chând. 5. 11–24 into the theory of the *prâṇâgnihotram*, a fuller discussion of which will be given below. The substitution also for the sacrifice of the man, his organs and bodily functions, is greatly favoured. For example, in Chând. 3. 16 the three life-periods take the place of the three pressings of the soma, in Chând. 3. 17 human activities of the various acts of the soma festival, and in Mahânâr. 64 the bodily organs of the implements of the sacrifice. This last thought is carried out in extreme detail in Prâṇâgnihotra Up. 3–4. The verse Taitt. 2. 5 also belongs here, inasmuch as, correctly translated, it asserts,—“He presents knowledge as his sacrifice, knowledge as his works.”

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It is first in the later Upanishads that we meet with a more friendly attitude towards the sacrificial cult. In Kâṭh. 1. 17, in a style altogether excessive and opposed to the upanishad spirit, there is promised for the fulfilment of certain ceremonies and works “the overstepping of birth and death,” “entrance into everlasting rest”; and in Kâṭh. 3. 2 the Nâciketa fire is explained as the bridge which bears the sacrificers to the supreme eternal Brahman, to the “fearless shore.” Here even if we make allowance for poetical extravagance of expression, a co-operation at least with the cult for the attainment of salvation is asserted. S'vet. 2. 6–7 marks a further step in advance:—

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Where Agni from the chips of wood
Darts forth, where Vâyu too appears,
Where the Soma also flows freely,—
There is the manas developed.

By Savitar, at his impulse,
Delight yourselves in the ancient prayer;
If there you take your stand,
The deeds of the past soil you no more.

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The expression here used, “Delight yourselves in the ancient prayer” (*jusheta brahma pûrvyam*) indicates that a former practice is reintroduced and held in honour. This reaction attains its climax in the Maitrâyaṇîya Up., which explains at the very outset¹ that “the fire-laying for the ancestors” is in truth “a sacrifice to Brahman”; and in the fourth Prapâṭhaka ventures the thought that without study of the Veda, observance of caste-duties, and the following of the due brâhmanical order of life according to the âśramas, the deliverance of the natural ātman and its re-union with the supreme ātman are impossible. The key to the understanding of this reaction is given by the polemic against the heretics which is found in Maitr. 7. 8–10. Brāhmanism, in view of the consequences which the attitude of the earlier Upanishads had entailed in Buddhism and similar manifestations, returns to its original position.

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¹ Maitr. 1. 1.

Cites (12)