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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s3.t3: 3. Other Symbols of Brahman

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s3.t3

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3. Other Symbols of Brahman

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The two most important types besides the prâṇa under which Brahman is to be worshipped appear to be manas and âkâs'a. The principal relevant passage is Chândogya 3. 18:—“The manas is to be worshipped as Brahman; thus far in relation to the self. Next in relation to the godhead; the âkâs'a (ether, space) is (to be worshipped) as Brahman. Thereby both are taught, that in relation to the self, and this in relation to the godhead.” It is further expounded how Brahman as manas has as his four feet the cosmical organs, speech, breath, eye, ear, and similarly as âkâs'a the cosmical gods, fire, wind, sun, and the heavenly regions. A passing attempt to elevate the manas (the will) into a universal principle has been elsewhere cited.¹ Unfortunately the attempt is not carried any further, but the manas is allowed to remain a mere symbol of Brahman. Besides our passage, Chând. 7. 3 may be quoted, where the manas occurs as the third of the symbols there enumerated, beyond which there is a still higher; and Bṛih. 4. 1. 6, where the upanishad mano vai brahma is attributed to Satyakâma (inconsistently with the instruction given to him in Chând. 4. 9. 3), and is regarded as inadequate. By the side of the manas the passage quoted above names the âkâśa (ether, space;

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strictly speaking, space conceived as a material element) as a symbol of Brahman (for an alternative and parallel explanation of it as Brahman can only be intended to be understood symbolically), no doubt on account of the omnipresence of space; just as a passage often quoted by Śankara but not yet identified says of Brahman that he is âkâśavat sarvagataś ca nityaḥ “omnipresent like space, eternal,” and Newton designated space the sensorium of God, while Kant a century later showed the god, whose sensorium space is, to be the intellect (manas) in our inner self. In older texts of the Upanishads, âkâśa (space) is frequently explained to be Brahman, without any clear consciousness that this representation is merely symbolical. Chând. 1. 9. 1:— “It is the âkâśa, out of which all these creatures proceed, and into which they are again received, the âkâśa is older than they all, the âkâśa is the ultimate end.” Bâdarâyaṇa is right in asserting¹ that by the âkâśa here Brahman is to be understood, “because his characteristics” are found. So also in Bṛih. 5. 1. 1, in an appendix containing much that is old:—“Om! the firmament is Brahman, the primeval, air-filled firmament.” And again probably in Chând. 3. 12. 7-9:—“This so-called Brahman is the same as yonder space without man; and yonder space without man is the same as this space within man; and this space within man is the same as this space within the heart.

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That is the perfect, the immutable.” It was soon, however, felt that the representation of Brahman as âkâśa could only be tolerated in a symbolical sense. Gârgya, in Bṛih. 2. 1. 5,² explains the spirit in space as Brahman, and the answer is given (obviously directed against the passage from Chând. 3. 12. 9 just cited), that it is only “the full, the immutable.” In Chând. 4. 10. 5 kham (space) is playfully identified with kam (= ânanda, bliss). In Chând. 3. 18. 1, âkâśa is, as we saw, only in a symbolic sense together with manas admitted as Brahman as an object of worship. Thus in Chând. 7. 12 the âkâśa appears as a mere symbol, beyond which there is a greater; and in Chând. 8. 1. 1, characteristically diverging from the above quoted passage Chând. 3. 12. 7–9, it is no longer a question of regarding space in the universe as Brahman, or space in the heart, but that which is within this space (tasmin yad antar). We are unable therefore to agree with Bâdarâyaṇa when, in the student's benediction Chând. 8. 14, he proposes to understand Brahman by the âkâśa. The meaning rather is, perhaps intentionally, directed against such an interpretation :—The âkâśa is that (only) which holds asunder name and form; that which is in these two (te yad antarâ), that is Brahman, that is the immortal, that is the âtman. That is to say, Brahman has been expanded into names and forms, according to Chând. 6. 3. 3. The most decided polemic however against a confusion of âkâśa and Brahman is in Bṛih. 3.

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7. 12 :—“He who, dwelling in the âkâśa, is distinct from âkâśa, whom the âkâśa knows not, whose body the âkâśa is, who rules the âkâśa from within, he is thy soul, the inner guide, the immortal.”¹

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¹ *Einleitung und Philosophie des Veda*, p. 206; for an estimate of this conception we refer to the discussion there.

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¹ Sûtr. 1. 1. 22, âkâśas tal-liṅgât.

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² cp. Kaush. 4. 8.

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¹ cp. also Bṛih. 3. 8. 11, 4. 4. 17, 20.

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As early as the period preceding the Upanishads we were able to discern a series of attempts to regard the first principle of the universe as inherent in the sun, but at the same time by means of metaphorical interpretations to advance beyond this conception as being merely symbolical. These attempts were continued in the Upanishads. In Kaush. 2. 7 a ceremony is taught, which by means of a worship of the rising mid-day and setting sun delivers from all sin committed by day or by night. Chând. 3. 19. 1 enjoins in addition the worship of the sun as Brahman; and that this representation is merely symbolic appears from what follows, where the sun is regarded not as the original creative principle, but, falling back upon representations discussed elsewhere,¹ as the first-born of creation. With the attempts to which reference is there made to interpret these views of Brahman as the sun, and to see in the natural light a symbol merely of the spiritual light, is to be classed especially the paragraph Chând. 3. 1–11, which undertakes on a larger scale to depict Brahman as the sun of the universe, and the natural sun as the phenomenal form of this Brahman. It may be regarded as a further endeavour to penetrate beyond the symbol to the substance when, in a series of passages, it is no longer the sun, but the *purusha* (man, spirit) in the sun, and the corresponding *purusha* in the eye that is described as Brahman. In Chând. 1. 6–7 it is said in an adaptation of the Udgîtha (which the Udgâtar had to sing); as the Udgâtar is lord over *ṛic* and *sâman*, so over the cosmical gods is lord “the golden man (*purusha*), who is seen within the sun with golden beard and golden hair, altogether of gold to the finger-tips”; and over the psychical gods “the man who is seen within the eye.” The former is lord over the worlds which lie beyond the sun, and over the desires of the gods; the latter over the worlds which lie on this side of the eye (therefore within man), and over the desires of men. According to Mahânâr. 13, the *ṛic*, *sâman*, and *yajus* (and therefore the Brahman embodied in the Veda) are compared to the orb of the sun, its flame, and the *purusha* in this flame,—“as this triple knowledge does he gleam, who as golden *purusha* is therein in the sun”; while the identity of this *purusha* with that in men has been already asserted in Taitt. 2. 8:² “He who dwells here in men and that one yonder in the sun are the same." This thought is further developed in Bṛih. 5. 5, where among other things it is said:—"Yonder man who is in the orb of the sun, and this man who is in the right eye, these two depend on one another. The former depends by its rays on the latter, and this by the breath of life on the former. This one, when he determines to go forth, gazes at that orb of the sun pure (from rays); those rays do not interfere with him." Accordingly in Bṛih. 5. 15¹ the dying man entreats the sun:—"Disperse thy rays, concentrate thy splendour; yea, I see thee, thou lovely form; and he there, that man there, I am he himself." A similar conception underlies the explanation of themselves given in Chând. 4. 11–13 by the three sacrificial fires in their instruction of Upakosala as the man in the sun, the moon, and the lightning; whereupon the teacher in a subsequent correction remarks:—"They have told you only its environment, but I will tell you its real nature . . . the man who is seen in the eye, he is the âtman—thus he spake,—he is the immortal, the fearless, he is Brahman." Sun, moon, and lightning are, as he further shows, only the uppermost stations of the way of the gods, by which "the man who is not as a man" (puruṣo 'mânavah) guides the soul to eternal union with Brahman. These views are apparently criticised in Kaush. 4,² when Gârgya among his sixteen definitions of Brahman proposes the man in the sun, the moon, the lightning, and the right eye, and is therefore turned away by Ajâtas'atru.

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¹ *Allgemeine Geschichte*, I, 1. pp. 253, 251.

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² cp. also Taitt. 3. 10.

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¹ cp. also Îs'â 16.

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² cp. Bṛih. 2. 1.

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Prâṇa, manas, âkâs'a, and âditya are the most important symbols under which the worship of Brahman is enjoined. Theoretically, indeed, all the objects of worship recognised and enumerated in Chând. 7. 1–15, viz.—nâman, vâc', manas, saṅkalpa, c'ittam, dhyânam, vijñâ- nam, balam, annam, âpas, tejas, âkâs'a, smara, âs'â, prâna are to be regarded as such; and the modes of representation of Brahman as vâc', prâna, c'akshus, s'rotram, manas, hridayam, which in Brih. 4. 1 are treated as imperfect and yet are not rejected, stand in a similar position, and so also annam, prâna, c'akshus, s'rotram, manas in Taitt. 3. 1. The warmth of the body and the buzzing in the ear do duty also as symbols of Brahman on the ground of Chând. 3. 13. 7–8, where it is said of the light which is above the heaven and at the same time within men, i.e. of Brahman :—" His sight is that here in the body when he is touched a warmth is felt; his hearing is that when the ears are kept closed there is heard, as it were, a humming like a crackling as of a roaring fire. This ought we to worship as his sight and his hearing." Just as the section from which this passage is taken stands in a peculiar, still unexplained relation to the doctrine of the âtman vais'vânara and the prânâgnihotram connected with it,¹ so the parallel doctrine of the agni vais'vânara² is attached to a cognate expression in Brih. 5. 9, which traces back the buzzing in the ear and the fire of digestion to the vais'vânara fire in men (just as in Chând. 3. 13. 7–8 the humming in the ear and the bodily warmth is traced to the Brahman fire in men). Both amount essentially to the same thing, since, according to the doctrine of the prânâgnihotra (which will have to be further considered later on), digestion is a consumption of the sacrificial food by the fire of prâna; and this we have already learnt to recognise as a symbol of Brahman.

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¹ Chând. 5. 11–24.

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² S'atap. Br. 10. 6. 1.

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Among the symbols by which the suprasensible Brahman is represented to sentient perception is finally to be reckoned the sacred syllable om, which of all the symbols came to be the most important and fruitful. It was closely connected with the yoga practice, one of the most peculiar phenomena of Indian religious life, which later on will claim consecutive treatment.

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