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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s3.t4: 4. Attempts to interpret the Symbolical Representations of Brahman

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s3.t4

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4. Attempts to interpret the Symbolical Representations of Brahman

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It is a weighty saying, that we must not put new wine into old wine-skins. But this requirement (like so many other of the requirements of Jesus) is on too lofty a plane, too unpractical, takes too little account of human relations and weaknesses, to be capable of more than approximate fulfilment. For it lies in the nature of things, that advance in the religious sphere can never be simple and absolute, but rather that by the side of the newer and better that which is old and dead must ever be still preserved, because it is regarded as something sacred. We shall see later how entirely Christianity was compelled to put its new wine into the old skins. Philosophy pursues a somewhat more untrammelled course. External liberty, however, is still not internal; and even in the course of development of the newer philosophy from Cartesius to Kant and onwards (to the greatest of all the battles for freedom that mankind has ever waged), we are only too often reminded of Goethe's grasshopper "that ever flits, and flitting leaps, and still in the grass sings its old song."

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It was exactly the same in India. Those symbolical representations of Brahman as prâṇa, âkâśa, etc. were too deeply rooted in the consciousness for it to be possible to throw them overboard without further trouble. There followed a series of attempts to preserve the symbols, while combining with them a truer conception of Brahman. The section Kaush. 3-4 is especially typical of this method of procedure. The important fact, taught principally by Yâjñavalkhya, and perhaps first grasped by him, that Brahman, the âtman, must be sought above all in the knowing subject, *i.e.* in the consciousness (*prajñâ*), had found a place alike in the schools of the Sâmaveda,¹ and in those of the Rigveda; although the latter, to judge from Ait. Âr. 2. 1–2, adhered especially closely to the symbolic representation of Brahman as prâṇa. While, however, amongst the Aitareyins the new knowledge of Brahman as *prajñâ* (consciousness) is attached immediately to this representation,² the Kaush. Up. endeavours to effect a reconciliation of the two by means of the equation, prâṇa = prajñâ. Kaush. 3 shows in a better way how the objects of sense are dependent on the organs of sense, and the latter in turn on the consciousness (*prajñâ*, *prajñâtman*). But like a false note there runs through the whole the assertion put forward again and again:—“What however the prâṇa is, that is the prajñâ, and what the prajñâ is, that is the prâṇa.” The sole reason advanced for this bold identification is,—“for both dwell united in the body, and united depart out of it.”³ A similar attempt to identify the prâṇa and the *âkâśa*, and both with *ânanda*, “bliss,” which forms the essence of Brahman, is found in Chând. 4. 10. 5:—“Brahman is life (*prâṇa*), Brahman is joy (*kam* = *ânanda*), Brahman is the expanse (*kham* = *âkâśa*); to which the fires that impart this instruction add in explanation:—“In truth, the expanse, that is the joy, and the joy, that is the expanse”; and they expound to him how that Brahman is life and the broad expanse. A still more comprehensive blending of symbols with reality is undertaken by the very complex paragraph, Bṛih. 2. 3. Here “two forms” of Brahman are distinguished, the material (mortal, abiding, existing), and the immaterial (immortal, departing, other-worldly). (1) The material Brahman is physical nature and the human body; the sun and the eye are its essence. (2) The immaterial Brahman is vâyu and âkâs'a, prâna and the void in man; the purusha in the sun and the eye is its essence. Thus far therefore we are dealing with the symbolical. But this is abruptly transcended when the purusha is further identified by means of the famous formula of Yâjñavalkhya neti neti and the upanishad satyasya satyam borrowed from Br̥ih. 2. 1. 20 with the unknowable super-essential Brahman. A similar blending virtually takes place in Br̥ih. 3. 7, when vâyu-prâna as the world-thread (sûtram) and the âtman as the inner guide (antaryâmin) are discussed in the same context, and are therefore probably identified. The prayer of the student also in Taitt. 1. 1¹ is remarkable, because a perfectly clear consciousness of the symbolical representation of Brahman by vâyu is therein expressed :—" Reverence to Brahman! Reverence to thee, Vâyu! for thou art the visible Brahman, thee will I recognise as the visible Brahman." In later texts prâna has become occasionally a synonym for âtman, as in Kâṭh. 6. 2; or is made dependent on the latter, as in Pras'na 3. 3, where the prâna (perhaps following R̥igv. X. 121. 2, Kâṭh. 3. 1, and anticipating the "reflection" between souls and objects in the Sânkhya philosophy) is described as the copy or shadow (c'hâyâ) of the âtman. It was reserved for the reactionary spirit of the Maitr. Up. 6. 1-8 to rehabilitate prâna and âditya, and to enlarge upon their identity as well as the manner of their worship in tedious speculations.

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¹ Chând. 8. 12. 4, Kena 1–8.

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² Ait. Up. 3 = Ait. Âr. 2. 6.

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³ Kaush. 3. 4.

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¹ cp. also I. 12.

Cites (11)