The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s5.t2: 2. Brahman as the Cosmical Principle

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s5.t2

Language: English

2. Brahman as the Cosmical Principle

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The relation of the first principle of things to created nature, or to use popular language, of God to the universe, is a problem which can never be completely solved, for a solution is excluded by the constitution of our intellectual powers. In proportion as we attempt to understand that relation—that is, to conceive it under the categories of our intellect, space, time and causality—we fall into an erroneous, or to put it more mildly into a figurative representation of the facts; and in proportion as we endeavour to rise above a mere figurative representation we are compelled to relinquish a real understanding. Four stages may be distinguished in the comprehension of that problem, which we may describe, at first in general and with reservation of their special application to India, as realism, theism, pantheism and idealism.

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(1) *Realism.*—Matter exists independently of God, and from eternity. God is degraded to a mere world-fashioner (δημιουργός), or, so far as creative power is transferred to matter itself, is altogether set aside, as in the Sânkhya.

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(2) *Theism.*—God creates the universe out of nothing, and the latter then has a real existence independently of God. This is the standpoint of the Old Testament. As soon as the attempt is seriously made to grasp the relation of God to the universe, in proportion as this takes place God becomes more and more entangled in the universe, until He is completely merged in it and disappears. Theism degenerates into pantheism, which is its necessary consequence. The later philosophy furnishes an example. After Descartes had attempted to formulate in logical terms the theism of the Middle Ages which was based on the Old Testament, we see how, under the hands of his successors Geulincx and Malebranche, God is more and more absorbed into the universe until finally He becomes completely identified with it. The same thing occurs in the pantheism of Spinoza. It is remarkable that this decisive refutation of that Biblical view of the universe which originated from Judaism and was adopted in the Middle Ages was effected by a Jew.

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(3) *Pantheism.*—God creates the universe by transforming himself into the universe. The latter confessedly has become God. Since it is real and also infinite, there is no room for God independently of the universe, but only within it. The terms God and universe become synonymous, and the idea of God is only retained in order not to break with tradition.

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(4) *Idealism.*—God alone and nothing besides him is real. The universe as regards its extension in space and bodily consistence is in truth not real; it is mere illusion, as used to be said, mere appearance, as we say to-day. This appearance is not God as in pantheism, but the reflection of God, and is an aberration from the divine essence. Not as though God were to be sought on the other side of the universe, for he is not at all in space; nor as though he were before or after, for he is not at all in time; nor as though he were the cause of the universe, for the law of causality has no application here. Rather, to the extent to which the universe is regarded as real, God is without reality. That he is real, nay the sole reality, we perceive only so far as we succeed in shaking ourselves free theoretically and practically from this entire world of appearance.

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All these stages are represented in the teaching of the Upanishads, and thus it presents a very varied colouring of idealistic, pantheistic or theistic shades without becoming contradictory in the proper sense of the term. For the fundamental thought, that is held fast at least as a principle at all stages, even at the lowest which maintains the independent existence of matter, is the conviction of the sole reality of the âtman; only that side by side with and in spite of this conviction more or less far-reaching concessions were made to the empirical consciousness of the reality of the universe, that could never be entirely cast off; and thus the universe disowned by the fundamental idealistic view of the sole reality of the âtman was yet again partially rehabilitated. This was effected either by regarding it pantheistically as an apparition of the only real âtman, or theistically as created by and out of the âtman, but yet contrasted with it as separate, or realistically as prakṛiti occupying from the very beginning an independent position by the side of the purusha, although in a certain sense dependent on the latter. Of the theistic conception, and the realistic that paved the way for the Sânkhya, both of which make their appearance only occasionally, we shall have to speak in a later connection. Here we propose in the first instance to enter upon the fundamental idealistic view, in order to show how by accommodation to the empirical consciousness, which regards the universe as real, it passes over into the pantheistic doctrine, which is the prevailing one in the Upanishads.

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Strongly idealistic, and at the same time expressing most clearly the peculiar spirit of the Upanishad teaching, are the passages which declare that with the knowledge of the âtman all is known,¹ and which accordingly deny a universe of plurality.² But with this thought a height was reached on which a prolonged stay was impracticable. Passages therefore of this kind are comparatively rare. The universe was still something existing; it lay there before their eyes. It was necessary to endeavour to find a way back to it. This was accomplished without abandoning the fundamental idealistic principle, by conceding the reality of the manifold universe, but at the same time maintaining that this manifold universe is in reality Brahman.³ Idealism therefore entered into alliance with the realistic view natural to us, and became thereby pantheism. This was the case already in the definition of Brahman as satyasya satyam, “the reality of reality.”⁴ The universe is reality (satyam), but the real in it is Brahman alone. The same is true when in Chând. 6. 1 f. the rise of the manifold universe from the sole existing one is traced in a realistic manner, accompanied by the repeated assurance that all these changes are “dependent on words, a mere name.” With this are connected the numerous passages which celebrate Brahman as the active principle through the entire universe:—"He is all-effecting, all-wishing, all-smelling, all-tasting, embracing all, silent, untroubled."¹ "The âtman is beneath and above, in the west and in the east, in the south and in the north; the âtman is this entire universe."² The sun rises from him, and sets again in him.³ All the regions of the sky are his organs,⁴ the four quarters of the universe (east, west, south, north), the four divisions of the universe (earth, air, sky, ocean), the four lights of the universe (fire, sun, moon, lightning), and the four vital breaths (breath, eye, ear, manas), are his sixteen parts.⁵

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5, Chând. 6. 1. 2, Muṇḍ. 1. 1. 3.

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² na iha nânâ asti kiñc'ana, Bṛih. 4. 4. 19, Kâṭh. 4. 10–11.

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³ sarvam khalu idam brahma, Chând. 3. 14. 1.

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⁴ Bṛih. 2. 1. 20.

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¹ Chând. 3. 14. 2.

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² Chând. 7. 25. 2; imitated in Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 11.

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³ Bṛih. 1. 5. 23, Kâṭh. 4. 9, and similarly as early as Atharvav. X. 8. 16.

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⁴ Bṛih. 4. 2. 4.

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⁵ Chând. 4. 4–9.

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Fire is his head, his eyes sun and moon,
His ears the regions of the sky,
The revealed Veda is his voice,
The wind his breath, the universe his heart, from his feet is the earth,
He is the inmost self in all things.⁶

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⁶ Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 4.

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In what manner however is the relation of Brahman to this his evolution as the manifold universe to be conceived? We should say:—As identity, in this following the later Vedânta, which appeals to the word used to express attachment.⁷ But this word is a mere makeshift; there is still always a broad distinction between the one Brahman and the multiplicity of his appearances, nor were ancient thinkers or indeed any thinkers before Kant able to rise to the conception that the entire unfolding in space and time was a merely subjective phenomenon. Here a further concession must be made to the empirical consciousness, tied down as it is to space, time and causality. Brahman was regarded as the cause antecedent in time, and the universe as the effect proceeding from it; the inner dependence of the universe on Brahman and its essential identity with him was represented as a creation of the universe by and out of Brahman. We find ourselves at a point where we apprehend the creation theories of the Upanishads, unintelligible as they are from the standpoint of its idealism, from an unconscious accommodation to the forms of our intellectual capacity. The further elaboration of the doctrine of the creation of the universe will occupy us in the chapter on the Cosmology. Here only a few passages need be quoted, which set before us the essential identity of the created universe with the creator. "Just as the spider by means of its threads goes forth from itself (*tantunâ uc'caret*), as from the fire the tiny sparks fly out, so from this âtman all the spirits of life spring forth, all worlds, all gods, all living beings."¹ The illustrations of the spider and the fire are further elaborated in Muṇḍ. 1. 1. 7 and 2. 1. 1:—

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⁷ Chând. 6. 1. 3; Sûtra 2. 1. 14, tad-ananyatvam, ârambhaṇa-s'abda-âdibhyaḥ.

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 1. 20.

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As a spider ejects and retracts (the threads),
As the plants shoot forth on the earth,
As the hairs on the head and body of the living man,
So from the imperishable all that is here.

As the sparks from the well-kindled fire,
In nature akin to it, spring forth in their thousands;
So, my dear sir, from the imperishable
Living beings of many kinds go forth,
And again return into him.

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That the material substance of things also is derived solely from Brahman is taught in connection with the illustration of the spider in S'vet. 6. 10, where Brahman is described as the god "who spiderlike by threads which proceed from him as material (*pradhânam*) concealed his real nature.” The last words mean that Brahman, by not (in a theistic sense) bringing objects forth from himself, but (in a pantheistic sense) changing himself into the objects, “has concealed his real nature” (*svabhâvato . . . svam âvṛiṇot*). In this sense it is said as early as Ṛigveda X. 81. 1 that Vis’vakarman by his entrance into the lower world was “concealing his original state” (*prathamach’had*). Similarly Bṛih. 1. 4. 7 declares that the âtman has “entered” into this universe “up to the finger-tips, as a knife is hidden in its sheath, or the all-sustaining fire in the fire-preserving (wood). Therefore is he not seen; for he is divided; as breathing he is named breath, as speaking speech, as seeing eye,” etc. According to Bṛih. 1. 6. 3, the âtman is *amṛitam satyena c’hannam*, “the immortal, concealed by (empirical) reality”; and in Bṛih. 2. 4. 12 it is said:—“It is with him as with a lump of salt, which thrown into the water is lost in the water, so that it is not possible to take it out again; whence however we may always draw, it is salt throughout.” The same thought is developed, perhaps on the basis of this passage in the narrative of Chând. 6. 13. That objection was taken to such a method of representation is shown by the parallel passage Bṛih. 4. 5. 13, where the words quoted above from Bṛih. 2. 4. 12 are altered as follows:—“It is with him as with a lump of salt, which has no (distinguishable) inner or outer, but throughout consists entirely of taste,” etc. In a similar way efforts are made in other passages to show that Brahman by his transformation into the universe has forfeited nothing of the perfection of his own nature. As early as Ṛigveda X. 90. 3 it is said that all beings are only a fourth of the purusha, while the three other fourths remain immortal in heaven. The same teaching is found in Chând. 3. 12. 6, the verse from the Ṛigveda being repeated, and similarly in the concluding verse Maitr. 7. 11; while according to Bṛih. 5. 14, one foot of Brahman (under the figure of the Gâyatrî) consists of the three worlds, the second of the triple knowledge of the Veda, the third of the three vital breaths, while the fourth exalted above the dust of earth shines as the sun. Still more clearly is it taught already in S'atap. Br. 11. 2. 3 that Brahman, after having created the three worlds with that which lies above and beyond them, himself entered "into that half beyond." The infinite nature of Brahman is also taught in harmony with Atharvav. X. 8. 29 by the verse Bṛih. 5. 1 :—

Cites (10)

Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Muṇḍakopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Kaṭhopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Maitrāyaṇīyopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Brahmasūtra — Bādarāyaṇa, Sanskrit
Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Śvetāśvataropaniṣad — Śvetāśvatara, Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit