The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s5.t4.2

c9.s5.t4.2

The existence of the ancient Vedic gods Indra, Agni, Varuṇa, etc. is as little denied by the Upanishads as that of the Greek by Xenophanes. But as by the latter all the other gods equally with men are subordinated to the one god (εἷς θεὸς ἔν τε θεοῖσι καὶ ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστος), so in the Upanishads all the ancient Vedic gods are created by the âtman and dependent on him. From the âtman proceed, like the sparks from the fire, all worlds, all living beings, and no less all gods;¹ on him all the gods depend;² by him they were created as the guardians of the universe;³ “therefore when the people say of each separate god, ‘Sacrifice to this, sacrifice to that,’ (it should be known that) this created universe proceeds from him alone; he therefore is all the gods. This (creation) here is an overplus of creation of Brahman. Because he created the gods higher (than he himself is), and because he as mortal created the immortals, therefore is it called the overplus of creation" (*atisrishti*).¹ It is further related² how the âtman created the divine Kshatriyas (Indra, Varuṇa, Soma, etc.), Vais'yas (the Vasus, Rudras, Âdityas, etc.), and S'ûdras (Pûshan). According to Bṛih. 1. 3. 12-16, it is the organs of the prâṇa, viz. speech, smell, eye, ear, manas, which are by him led beyond the reach of death, and now continue to exist as the gods Agni, Vâyu, Âditya, the heavenly regions and the moon. The number of the gods was in Vedic times usually given as thirty-three. The vague and arbitrary character of this reckoning Yajñavalkhya, in Bṛih. 3. 9. 1, brings home in the following way:—Why thirty-three? why not three hundred and three? or three thousand and three? or both together (3306)? and if we say thirty-three, it might just as well be reduced to six, or three, or two, or one and a half, or one, which is the prâṇa. All these numbers, 3306, 33, 6, 3, 2, 1½, as the manifold forces, parts and organs of nature, come back finally to a unity,—"the prâṇa, thus he said, this men call Brahman, the yonder (*tyad*)." The dependence of all these nature-gods on Brahman is described in the myth of Kena 14-28:—Agni is unable to burn a blade of grass, Vâyu is unable to blow away a wisp of straw, apart from the will of Brahman, which is effective in all the gods. Brahman dwells, according to Bṛih. 3. 7, as the inner guide (*antaryâmin*) in all parts of the universe, and no less in all the corresponding gods. All the gods pursue their tasks, according to a verse preserved in Taitt. 2. 8 and Kâṭh. 6. 3, "from fear" of Brahman; and according to Kaush. 1. 5, even Indra and Prajâpati, the doorkeepers of the heavenly world, are not able to prevent the entrance of the soul of him who knows Brahman, or to turn it back. And just as the power of the gods is dependent on Brahman, so their knowledge also is imperfect; they are not in possession from the very beginning of the knowledge of Brahman.¹ Accordingly in Chând. 8. 7 f. they depute Indra to obtain from Prajâpati the knowledge of the âtman, and for the first time, after they have obtained it, they worship him in the world of Brahman as the self; thereupon they possess all worlds and all desires.² In this respect the gods have no advantage over men:—"Whoever of the gods perceived this ('I am Brahman') he became Brahman; and similarly of the rishis, and similarly of men. . . . And to-day also, he who knows this 'I am Brahman' becomes this universe; and even the gods have no power to prevent his so becoming; for he is the soul (âtman) of it."³