Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c15.2

c15.2

(819) It is the same with the concept of the Brahmaloka. It is the highest world in the Brāhmaṇas. In the Kauś. Br. (20.¹) the world of Brahman is the most real¹ (sattamam) of the worlds and is the heaven above the world of the gods, fathers, the living, the world of Agni, of Vāyu, of Indra,² of Varuna and of men In the early Upanisads it is still the highest and the seventh world from the world of men (Brh. 4.3.33). It is definitely a place to be attained only after death and by journeying there (Brh. 6.2.15, Ch. 4.14, 5-6, 5.10 2). The conception of the Brahmaloka as a state attainable in this life emerges only sporadically in the Early Upanisads, where a special theory is put forward such as, for instance, when it is suggested that we enter the Brahmaloka in deep sleep (Ch. 8.3.2). But even in the later Upanisads where Brahman is clearly a state attainable in this life, the earlier view of the Brahmaloka was still too strong to be put aside altogether. We see this clearly in the Mundaka Upanisad, where the earlier idea of the 'meritorious Brahmaloka won by good works' (punyas sukrto brahma-lokah, 1.2.6) is criticized as an insecure goal (*op cit.*, 1.2 7) even though those who attain the imperishable Brahman (*op. cit.*, 2.2 2) are still represented as departing 'through the door of the sun to where the immortal purusa is' (sūrya-dvārena ... yatrāmṛtah sa purusah, *op. cit.* 1 2 11) as at Bṛh. 6 2.15 and Ch. 4.15 5-6, and attaining immortality in the Brahma-worlds (brahmalokeṣu) only at the end of time (parāntakāle, *op. cit.*, 3.2 6). When therefore it is said in the Buddhist texts that Sāriputta thought 'the brahmins were obsessed with the idea of the Brahma world' (ime kho brāhmanā brahmalokādhimuttā, M II 194) and decides to preach to them 'the path to companionship with Brahmā' (brahmānam sahavyatāya maggam, *loc cit.*) it is a reference to a genuine Brahmanical belief and not a fanciful Buddhist conception as Thomas seems to think, when he says commenting on the Tevijja Sutta: 'What is expounded here is not the brahmin theory at all but the possibility of attaining to the Brahma-world as the Buddhists conceived it to exist, that is by the practice of the Brahma-vihāras' (*op. cit.*, p 87). According to the Buddhist texts there are five types of brahmins mentioned in the Vedic literature of which one is said to be those who follow tradition but develop mettā (compassion) (A. II.225). That the practice of mettā leads to the Brahma-world is not a later Buddhist conception, but one found in the Early Upanisads. In the Chāndogya where Vedic knowledge is said to be handed down from Brahmā, it is said that those who learn and teach the Vedas and practise ahiṃsā to all creatures except at holy places (ahiṃsan sarvabhūtānyanyatra tīrthebhyaḥ) reach the Brahma-world (brahmalokam abhisaṃpadyate, 8.15.¹).