The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s2.94

v2.c39.s2.94

In the case of Prajāpati, the development of the conception of the Ātman is very clear: the creator enters, in the view of the Rigveda⁶ and of all subsequent texts, into the creation with his spirit, and the terms now used in the late works, the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka⁷ and the Tadeva section of the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā,⁸ are that he enters with the self into the self. It is needless to press the exact force of these words: it is sufficient to note that they obviously lend themselves to the view of the identity of the cosmic self with the self of man. The actual expression of this identity is found only occasionally and in late texts such as the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka⁹ and the Çivasaṁkalpa section of the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā,¹⁰ both works which are of the latest period of the Brāhmaṇa epoch and closely analogous to Upaniṣads, while the identification of the Ātman and the Brahman is also, as we have seen, confined to texts of the most developed stratum of Brāhmaṇa philosophy, the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa¹¹ and the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,¹² in either case in late chapters.