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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40: Chapter 28. The Philosophy of the Upaniṣads

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40

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Contents

Chapter 28. The Philosophy of the Upaniṣads

§ 1. The Origin of the Upaniṣads

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NATIVE tradition ¹ derives the term Upaniṣad, by means which will not bear scrutiny, from roots which yield as its sense either that which destroys innate ignorance, or that which leads to the Brahman. It is more important to note that from an early period the utmost stress is laid on the secret character of the instruction contained in these works: the rule is that they are the highest mysteries, and that their doctrines should not be imparted to any pupil, other than a son, who has not already studied with the teacher for a year and who does not intend himself to become a teacher. The same view is enforced by the facts recounted in the texts: when the deepest part of the discussions arrives, the two concerned go apart and talk of the new doctrine of action as the source of human fate.

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¹ Cf. Çaṅkara on BAU. p. 2; KU. p. 73; TU. p. 9; Muṇḍ. p. 261.

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When, therefore, we seek for an origin of the term which will not defy the laws of etymology, it is necessary to find something which will accord with this essential nature of secrecy. The word is derived obviously from the prefixes *upa-ni* and *sad*, 'sit', and the only natural meaning is a session, a sitting down near some person, who naturally is assumed to be the teacher. This accords with the mode of teaching followed in India, which, as we have seen, involved the sitting of the pupil and the teacher facing each other, while the latter repeated the lesson to be learned by the former. The lessons of the teacher to his pupil were not public in the ordinary sense of the word: to be practicable they naturally required quiet, but the ritual texts show us more than that: they bear witness that certain texts of special importance were to be taught to the pupil in the forest, and not in the normal place, the abode of the teacher. With this accords admirably the fact that the Upaniṣads form parts of, or are attached in the case of the most important and old of these works to, texts which tradition gives the names of Āraṇyaka.² The name must clearly, as held by Oldenberg, have been derived from the fact that the discussions contained in these works were studied in the forest;

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the alternative view ³ that the Āraṇyakas were specially intended for study by the Vānaprasthas, men who, after serving their apprenticeship as Brahman students and having performed as householders their duties, retire to the forests to study, is clearly a more advanced conception than that obtained in the early Upaniṣads. The later view is an artificial conception, and one which grew up only with the strict division of stages of life enjoined on Brahmans, if not always observed. Naturally, however, the Āraṇyakas, in so far as they are texts of allegorical interpretation of the sacrifice, were studied by such Vānaprasthas more than were the Brāhmaṇas proper, which were rather ritual in their interest, and presumed that the sacrifice was actually being performed. The Āraṇyakas in their more distinctive portions deal with the meaning of the offering, without necessarily assuming that it will be performed : they sometimes suggest modes of performing the sacrifice by meditation and repetition—as of the Hotṛ formulae only. But the distinction of Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka is not an absolute one : in no case have we in the works handed down to us Brāhmaṇas which always suppose the performance of ritual, or Āraṇyakas which assume that it is not to be performed.

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Nor can we see why the distinction, which was probably the real one between the Brāhmaṇas and the Āraṇyakas, the comparative sanctity of their contents, should have attached itself to precisely the ceremonies to which it did so attach itself. The ritual texts of the different Vedas show us clearly the fact that certain rites and texts were regarded as especially sacred, to be performed outside the village, and these texts are contained not merely in Āraṇyakas but even in the Saṁhitā form.¹ Thus the Pravargya rite is treated in this fashion in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka iv and v, while the Mantras concerned are also to be found in the later part of the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā,² in which they are followed by other Mantras, containing certain dread names of the Maruts and certain invocations of formidable character used in the horse sacrifice. The Āraṇyagāna of the Sāmaveda and the Āraṇyaka Saṁhitā contain the secret texts of that Veda,³ and the Aitareya ⁴ and Çāṅkhāyana Āraṇyakas ⁵ present the secret texts of the Rigveda, of which the most important is that concerning the Mahāvrata, an old and popular rite, while the former contains also the Mahānāmnī verses,⁶ which appear in a form strange to the manner of the Rigveda and akin to that of the Sāmaveda, in which they are also found. Both texts contain also certain mystic doctrines regarding the Saṁhitā form of the text of the Rigveda, and the Çāṅkhāyana deals also with the Mantha.

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Both also include, like the Taittirīya, philosophical Upaniṣads. The Aitareyins and the Kauṣītakins of the Rigveda placed the Mahāvrata ceremony in the rank of a fit subject for an Āraṇyaka, but the Yajurveda allowed it to appear in the Saṁhitā, and the Sāmaveda treats of it in the Pañcaviṅça and Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇas. But we can realize how from their superior sanctity the tendency grew for these treatises to be used as the places of the record of the secret doctrines, which gradually, in the mind of the priests, took the place of the more material performance of the ritual.

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² Oldenberg, *Prolegomena*, pp. 291 ff.; GN. 1915, pp. 382 ff. Cf. ÇGS. ii. 12. 11; vi; ĀÇS. viii. 14.

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³ Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishad's*, p. 7, following the Indian (Āruṇeya Up. 2) tradition of an Āraṇyaka as a Brāhmaṇa for those engaged in the vow of forest life (Sāyaṇa on AA. i. 1; Aufrecht, *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, p. iii). The other view is, however, also traditional. Winternitz (*Gesch. d. ind. Lit.* i. 202, n. 1) agreed with Deussen but (iii. 616) with Oldenberg. Oltramare (*L'histoire des idées théosophiques*, i. 63, n. 1) suggests 'introduction' or 'initiation', hence mystic doctrine.

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¹ See Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 382–401.

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² xxxvi. 1–xxxix. 6; 7; 8–13. See also TA. i. 32; ApÇS. xv. 20. 1 ff.; BÇS. ix. 19; BhGS. iii. 6; MÇS. iv. 7. 1 ff.; KÇS. xviii. 4. 24; xx. 8. 5; PGS. ii. 15. 6; ÇB. xiii. 3. 4. 1; xiv. 1. 1. 26 ff. The additional matter in TA. iv. 22–7 is parallel to that in VS. xxxix, while iv. 21 has the Dadhigharma (ApÇS. xv. 18. 17), a rite parallel to the Pravargya at the midday pressing.

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³ GGS. iii. 1. 28 ff.; 2. 1 ff.; 54; JGS. i. 16 f. The CU. is, of course, treated in this way, and perhaps also the Mantra Brāhmaṇa, which precedes the CU. The Sāmans of this type are especially full of insertions and are longer.

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⁴ See Keith, *Aitareya Āraṇyaka* (1908).

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⁵ Trans. Keith (1909). See also JRAS. 1908, pp. 364–87.

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⁶ Cf. Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 375–81, whose ingenious reconstruction of the original form is, however, not wholly convincing. The verses are known to TS. v. 2. 11. 1; MS. iii. 12. 21; VS. xxiii. 35; AV. xi. 7. 6. Scheftelowitz (ZII. i. 58–68), who inclines to overestimate the age of the verses, as of Rigvedic rank, unfortunately ignores entirely Oldenberg’s work.

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As the distinction between Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka is not an absolute one, though the Āraṇyakas tend to contain more advanced doctrines than the Brāhmaṇas, so the distinction between Upaniṣad and Āraṇyakas is also not absolute, tradition actually incorporating the Upaniṣads in some cases in the Āraṇyakas. The most that can be said is that the term Upaniṣad, when applied to a text, normally denotes that it contains speculation mainly on the nature of the universe and of the Ātman or the Brahman. Its use in the Upaniṣad is in one or other of the senses ‘secret word’ or ‘phrase’, ‘secret text’ or ‘secret import’. Thus, when the phrase¹ *neti neti*, ‘not so, not so’, is used as an expression of the highest unity, that is an Upaniṣad; or again the word *jalān* ² as indicating that in which beings breathe, perish, and are born, or the phrase ³ *satyasya satyam*, ‘the truth of the true’, or *tadvanam* ⁴ as the final end is so described. In the texts of the Taittirīya school in special the phrase is used at the end of a section of philosophical teaching as a description of that teaching. Or the word is applied to a special subject of knowledge, such as the meaning of the word Om. In a slightly different way we hear of a man’s Upaniṣad, which denotes his secret rule of life, such as that one should not beg.⁵ In these senses the term Āraṇyaka is never used, and thus we can perhaps see why the two different words Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad came into being. The former is a name, denoting the generic character of the texts, as those which from their secret nature must be dealt with in the special manner of being studied in the forest; the latter is a secret text, imparted at such a secret session, and in course of time more and more specifically appropriated to the description of secrets which were of philosophical character. Beyond these generalisms we are hardly likely to be able to penetrate.

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¹ BAU. ii. 3. 6.

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² CU. iii. 14. 1.

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³ BAU. ii. 1. 20; 3. 6.

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⁴ Kena 31 (JUB. iv. 21. 6).

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⁵ Kauṣ. ii. 1, 2. Cf. the Aupaniṣadika chapters on secret charms of the Arthaçāstra and Kāma Sūtra.

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Two different theories of the origin of the term have, however, been urged and require some notice. It is the view of Oldenberg¹ that the real sense of Upaniṣad is worship or reverence, that the word expresses the same ideas as Upāsanā,² and that it is due to the constant practice of the text to recommend the adoration of the Brahman or the Ātman under the guise of some symbol. There can be no doubt about the fact of the use of symbols in this way, but it is certain that the use of *upa-sad* as a verb in the Upaniṣads is always quite clearly distinguished from the meaning ‘worship’, and relates only to the going to a teacher, and sitting beside him for instruction: it is admitted that in this sense the normal use is *upa-sad*, not *upa-ni-sad*, but it is also plausible that the choice of the term was dictated by the fact that Upasad has in the ritual a very definite meaning of its own, which rendered the selection of a different word desirable to describe the action intended. In the second place it is clear that the idea of reverence or worship must have passed away at an early date from its original sense, and that, therefore, there is nothing to commend it on the ground of simplicity as an explanation: the Taittirīya Upaniṣad uses the term of the mere knowledge of the combination of letters, and the sense ‘rule’, as in ‘not to beg’, cannot be deduced from ‘worship’ as easily as ‘secret instruction’ can be deduced from ‘session’, beside a teacher, as opposed to a gathering for open discussion, Pariṣad or Saṁsad. In the third place, though this is not at all conclusive, the Ātman or the Brahman is not properly the object of reverence at all, since reverence implies the very duality which the Upaniṣads deny, and, if in reality the origin of the word lay in that sense, then it must be admitted that the Upaniṣads bear a name which their essential doctrine transcends. This of course is quite possible in itself: the other two considerations set out make it improbable.

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¹ ZDMG. l. 457 ff.; liv. 70 ff.; *Die Lehre der Upanishaden*, pp. 37, 348. The epic invests an absurd Niṣad as a form of literature besides Upaniṣad.

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² Senart (*Florilegium Melchior de Vogüé*, pp. 575 ff.) argues that Upāsanā means ‘knowledge’, but this is clearly unproved.

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The view of the word taken by Deussen³ differs from that adopted above, which sees in it a natural counterpart to the term Āraṇyakas, and derives it from the tradition of the Vedic school teaching, in that it assumes a break in the development of the thought of India. For that view it should be observed that there is the advantage of continuity: the Brāhmaṇas shade off imperceptibly into the Āraṇyakas, the Āraṇyakas shade off into the Upaniṣads without violent change of any kind. But on the theory of Deussen we are not to adopt the view that secret import on the subjective, and secret instruction on the objective side, were the meanings developed from the secret teaching in the forest. On the contrary we are to believe that, at this point at a time when the Brahmans were still bent on the study of the ritual, the warrior class developed a new and striking philosophy,⁴ which they expressed in secret formulae like *tajjalān*,¹ called Upaniṣads, because the essence of their character was secret communications, and that these doctrines were accompanied by secret explanations, from which in the course of time arose the first Upaniṣads. We must, it is claimed and has been argued by Garbe² with great emphasis, accept the view that it was not to the Brahmans, but to the warriors, to the princes, and the nobles, and to the wisdom of kings that India owed its philosophy.

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³ *Phil. of Up.*, pp. 16 ff.

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⁴ *Per contra* Hopkins (JAOS. xxii. 335) conjectures that Yoga practices were grafted on to the Upaniṣad doctrine from the ‘royal knowledge’; he gives no ground save that Yoga first appears in the Upaniṣads of the Yajurveda, the royal Veda, and this is certainly not an argument of any value.

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¹ More correctly *jalān*.

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² *Beitr. zur ind. Kulturgeschichte*, pp. 3 ff.; Winternitz, *Gesch. d. ind. Lit.* i. 198 ff., modified in iii. 615 f.

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This argument rests on facts recorded in the texts themselves, in which kings appear as authorities on philosophy. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad³ five learned Brahmans desire to learn from Uddālaka Āruṇi the nature of the Ātman Vaiçvānara: he doubts his ability to explain it, and as a result all six betake themselves to the king Açvapati Kaikeya, who gives them instruction, after first demonstrating the inaccuracy of their knowledge. In a narrative which is preserved in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad⁴ and in the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad⁵ a scholar, Gārgya Bālāki, undertakes to set out the nature of the Brahman to the king Ajātaçatru of Kāçī: he propounds twelve views—or in the Kauṣītaki sixteen—which are all defective, and the king then explains the Ātman to him by the principle of deep sleep, prefacing his instruction by the observation that it is a reverse of the rule for a Brahman to betake himself to a Kṣatriya for instruction. Another legend in the Chāndogya⁶ shows the Brahmans being instructed in the nature of ether, as the ultimate basis of all things, by the king Pravāhaṇa Jaivali. It is added that Atidhanvan once gave the same knowledge to Udaraçāṇḍilya, and the former name might be that of a prince. Less important is the fact⁷ that the Brahman Nārada is represented in the Chāndogya as being the recipient of information from Sanatkumāra, later the god of war, who tells the former that all his Vedic lore is a mere name. The great text regarding the doctrine of transmigration⁸ is set out by Pravāhaṇa Jaivali to Āruṇi with the remark that the Brahmans have never before had this information, which so far had remained the monopoly of the Kṣatriyas. In a third version of this account, given in the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad,⁹ the king is Citra Gāṅgyāyani.

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³ v. 11–24. For the plan cf. JB. i. 22–5, where Janaka instructs five Brahmans on the Agnihotra.

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⁴ ii. 4.

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⁵ iv.

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⁶ i. 8 and 9.

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⁷ CU. vii.

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⁸ BAU. vi. 2; CU. v. 3–10. The rendering of *praçāstrtvam* as ‘rule’ here is clearly wrong, though adopted by Deussen (*Sechzig Upanishad’s*, p. 141) and Hertel (*Weisheit der Upanischaden*, p. 77).

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⁹ i.

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Now it is always difficult to believe in the sudden evolution of new doctrines, actually associated in the name with the conception of the absolute of the Brahman class, by circles, whose duty was presumably to wield the weapons of war, and who at any rate failed to retain the control of these doctrines: it is absolutely certain that the Upaniṣads, as we have them, are not the work of warriors, that they were handed down by priests, and that, if the warrior class originated these doctrines, they failed to continue the interest they had shown in them.¹ Stress must also be laid as against the supporters of the theory on the divergent views taken by them of the real work done by the Kṣatriyas. To Garbe they appear to have revolted from the sacrifice, and to have introduced a monist philosophy, centring in the idea of the Brahman—presumably appropriated by them, with a curious sense of humour, from their rivals. The doctrine of Karman is expressly claimed as theirs, so that they must be held, while adopting a monist philosophy, to have insisted on the importance of morality. On the other hand, the Brahmans were forced to adopt this Kṣatriya view by the pressure of public opinion, which compelled them to adopt it into their own system. This, frankly, appears a very curious conception; it is remarkable that the public should insist on a philosophic monism, when we remember that throughout Indian history we find every form of worship pursued with a painful eagerness and precision, and when we remember also how little popular opinion anywhere insists on a strict monism, especially one which empties life of any reality. A further difficulty arises when we find that the Kṣatriyas are credited by Garbe² with the creation of the Sāṁkhya philosophy as a revolt against prevailing views; apparently one set of Kṣatriyas operated against another, and, as he accepts Kṣatriya doctrines as the basis of Buddhism, we find that the great schism in Indian views was that of one Kṣatriya view against another. Hertel,³ again, who accepts the doctrine of the Kṣatriya origin of the philosophy of the Upaniṣads, ignores the fact that the doctrine of Karman is their chief claim, and insists instead that they were rationalists who depersonalized the old gods, substituting in lieu the idea of nature powers—called by them *faute de mieux*, through the poverty of language of the time, deities, and whose philosophy was essentially a monism atheistic, materialistic, and morally indifferent. Judged on this basis it may be doubted if the praise lavished on the Kṣatriyas at the expense of the Brahmans would have exactly been acceptable to them.

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¹ A further complication is adduced by those who believe that Buddhism was promoted by Kṣatriyas of Mongolian origin (V. Smith, *Oxford History of India*, p. 47); the precise relations of these sets of Kṣatriyas does not appear to be explained by their supporters.

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² In *Sāṁkhya-Philosophie*², p. 13, Garbe shows less assurance than formerly.

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³ *IF.* xli. 188.

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As has been indicated, stress is naturally laid in support of the theory of Kṣatriya influence on the explicit assertion of the king that the knowledge of transmigration had never belonged to any Brahmans, but the assertion is a very odd one: the king claims that the ‘giving of instruction’ has been the possession of the warriors because the Brahmans have not studied this doctrine, but even for India such a thought is absurd and meaningless, and reduces the claim of the king to what, it seems, is an idle vaunt. Then again, as it is impossible to deny that the Ātman-Brahman doctrine has a long previous history in the Brāhmaṇas, and is a logical development of the idea of unity of the Rigveda, we must admit that the warrior class must have shared in the intellectual development, which produced that idea, and then started a fresh view—which nevertheless was based on the Brahman, not the Kṣatra—in opposition to the sacrifice, while the priests were deeply engaged in the sacrifice. But the sacrifices were essentially not matters in which the priest acted for himself: he aimed at securing the profit of his patron, and the patrons for the great sacrifices must have been in the main the very warrior class, which we are to assume turned with disgust from the sacrifice.¹ The true solution of the problem is suggested by the obvious difficulties of the position of the maintainers of the theory: we must adopt a solution which explains why the whole Upaniṣad tradition is Brahmanical, and yet why the texts record actions of importance as regards the doctrine by the princes of earth. It is absurd to imagine that these references would have been left to stand had the Brahmans found them derogatory to their dignity: the sense of historical accuracy must have been very strong, incredibly so indeed, which would have induced a priesthood to preserve an exact account of the royal founders of each doctrine, and that they did so is sufficiently disproved by the mere fact that they clearly did not preserve a true account even of the Brahman founders of their doctrines. The prominence of Yājñavalkya can hardly be historical, since he is also the great ritual teacher of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, and the device of assuming more than one man of the same name is absurd in this as in many other cases, since the texts assume that the two are the same: nor again does any one really believe that Sanatkumāra was a human king.

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¹ Actually we find Janaka instructing Yājñavalkya regarding the Agnihotra, and as a boon becoming a Brahman. See ÇB. xi. 6. 2, and see JB. i. 22–5.

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The explanation² becomes simple enough when we look at the Brāhmaṇas and the Rigveda: there we find that kings are often mentioned as generous donors: that there are lists of the great kings who performed sacrifices, and who beyond all things gave fees to the priest, just as in historical times great kings, like Puṣyamitra and Samudragupta, boast of their offerings. It was clearly necessary for the priests, who abandoned the doctrine of sacrifice, to live: they, therefore, had to find patrons and they must accordingly, like their predecessors, the sacrificial priests, represent their teachings as worth large sums. As a king must sacrifice to give gifts, so he must at least understand, and take part in discussions, to give gifts, and the position of the kings might easily be wholly deduced from the needs of the priest. But it would be unnecessary, and, it may be added, perhaps unjust to hold this view: the thought of the Upaniṣads with all its demerits is a far nobler thing than the thought of the Brāhmaṇas: as later among the Buddhists, the minds which could rise from the mere sacrifice to the consideration of the self were quite capable of accepting help from other minds: of low origin, Satyakāma, whose mother was a mere slave girl Jabālā, who ran about with men and who could not tell his father, was taken as a pupil by Hāridrumata and attained the complete knowledge:¹ even the epic, in one of its juster moments, allows a learned Çūdra honour and permits a merchant to instruct a Brahman.² In modern India saints of the highest rank have been other than Brahmans in caste. The princes were now and then seers, like Divodāsa, son of Vadhryaçva,³ and they may for their part have now and then wearied of the sacrifice, and sought a higher truth, just as, inversely, we hear of seers who sought kingly rank for their offspring,⁴ and there may be that degree of accuracy in the figure played by them in the legends.⁵ But that the philosophy of the Brāhmaṇas as seen in the Upaniṣads is essentially the development of the philosophy of the Brāhmaṇas cannot reasonably be doubted. Nor is there any ground for thinking that the philosophy had its chief home anywhere save in the holy ground of the Brahmans, the land of Kurukṣetra, which seems to have been in this period as in the earlier epoch the place of Brahmanical culture *par excellence*.⁶ The culture was not absolutely restricted to that area: the mention of Açvapati Kaikeya carries us further to the northwest, while we hear of Brahmans who dwelt in Magadha,⁷ though that was rare. The Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad⁸ preserves for us in the movements of Gārgya Bālāki the traces of the extent of the activity of the new movement: he went among the Kurus, the Pañcālas, the two folks then being joined, the Kāçis and Videhas, and the Vaças and Matsyas, and among the Uçīnaras. All this accords with the extent of the land in which the sacrifice was prevalent, and the addition of the Kosalas would complete the list: doubtless their omission here is mere chance. Other allusions to countries do not show any substantial extension of the geographical horizon of the authors: the Vindhya mountains are, it seems, known to the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad, and this is perhaps a proof that the Vedic civilization was extending southwards⁹ in greater degree than in the preceding period. The references to the Indus region, whence came salt and noble horses, suggest that it was afar off, but against this is to be set the mention of Gandhāra as not at all a distant country in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad.¹⁰ But culture was not in any event rigidly confined to the middle country: scholars in their wanderings penetrated as far as the Madras, on the Hyphasis.¹¹

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² Keith, JRAS. 1908, pp. 468–73; Bloomfield, *Rel. of Veda*, pp. 220 ff.; Oldenberg, *Buddha*⁵, p. 73, n. 1; *Die Lehre der Upanishaden*, pp. 166 ff.; Oltramare, *L'histoire des idées théosophiques*, i. 64 ff.; Weber, *Religionssoziologie*, ii. 155 ff.; Dahlmann, *Der Idealismus der ind. Rel.*, pp. 126 ff.

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¹ CU. iv. 4.

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² MBh. iii. 216. 13 f.

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³ JB. i. 222; PB. ix. 2. 8.

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⁴ Cf. Viçvāmitra (JB. ii. 221) and Aṣṭaka; Keith, *Rig-Veda Brāhmaṇas*, p. 67.

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⁵ That Raikva (CU. iv. 1) was a Çūdra (Hertel, IF. xli. 189) is certainly wrong.

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⁶ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, ii. 125, 126; often in JB.

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⁷ ÇA. vii. 13; cf. Oldenberg, *Buddha* (ET.), p. 400, n. There is no doubt in the Sūtra period of the contempt felt for Magadha and its Brahmans; a Māgadha is prescribed for an undignified rite in JB. ii. 404, and in the Vrātyastoma.

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⁸ iv. 1; Keith, JRAS. 1908, p. 367.

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⁹ Cf. Keith, *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, p. 200.

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¹⁰ CU. vi. 14. 1.

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¹¹ BAU. iii. 3. 1.

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Inevitably the question arises, how far in this period thought was affected by the growing intermixture of the people with the aborigines or earlier inhabitants, Dravidians or others. It has frequently been suggested that the philosophy of the Upaniṣads is essentially Dravidian rather than Aryan, and plausible grounds can be adduced in this sense.¹ Thus, we may be fairly certain that, as time went on, Dravidian blood came more and more to prevail over Aryan, though in candour we should admit that the evidence on this head is purely speculative in the absence of any real knowledge of the Aryan physical type which entered India. In the second place the changes in language may be due to Dravidian influence;² here again the evidence is scanty enough, in the absence of independent evidence of the Dravidian languages for the period of the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, and the difficulty of tracing to them any definite influence on the language; the use of cerebral or domal letters, and forms like the second future (*kartāsmi*) or perfect participle used verbally (*kṛtavān*), or the development of constructions with the indeclinable gerund, may have been encouraged by tendencies among the Dravidians; but this cannot be definitely established. That Rudra-Çiva is mainly aboriginal is rather a guess based on the belief that the name denotes ‘red’ than an ascertained fact, and we have no assurance on the strength of which we could claim that the use of trance and asceticism or caste were Dravidian elements appropriated by the Aryans. The pantheism of the Upaniṣads may be deemed to be a philosophical development from the animistic views which Jainism and in a sense Buddhism presents, and which may be contrasted with the anthropomorphic nature gods of the Aryans, and a contrast may be drawn between Iranian religion and Indian,³ suggesting that the former presents us a picture of the practical Aryan mind as opposed to the more mystic Indian intelligence. These contentions, we may admit, do not lead to any assured results in the sense of establishing the Dravidian⁴ claim. What they indicate is the unquestionable fact that the Upaniṣads, as in some degree all earlier thought in India, represent the outcome of the reflections of a people whose blood was mixed. We may, if we desire, call the Upaniṣads the product of Aryo-Dravidian thought; but, if we do so, we must remember that the effect of the intermixture must be regarded in the light of chemical fusion, in which both elements are transformed.

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¹ A. E. Gough in his *Philosophy of the Upanishads* explains their demerits as due to racial intermixture. For a recent claim for the Dravidians, see G. W. Brown, *Studies in honor of Bloomfield*, pp. 75 ff. Frazer (*ERE.* *s. v.*) states the case for intermingling happily. See below, Appendix G.

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² Konow, *Linguistic Survey*, iv. 278 ff.

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³ Cf. above, Chap. 27, § 4.

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⁴ It may be noted that Dravidian religion, as we know it, shows no special affinity to Sumerian as described, *e. g.* in *Camb. Anc. Hist.* i. 371, 384, 441 ff.

§ 2. The Extant Upaniṣads

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The texts which have come down to us are certainly not the beginning of the intellectual activity of the time: they bear every trace in their manner and matter of representing the result of many discussions, and deviations of opinion among the priestly schools. The doctrines have been handled and rehandled, and the names to which they are ascribed cannot be taken *au pied de la lettre*: as in the case of Yājñavalkya, we cannot assume that they really prove or indicate activity in philosophical research on the part of the men who are mentioned. It is also important to note that the texts, such as they are, are, in the case of the more important at any rate, not the productions of a single hand: they are redactions, perhaps made at more than one time,¹ of varying philosophic arguments, and they therefore contain very various doctrines, which are not often consistent.

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¹ BAU. consists of three parts (i–ii, iii–iv, v–vi); ii. 4 is repeated in a secondary form in iv. 5. The 8 books of the Chāndogya seem each distinct. AA. consists of three parts, ii. 1–3; ii. 4–6; iii. 1–2. See especially Deussen's analyses in *Sechzig Upanishad’s des Veda*. Full bibliographies, translations, and a valuable intr. are found in R. E. Hume's *Thirteen Principal Upanishads* (1921).

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It is perfectly possible to arrive at a rough estimate of the relative periods of the Upaniṣads. The first place must probably be accorded to the Aitareya Āraṇyaka² in its philosophic portion, that is the first three sections of the second book, and probably the Aitareya Upaniṣad, which fills the remaining three sections of the second book, is not to be dated later than any of the other Upaniṣads: the only evidence of later date alleged by Deussen³ in the case of the Upaniṣad cannot be taken as sufficient to prove his view. After these works must certainly come the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad in its main portion, books i–iv, and the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. The Chāndogya is in almost every case, as far as one can judge, secondary in its versions of matter which it shares with the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. But at any rate it is certain that the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, which forms books vii–ix of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, is later than the two last-mentioned: it exhibits the doctrine of five⁴ as opposed to three elements,⁵ and that in a way which renders the simple view that the distinction is unimportant most improbable. This is a matter of real consequence in the progress of thought,⁶ and the argument is of quite different weight than that derived by Deussen from the fact that the Aitareya Upaniṣad⁷ knows of four classes of living beings to three of the Chāndogya:⁸ the classification is merely mentioned *en passant*, and is of no moment in other Upaniṣads. The Kauṣītaki is much later than the others, except the Taittirīya, but is probably earlier than it. Its version⁹ of transmigration is a new edition of that in the two great Upaniṣads, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka¹⁰ and the Chāndogya,¹¹ and its account¹² of Gārgya is a more developed one than that in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka,¹ while in another section² it is clearly later than the Aitareya.³ Finally the Kena, which is in part metrical and is in itself a part of much longer Upaniṣad, the Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa, is no doubt to be ranked as the last of the older Upaniṣads. The Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa itself is of the nature of an Āraṇyaka rather than a mere Upaniṣad: that it does not bear the title Āraṇyaka is perhaps an idiosyncrasy of the Sāman schools, none of which actually call any text of theirs an Āraṇyaka. As an Āraṇyaka it has no claim to any very early date: it seems in fact to be certainly later than the Aitareya. The Taittirīya Āraṇyaka,⁴ on the other hand, apart from the Upaniṣad section (vii–ix and x), is of most miscellaneous content and various date. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad forms part of the last book of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁵ and the title shows the close relation of Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad. In the case of the Chāndogya, the first two sections of the work are of the Āraṇyaka type, but as with texts attached to the Sāmaveda generally do not bear that name. The Kauṣītaki, like the Aitareya, is part of a longer Āraṇyaka.⁶

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² Keith, *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, pp. 43 ff.; Winternitz, *Gesch. d. ind. Lit.* iii. 616 f.

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³ *Phil. of Up.*, pp. 23, 24.

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⁴ ii. 1.

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⁵ CU. vi. 2. So TU. ii. 8 is obviously later than BAU. iv. 3. 33.

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⁶ An advanced and profound doctrine may be early in appearance, as Yājñavalkya's view in BAU., for philosophy does not present any orderly advance of ideas, and Yājñavalkya was evidently too subtle for his age, which, however, was strongly influenced by views which it could not wholly adopt.

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⁷ iii. 3.

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⁸ vi. 3. 1.

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⁹ i.

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¹⁰ vi. 2.

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¹¹ v. 3–10.

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¹² iv.

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¹ ii. 1.

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² iii.

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³ iii. 3.

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⁴ See Keith, *Taittirīya Saṁhitā*, i. pp. lxxviii ff.

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⁵ It is preserved in two recensions; the later probably is the Mādhyandina, the earlier the Kāṇva, which places ÇB. x. 6. 4, 5, before the rest of the text. ÇB. xiv. 1–3 ranks as the Āraṇyaka, 4–9 as the Upaniṣad in the Mādhyandina recension. Cf. Liebich, *Pāṇini*, pp. 62 ff.

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⁶ Keith, *JRAS.* 1908, pp. 363 ff.; *Çāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka*, pp. v ff.

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The next group of Upaniṣads is marked by the fact that it is composed of texts in metre, with very slight exceptions. It contains the Kaṭha, the Īçā, the Çvetāçvatara, Muṇḍaka and Mahānārāyaṇa,⁷ that is the last book (x) of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka. The texts are distinguished from the previous group, not merely by their form, but by their contents. The old discussions with their tentative and confused efforts to reach definite results are replaced by a definite phraseology, in which the results of speculation have been summed up in brief dogmas, expressed often with an obvious desire for the paradoxical and the bizarre. The allegories, not rarely found in the Upaniṣads of the older class, which share them with the Āraṇyakas, disappear altogether. More marked still is the relation of the texts to the other collections: the Kaṭha bears the name of a famous school of the Black Yajurveda whose Saṁhitā is still preserved for us, but its nature is that it is really a rewriting, from a philosophical as opposed to a ritual point of view, of the story, found in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, of Naciketas and the winning of boons from Death by him. The Mahānārāyaṇa is reckoned in some authorities as the tenth book of the Āraṇyaka of the Taittirīya school, but the Āraṇyaka is a body of very various and confused contents, and between it and the Upaniṣad there is no inherent connexion at all, such as always exists in the previous group. Similarly the Īçā Upaniṣad has succeeded in obtaining entry as a book (xl) of the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā, with which it has nothing really to do, and which has been much added to in the course of time, parts of its contents in books xxxi, xxxii, and xxxiv¹ belonging in conception to the period of the Brāhmaṇas. The Çvetāçvatara and the Muṇḍaka have not even a nominal effective connexion with any extant text, beyond the fact that the Muṇḍaka uses the Atharvaveda (x. 7), and we need not suppose that they ever had any such connexion.

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⁷ Cf. R. Zimmermann, *Quellen d. Mahānārāyaṇa-Upaniṣad* (Leipzig, 1913); *IA.* xliv. 130 ff., 177 ff.

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¹ For its several parts see Scheftelowitz, *ZDMG.* lxxv. 201–12.

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In this group it is quite clear that the Kaṭha takes the first rank: its style is suggested already by the metrical part of the Kena and by verses found in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka in a later addition.² The Īçā is clearly dependent on the Kaṭha,³ and the Çvetāçvatara is certainly⁴ well aware of the Kaṭha, and is probably a good deal later even than the Īçā, which is free from the sectarian spirit of the Çvetāçvatara in which the philosophy leads up to the glorification of Rudra as the god *par excellence*. The Muṇḍaka uses apparently the Çvetāçvatara,⁵ and it again is probably presumed by the Mahānārāyaṇa.⁶

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² iv. 4. 8–21.

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³ Īçā 8 compared with KU. v. 13. With Īçā 9–11, cf. Kena 3.

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⁴ Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishad’s*², p. 289. The irregular form *brahmam* (i. 9, 12) suggests that its author was far from a Çiṣṭa, but there is nothing to show that this group of Upaniṣads comes from another *milieu* than the older texts as Jacobi (*Die Entwicklung der Gottesidee*, p. 20, n. 1) suggests.

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⁵ Cf. iv. 6 f. with iii. 1. 1 f. That Īçā answers the Muṇḍaka is implausible, despite Barua, *Prebuddh. Ind. Phil.*, pp. 259 f., 424.

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⁶ Cf. x. 2 f. with ii. 1. 8 f.

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The last group of important Upaniṣads consists of the Praçna, the Maitrāyaṇīya, and the Māṇḍūkya. They are in prose, but they differ essentially in every respect from the older prose Upaniṣads: the diction is in style much more elaborate than the early prose, and in the case of the Maitrāyaṇīya, which Max Müller wrongly believed early in date, the language is obviously closely allied to classical Sanskrit, which it follows in the introduction of greater development and complexity of style. The order of the Upaniṣads in this group is certain as regards the Praçna and Maitrāyaṇīya,⁷ and probable as regards the Māṇḍūkya.⁸ In philosophy they show their wide knowledge of the earlier texts, which they freely use. The Praçna is proved to be later than the Muṇḍaka by the fact that it presupposes it and quotes it.⁹

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⁷ vi. 5 quotes PU. v. 2.

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⁸ Cf. Māṇḍ. 3 with Maitr. vi. 4.

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⁹ iii. 5. Both texts show the use of *tha* in the 2nd plural Imperative as in Pāli and Buddhist Sanskrit, but we cannot say if this is more than an error of tradition, and it would be rash to accept on the strength of such evidence Buddhist influence, via Çaiva sects, as suggested by Hume (*Upanishads*, p. 7). For other errors in the Muṇḍaka, see below, p. 504, n. 2.

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With these the list of important Upaniṣads closes: but the manufacture of these works went on indefinitely down even to modern times. The later Upaniṣads claimed connexion with the Atharvaveda, and it is probable that the Muṇḍaka and the Praçna were really so connected: the others had no real bond of union, but were pleased to assume one for their own purposes. These Upaniṣads fall into four classes, according as they (1) merely develop doctrines already found in the older Upaniṣads; or (2) devote themselves to the glorification of the Yoga practices, by which religious ecstasy was produced; or (3) deal with the condition of the Sannyāsin; or (4) finally give themselves up to the glorification of Rudra-Çiva.

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The history of the text of the Upaniṣads is of interest, but not of importance for philosophy: the Atharvan Upaniṣads seem the first to have been collected into one set: we know of collections¹ of 34 or 52,² in which case others from the older type were added. A later collection, which arose in South India, has 108 Upaniṣads, including all the great Upaniṣads of the older type. A collection of 50 Upaniṣads was made at some unknown date and was translated into Persian in 1656 for Dara Shukoh: a literal Latin translation from the Persian made by Anquetil du Perron in 1801–2 was the means of bringing the Upaniṣads to the notice of Schopenhauer,³ and winning for them that place in the history of philosophy which they have never lost. The collection includes in 12 Upaniṣads the older texts, 26 Atharvan Upaniṣads and 8 others, and makes up the total by adding four chapters of the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā.⁴ Of the dates of the making of these collections we have no proof: it is, however, possible that by the time of Çaṅkara (9th cent. A.D.) the Praçna and Muṇḍaka were already studied together. It is certain that he made use of all the Upaniṣads included in the three great groups, save the Maitrāyaṇīya and the Māṇḍūkya, which he perhaps did not regard as an Upaniṣad at all. To him also are ascribed, though with doubtful justice in all cases, commentaries on these Upaniṣads, except the Kauṣītaki and the Maitrāyaṇīya, and also a commentary on the Māṇḍūkya, which however is probably the work of a different Çaṅkara.⁵ The Upaniṣads used by Rāmānuja include all those of the great groups, save the Māṇḍūkya (though the Kārikā of Gauḍapāda is cited), the Subāla and Cūlikā, and once even the Garbha, Jābāla, and Mahā. The Jābāla and Paiṅgi as well as the Kārikā are mentioned by Çaṅkara.

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¹ Weber, *Berlin-Handschriften*, ii. 88.

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² The lists of Nārāyaṇa and Colebrooke; see Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishad’s*², p. 537. For various MSS. collections see Eggeling, *I. O. Catal.* i. 104 ff.; Keith, *ibid.* ii. 205 ff.

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³ *Parerga*, 2, § 185 (*Werke*, vi. 427).

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⁴ xvi, xxxi, xxxii, xxxiv.

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⁵ Jacobi, JAOS. xxxiii. 52, n. 2; Walleser, *Der ältere Vedānta*, p. 55. This fact invalidates much of Deussen’s argument (*Phil. of Up.*, pp. 30 ff.). For this date of Çaṅkara cf. references in JRAS. 1916, pp. 151 ff.; Garbe, *Sāṁkhya-philosophie*², p. 157, n. 2.

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The question of absolute dates for the Upaniṣads is one far more difficult than that of the relative order of the texts, and admits of no decisive solution. The one argument of weight is the fact, really undeniable, that the doctrines of the Upaniṣads are presupposed by the doctrine of the Buddha, and that, accordingly, if we accept the view that the opinions of the Buddha can be gathered with approximate accuracy from the older texts of the Pāli Canon, it is probable that the older Upaniṣads are, substantially at least, older than say 500 B.C.⁶ The argument is not by any means perfect: it may be criticized on the ground that even now the date of the Buddha is only established by very conjectural means, and still more so by the fact that the date of the Buddhist Canon rests on mere tradition, which is demonstrably in many respects defective, so that the frequently repeated assertion that the Nikāyas represent approximately a period shortly after the death of the Buddha is wholly unproved and almost certainly quite untrue. A more serious argument is afforded by the really antique character of the metre of the metrical Upaniṣads,¹ such as the Kaṭha, Kena, and Īçā, but here again no absolute date is arrived at, since the only standard of comparison is either the epic, which is of very uncertain date and being not *in pari materia* not an absolutely safe criterion, or Pāli texts, which, apart from their own uncertainty of date, are written in a different speech, and, therefore, certainly not cogently to be adduced as evidence.² Perhaps more secure is comparison with the metre of the Bṛhaddevatā,³ which is with much plausibility assigned to the fourth century B.C., and this certainly suggests that the metre of these texts is older.

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⁶ e. g. Rhys Davids, *Dial. of the Buddha*, i. pp. ix ff.; Walleser, *Die philosophische Grundlage des älteren Buddhismus*, Part 1; *contra*, Keith, *Buddhist Philosophy*, chap. i; de la Vallée Poussin, *Muséon*, 1905, pp. 213 ff.; *Bouddhisme*, pp. 29 ff.; *ERE*. iv. 179 ff.; Lévi, *Les Saintes Écritures du Bouddhisme* (1909); Franke, JPTS. 1908, pp. 1 ff.

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¹ Cf. Oldenberg, GN. 1909, pp. 219 ff., and his reff.; Zimmermann, IA. xliv. 130 ff., 177 ff.; Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 490 ff.

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² Jacobi, *Rāmāyaṇa*, p. 93.

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³ Keith, JRAS. 1906, pp. 1 ff. Evidence of Pāli influence on the Karman of BAU. iii. 2. 13, or the BAU. iv. 3. 2 (*palyayate*), seen by Hume (*Upanishads*, p. 6), is negligible.

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More positive evidence cannot be found: the view that the Kaṭha Upaniṣad is older than Buddhism, because the legend resembles in some degree the legend of the Buddhist Māra,⁴ ignores the fact that the story is already found in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa. The suggestion of Walleser ⁵ that in the Tevijja Sutta we are to find a reference to the Aitareya, Chāndogya, and Taittirīya Upaniṣads is quite impossible,⁶ and the definite use of any particular Upaniṣad by any Buddhist Sutta has still to be proved. The similarity ⁷ of the language of the early Upaniṣads to that of Pāṇini is decidedly against a very early dating. Certainly it is wholly impossible to make out any case for dating the oldest even of the extant Upaniṣads beyond the sixth century B.C., and the acceptance of an earlier date must rest merely on individual fancy.

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⁴ Oldenberg, *Die Literatur des alten Indien*, p. 83.

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⁵ *Die philosophische Grundlage des älteren Buddhismus*, p. 67.

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⁶ Cf. Rhys Davids, *op. cit.*, p. 303.

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⁷ Cf. Liebich, *Pāṇini*, pp. 28 ff.; A. Fürst, *Der Sprachgebrauch d. älteren Upaniṣads*; W. Kirfel, *Nominalkomposition in den U.*; O. Wecker, BB. xxx. 1 ff., 177 ff.

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In the case of the later Upaniṣads any dating must be still more vague. Hopkins ⁸ indeed suggests the fourth century for such works as the Kaṭha, Maitrāyaṇīya, and the Çvetāçvatara, but this appears to be as regards the Maitrāyaṇīya much too early a date: style and content alike suggest that this is one of the most recent of the important Upaniṣads. In the case of the Çvetāçvatara, the date selected by Hopkins appears high in view of the fact that he is convinced that this Upaniṣad is later than the orthodox atheistic Sāṁkhya, and than the theistic Sāṁkhya-Yoga, and marks the appearance of the illusion doctrine foreign to the early Upaniṣads. But this view of his can hardly be accepted for reasons which will later be given, and there is, accordingly, no strong objection to the suggested date beyond the fact that there is no cogent evidence for it. A very different view of the date of the Çvetāçvatara, the Muṇḍaka, and the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣads is suggested by Walleser,¹ who holds that the illusion theory is posterior to, and derived from, the nihilistic school of Buddhist thought, and that in particular the Māṇḍūkya is not necessarily anterior to the Kārikā of Gauḍapāda—taken by him as a designation of a Bengal school, not of an individual—which expounds the illusionist form of Vedānta for the first time, and which was in being by A.D. 550, but not necessarily very much earlier. This view, however, is without any sound foundation, and of these Upaniṣads no assured date can even be suggested.

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⁸ JAOS. xxii. 336, n. 1.

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¹ *Der ältere Vedānta*, pp. 5 ff. His date for the Kārikā is contrary to the tradition which makes him the spiritual grandfather of Çaṅkara; Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishad’s*², p. 574.

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The investigation of J. Hertel² as to the age of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad yields little that is positive. Its comparatively late date is assured, apart from its imitations of the Kaṭha among others, by the fact that it mentions for the first time, except perhaps for the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka,³ the seven worlds by name, that it has a list of Vedic sciences which includes the six Vedāṅgas, though that term is not used,⁴ and the Atharvaveda by that title, and uses the term Vedānta of the doctrine of the Upaniṣads. It knows in all probability the personal Brahman.⁵ In certain points Hertel indicates similarities with Jain views; thus, as the title indicates, the work seems to belong to an Atharvavedin sect which practised the habit of shaving the head or pulling out the hair,⁶ a Jain practice. The Puruṣa in the Upaniṣad is described by comparing his various members to the fire and other cosmic powers; the Jains, unlike Buddhists and Brahmans, are wont to represent the universe in human shape in their cosmographical fancies. The Upaniṣad approves asceticism, as does Jainism, and treats release as attained by one who has gained the Brahmaloka, and it is from that world that the man who is freed⁷ attains his final abode in the Jain system, and a parallel can be drawn between the terms in which the Upaniṣad and the Jain texts describe the ascent. Certain of the terms of the Upaniṣad have Jain currency (*cyu*, *nirveda*, *rāga*, *vītarāga*, *samyagjñāna*, *granthi*). It is, however, clear that in all these cases there is no reason to assume Jain priority. Nor do metrical tests do more than show what is otherwise certain, the priority of the Kaṭha.¹ Grammatical forms² of pronounced inaccuracy suggest careless composition rather than assure any definite date.

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² *Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad* (1924), pp. 64 ff.

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³ x. 27, 28; Kirfel, *Kosmographie*, p. 24*. The TA. x. is probably later than the Muṇḍaka.

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⁴ As it occurs in RV. Prātiçākhya (xiv. 30) and the Nirukta (i. 20), it is impossible to deduce any late date from the mere knowledge of the Vedāṅgas, but their appearance is new in the Upaniṣads as a definite group, excluding the other miscellaneous texts found in BAU. and CU.

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⁵ See i. 1. 1 f. and 2. 5.

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⁶ Çaṅkara (on iii. 2. 10) takes it as a putting of fire on one’s head, but this severity is probably not Vedic, though in keeping with Hindu and even Buddhist practices.

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⁷ But in Jainism freedom does not mean extinction of individual existence, as in Brahmanism; cf. von Glasenapp, *Die Lehre vom Karman*, p. 105.

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¹ They do not, it may be observed, really aid in dividing the text into an original and an interpolator’s hand, for the one point made by Hertel (p. 52) is clearly invalid.

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² e. g. *bhavate*, *parimucyanti* (pass.), *ādadāyan* (= *ādadat*), *çraddhayantaḥ*, *pravedayanti* (in sense of simple verb), *viddhi* (from vyadh), *jānatha*, *ācaratha* (imperative), *atkarvāya* (dative), *yoṣitāyām*; *vibhum* (nom. neut.) is doubtless a mere misprint; *adreçyam* is uncertain; the use of *pravadeta* for imperfect is the chief sign of later date; the irregularities have epic parallels.

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Another possible source of evidence is the date of Īçvarakṛṣṇa, the author of the Sāṁkhya Kārikā. It is perfectly clear that the Sāṁkhya system was substantially older than he in its substance and even in detail, so that a considerable age must be assumed for it, if Īçvarakṛṣṇa is to be assigned to the first century A.D. or even the first half of the second century A.D. Unfortunately the evidence as to Īçvarakṛṣṇa is by no means satisfactory. It seems, however, clear that he was either an older contemporary, if he is identified with Vindhyavāsa, of Vasubandhu, or still older, but this clearly, accepting the earlier date of Vasubandhu, which terminates his existence about A.D. 350, does not lead us further back than about A.D. 300, or half a century earlier.³ A further argument, however, has been adduced by S. K. Belvalkar,⁴ who holds that the commentary on the Kārikā, which was rendered into Chinese by Paramārtha about A.D. 560, was the work of Māṭhara, and is to be dated about A.D. 400. Now as the Māṭhara-Vṛtti frequently calls Īçvarakṛṣṇa Bhagavant, a term which would not readily be applied to a recent author, we may assume the date of the first century A.D. or shortly after for Īçvarakṛṣṇa.

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