The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s13.27

v2.c40.s13.27

In the case of the Upaniṣads, however, the position for morality is still less favourable than in the Buddhist system. It is quite impossible to make Karman the leading principle of these texts, to many of which it was clearly a sealed book. Moreover it is quite impossible to make the Karman doctrine harmonize with the doctrine of salvation by knowledge, and this doctrine is superior to all morality. Doubtless, when restricted within the narrow circles in which it first became recognized as the fundamental truth, the doctrine of salvation by knowledge alone was not likely to produce evil living, but the effect of a doctrine, which makes morality negligible, on less trained minds can easily be recognized, and is admirably illustrated by the effect of the doctrine of faith when divorced from works. But more directly and fundamentally the system failed wholly to provide, just as the Buddhist failed to provide, a criterion for morality, since for it also the *summum bonum* had no intelligible relation to moral activity of any sort. On the contrary it declared the world of reality to be a delusion or at least not true reality and to be miserable; it encouraged the declaration of one Upaniṣad¹ that devotion to children, wife, or parents is a means of keeping back the self from its saving knowledge: it drove Yājñavalkya to abandon his dear wife for ever, and not, as in the more sympathetic version of the Buddha legend, subject to the possibility of relations of friendship at a later period. The essence of its doctrine is that of the saving of the individual soul, which must resolutely refuse to allow itself to be blinded by the ordinary desires and sympathies of mankind. This is a logical conclusion of the metaphysic of the system. When Yājñavalkya² declares that the husband is dear to the wife not for his own sake but for the sake of the self, and applies the same principle to the other relations of human life, to the wife, to children, to riches, to other men, to the gods, and the universe, he is doubtless concerned mainly with a metaphysical doctrine; but not only is the selfish conclusion obvious to ordinary minds,³ but it is essentially connected with the teaching itself, for on ultimate analysis the aim of the self turns out to be the annihilation of every human desire and activity, an ideal which renders all active philanthropy idle, and which has caused the chief virtues of India to take the form of resignation, passive compassion, and charity.⁴