The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s3.27

v2.c40.s3.27

The view of Yājñavalkya cannot, save by paradox, be deemed the earliest view or the dominating view expressed in the Upaniṣads : it must be taken as one view of considerable importance, which has received expression in portions of two of the oldest Upaniṣads, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya, but most of all in the first. Independent and older are the cosmogonic and pantheistic views which appear in the Aitareya Āraṇyaka ² and in the Brāhmaṇas, and the dominating influence of the view of Yājñavalkya ascribed to it by Deussen cannot be established. Its interest for us is not lessened by that fact: it is the most characteristically individual of the doctrines of the Upaniṣads, and in some ways of the greatest philosophic value. It is, moreover, the chief matter in which an advance on the views of the Brāhmaṇas can be recognized.