The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s5.2

v2.c40.s5.2

Many of these attempts were, it is clear, of little worth: Bālāki Gārgya in his interview with Ajātaçatru puts forward twelve¹ or sixteen views of the nature of the absolute. They are all of the same type, the soul in the sun, the moon, lightning, ether, fire, water, the person in a mirror, the sound that follows one as he goes, the person in the quarters, the shadow, the person in the body, &c., to which the king opposes in reply the conception of that whence the breaths proceed, and on which the worlds, gods, and men depend. Other suggestions made by Çākalya² which treat breath, love, forms, ether, &c., as the basis of the absolute are refuted by Yājñavalkya, who also rejects the suggestions of speech, the breath, the eye, the ear, mind, and the heart laid before him by Janaka as doctrines enunciated on this head.³ Yājñavalkya shows that these things are only the basis of the attributes of the divine unity, and that it is necessary to go behind the mere attributes or their manifestation, which can only be done by recognizing the essential identity of the absolute and our own spirit. The Brahmans who with Uddālaka are instructed by Açvapati Kaikeya⁴ are supporters of the claims of heaven, sun, wind, ether, water, and earth as the absolute unity, there conceived as the Ātman Vaiçvānara, an idea borrowed from the Agni Vaiçvānara which forms the subject of discussion in the secret doctrine of the fire in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa.⁵ The king, on his part, insists that the Ātman must be within, not an external object. A much longer and more elaborate series of imperfect views is represented in the instruction of Nārada by Sanatkumāra,⁶ where from name the advance is made through speech, mind, conception or judgement (*saṁkalpa*), thought, intuition (*dhyāna*), knowledge (*vijñāna*), force, food (i.e. earth), water, heat, ether, memory, and longing (*āçā*), to the breath which is the individual soul, and finally to the great one, Bhūman, which comprehends all, fills space, and is identical with the principle of egoism, Ahaṁkāra, and the self, Ātman, in man. The transition from the individual to the great one is made thus: truth depends on knowledge, this on thought (*mati*), this on faith, this on concentration (*niḥṣṭhā*), this on productive power, this on pleasure, which exists in the unlimited.