The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s5.33

v2.c40.s5.33

But the nature of the Brahman is not intellect alone: it is also bliss and reality, and these ideas are here and there already united as in the later Upaniṣads, though the enumeration of the triad as the actual character of the Brahman is not actually found in the early Upaniṣads. In its place the Taittirīya⁹ once presents the Brahman as being (*sat*), thought (*cit*), and eternity, where *ananta*, ‘eternity’, stands probably in error for the Ānanda, ‘bliss’, of the later triad. As being the Brahman, it is at once being and not-being: the old duplication of the Rigveda,¹⁰ which asserts that at first there was neither being nor not-being is recognized here and there, but in the definite sense that, as not-being, the absolute is not empirical being, and that as being it is also not empirical being, so that the question is one of terminology alone and is decided in favour of the appellation being.¹ Much more important is the attribute of thought, which is asserted repeatedly in the doctrine of Yājñavalkya.² He there asserts that the hearer, the seer, the understander, the knower, are all unknown: they are the soul within, which again is in essence the divine, for all else than it is liable to suffering. In this subject of knowledge ether or space is interwoven: it is the meeting-place of all sounds, smells, sights, and other experiences. The different organs—and their functions—are only names for the one subject. In his conversation with Janaka,³ the philosopher traces the Ātman as the knowing subject, which persists without change through the stages of waking, dreaming, deep sleep, death, transmigration, and final deliverance of the soul. The spirit in the waking state beholds the good and the evil of the world, but it is not moved by it, since as subject it is really incapable of affection: in the state of dreaming it builds up its own world, and in deep dreamless sleep, wrapped round by the intellectual self, it has no consciousness of objects, and yet is not unconscious. The self is compared to a lump of salt which has no inner or outer aspects: it is simply a single unit, and so consciousness has no inner and outer side, and is one unity alone. The Brahman is also the light of lights, and through it alone is there any light in the universe. For the wise man there is perpetual and abiding light, and this idea in the later Upaniṣads appears in a variety of metaphors such as the day of Brahman which is eternal.