The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s6.13

v2.c40.s6.13

From this cosmogonism or pantheism it is not a difficult step to arrive at atheism: the attitude of the Brāhmaṇas, as we have seen, is not theistic, for they tend undoubtedly to depart from the primitive conception of Prajāpati as a creator god in favour of the idea of the more impersonal Brahman or the Ātman. But the tendency to abstraction was always, doubtless, confronted with the realism and clinging to personality of the average intellect, and that realism results in the growing tendency⁵ to separate the individual and the supreme self, which is a perfectly natural development from the hasty unity of pantheisms. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad⁶ undoubtedly shows this tendency in its distinction of the supreme and the individual self as light and shadow, and in the doctrine of the grace of the creator which gives man saving knowledge: the idea is, however, far more effectively brought out in the Çvetāçvatara,⁷ where the identity of the supreme and the individual souls is not indeed denied, but can only be realized by the favour of the supreme lord, the Īçvara, who thus appears as in some measure distinct from the individual soul. The Īçvara is also a maker of magic, and the universe is the product, the illusion. The Upaniṣad shows no trace of the presupposition of the doctrine of Yājñavalkya: it is adequately explained as the mere development of primitive pantheism, or cosmogonism.