The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s8.53

v2.c40.s8.53

Beyond these parallelisms the relation of sense and object is left undetermined. The use of the expressions Graha and Atigraha might be held to suggest the view that sense seeks out its object and masters it, and the same doctrine may be found in the Aitareya¹ and Kauṣītaki Upaniṣads.² In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad³ we find that the objects are placed above the senses, which might be the sense of the first element in Atigraha, but also that the senses are the steeds and the objects their field of action. A more penetrating analysis is to be found in another passage of the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad,⁴ where a set of ten senses⁵ and their objects is drawn up, similar to that above cited. In it the objects are described as the external existential elements, Bhūtamātrā, correlated to the senses. The process of knowledge is then described by the metaphor of one mounting the object by means of intellect, Prajñā—which for the Kauṣītaki is the *prius* from which both senses and objects are derived—and thus attaining it. The senses are declared in similar detail to be unconscious without the presence of intelligence; the rule is applied even to mind, which here stands in the place of an organ and has as its object thoughts, what is to be understood, and desires. The passage, however, is characteristic of the somewhat complex and late character of the Upaniṣad, for the reason given why the other senses are unable to act without intellect is the fact that mind, in the absence of intellect, is elsewhere. Stress is laid on the necessary connexion of existential elements and intellect-elements, Prajñāmātrā; if there were no existential elements, there would be no intellect-elements and *vice versa*, and without the co-operation of both, no appearance (*rūpa*) whatever would be brought about, the term appearance doubtless standing here as an example of visual cognition and applying to all the other forms of cognition enumerated. At the same time insistence is laid on the fact that there is no ultimate diversity; as the felly rests on the spokes, and the spokes in the hub, so the existential elements rest on the intellect elements, and they again are fixed in Prāṇa, which is identified by the Upaniṣad with the intellect-self, Prajñātman.⁶