A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c13: Bibliographical Note

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c13

Language: English

Bibliographical Note

I. Texts

c13.s1.1

A handy edition of the texts of the Upanishads can be had at the Nirnayasagar Press, Bombay, entitled *Twenty-eight Upanishads*, which contains almost all of the more prominent Upanishads, excluding the Maitri. Another edition of the *Twenty-eight Upanishads* is published also at the Venkateshwar Press, Bombay. The Anandashram Press, Poona, has published an edition of *Thirty-two Upanishads*, which excludes the famous ten Upanishads, with an inclusion, however, of Kaushitaki and Maitri along with other Minor Upanishads. This edition of Minor Upanishads is printed with the commentaries of Nārāyaṇa and Śaṅkarānanda. Jacob has brought out an edition of the *Eleven Atharvaṇa Upanishads* in the Bombay Sanskrit Series, which also contains Upanishads beyond the ordinary ten. An excellent edition of the Miscellaneous Upanishads can be had at the Adyar Library, Madras, edited by the Director of the Manuscripts Library. Dr. Schrader, who was the Director of that Library in 1912, brought out an edition of the *Saṃnyāsa Upanishads* during that year, but when he was required to go to Europe during the war, his place was taken up by his successor A. Mahadev Shastri, who has recently brought out editions of the *Yoga Upanishads* in 1920, *Vedānta Upanishads* in 1921, and *Vaiṣṇava Upanishads* in 1923. It seems only one volume on *Śaiva Upanishads* from out of the original plan yet remains to be edited. All the Upanishads have been edited with the commentary of Upanishad-Brahmayogin. The get-up of the volumes leaves nothing to be desired, and we cannot recommend to our readers a more beautiful or more handy edition of the Minor Upanishads than the edition of the four volumes brought out from Adyar.

c13.s1.2

As regards the Hundred and Eight Upanishads, there was an edition brought out by Subrahmanya Shastri at Madras in 1883. Later on, the Tattvavivechak Press, Bombay, brought out an edition of the same Hundred and Eight Upanishads, while a handy edition of the *Hundred and Eight Upanishads* can now be had even at the Nirnayasagar Press, Bombay. In the absence of a more reliable edition, we can recommend this to all students of Upanishadic literature, who care for the canon of the Upanishadic literature "in extenso." There are a number of other Upanishads which exist beyond the so-called Hundred and Eight, which have been catalogued in the volume on the bibliography of the Upanishads published at Adyar, as well as with greater fulness and precision in the "Creative Period of Indian Philosophy" by S. K. Belvalkar and R. D. Ranade.

c13.s1.3

It is strange that there should not have been even a single exceedingly reliable edition of the Texts of the Upanishads. We recommend the production of such a one to all those who are interested in the literary side of the Upanishads. Lanman's dictum ("Beginings of Hindu Pantheism") remains only too true that "a critical text of all the old Upanishads conveniently assembled in one volume with a philologically accurate translation and various useful appendices is still one of the pressing needs of Indology."

c13.s1.4

Colonel Jacob has laid all students of Upanishadic literature under immense obligations by editing a *Concordance to the Principal (56) Upanishads*, along with the Bhagavadgītā. This piece of literary work is exceedingly creditable to one who was serving in the Indian Army. One wishes that there were more happy surprises of that kind from the Indian Army!

II. Commentaries

c13.s2.1

All the great Schools of Vedānta Philosophy have had their own commentaries on the Upanishads, as on the Brahma-Sūtras, and the Bhagavadgītā. The *Commentaries of Śaṅkara* on the various Upanishads have been printed in the Anandasram Press, Poona, a

c13.s2.2

also in the collected edition of his works printed at Vanivilas Press. They are also edited in one volume by H. R. Bhagavat, Poona. Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Kārikās of Gauḍapāda, which are themselves a commentary on the Māṇḍūkyopanishad, is most famous, as well as his commentary on the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. This last has been again commented on by Sureśvarāchārya in his Vārtika. Doubt has sometimes been thrown upon Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad; but his commentaries on the other Upanishads have been regarded as authentic. There has been a very good one-volume edition of the principal Eleven Upanishads commented on by Swami Achintya Bhagawan and printed at the Nirnayasagar Press, 1910, which follows in substance the commentary of Śaṅkara on the Upanishads. If one wishes to have an epitome of Śaṅkara’s commentaries on the Upanishads, one can have it in this edition of Swami Achintya Bhagawan. The edition is also beautifully printed and is handy. Another running commentary on the substance of the various Upanishads, following the Advaita school of Philosophy, is entitled “Anubhūtiprakāśa,” and has been written by the famous Mādhavācharya.

c13.s2.3

The *Commentaries of Rāmānuja* on the Upanishads are not so well-known as his commentary on the Brahma-Sūtras. There is a mention of the existence of his commentaries on the Upanishads in an edition printed at Madras, which is however, in any case, not very accessible. On the other hand, the commentaries of Raṅga Rāmānuja on the various Upanishads following the Viśiṣṭādvaita school of thought are better known. The Anandashram Press has printed Raṅga Rāmānuja’s commentaries on the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, the Chhāndogya, the Kaṭha and the Kena Upanishads. The last two Upanishads with Raṅga Rāmānuja’s commentary have been also edited by Shridharashastri Pathak, of the Deccan College, Poona.

c13.s2.4

The *Commentaries of Madhva* on the Upanishads can be had in the Sarvamūla Series edited at the Madhavavilas Book Depot, Kumbhakonam. Extracts from Madhva's commentaries along with the original Upanishads and translations have been published at the Panini Office, Allahabad.

c13.s2.5

The Brahma-sūtras themselves are an aphoristic summary of the Upanishads, borrowing words and ideas from them, and linking them together in a theologico-philosophical context. It is the commentaries of the great Teachers on the Brahma-sūtras, which are, however, more famous than the commentaries on the Upanishads themselves. These commentaries constitute the later Vedānta proper, and use the scholastico-logical method, as has been pointed out in the Preface, instead of the mystico-intuitional one.

III. Translations

c13.s3.1

The most important work that has been hitherto done on the Upanishads is the work of Translation. Through a long period of years the Upanishads have afforded a temptation for the aspiring Translator to try his hand at in various languages. The first known translation of the Upanishads was done into Persian during the years 1656-1657 by the Pandits in the court of Dara, the son of Shah Jahan. The first notice of the Upanishads to the Western world was through Anquetil du Perron's translation entitled the "Oupnek'hat," two volumes, Strassburg, 1801-1802, which was a rendering into Latin of the Persian translation above referred to. The substance of the Latin translation appeared in French in the year 1832 in J. D. Lanjuinais's "Recherches sur les Langues, la Littérature, la Religion et la Philosophie des Indiens," 1832. Ram Mohan Roy published his translation of the Īśa, Kena, Katha, and Muṇḍaka Upanishads during the same year, namely, 1832. Exactly fifty years later, the Oupnek'hat was translated into German at Dresden, 1882. It may thus be seen how the Sanskrit Upanishads were rendered into Persian at the time of Dara, how the Persian translation in its turn was rendered into Latin by Anquetil du Perron in 1801-1802, and how the Latin translation was itself rendered both into the French and German languages during the course of the last century.

c13.s3.2

One of the earliest translators of the Upanishads into English was Röer, who published his translations of nine Upanishads, Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Aitareya, Taittirīya, and Śvetāśvatara at Calcutta in 1853. His translation of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka came also later on. Max Müller was the first systematic translator of all the chief Upanishads at the Clarendon Press in two volumes, 1879-1884. Whitney published a review of this translation in the American Journal of Philology in 1886, in an essay entitled "The Upanishads and their latest Translation". Paul Deussen's monumental "Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda," pp. 946, was published at Leipzig, 1897, and contains a translation of all the fifty Upanishads included in the Oupnek'hat, as well as ten other Ātharvaṇa Upanishads. It is unfortunate that Deussen's translation has not yet been rendered into English. It contains very useful introductions to all the Upanishads, as well as to each section of them. This work was reviewed by Böhtlingk in an essay entitled "Bemerkungen zu einigen Upanishaden" in 1897, where he pointed out a number of points in which he differed from Deussen.

c13.s3.3

G. R. S. Mead's translation of the Upanishads in collaboration with J. C. Chhatopadhyaya in 1896, in two volumes, was published by the London Theosophical Society. Volume I. contains translations of the Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, and Māṇḍūkya Upanishads, and Volume II, of the Taittirīya, Aitareya and Śvetāśvatara Upanishads. Mead's translation excited such an interest in the European world that it was translated both into the French and Dutch languages in 1905 and 1908. S. Sitaram Shastri and Ganganath Jha's Translation of the Upanishads in five volumes with Śaṅkara's commentary (Natesan, Madras, 1898-1901) contains texts of the Īśa, Kena, Muṇḍaka, Kaṭha, Praśna, Chhāndogya, Aitareya and Taittirīya Upanishads, and is so neatly done and so finely printed that it perforce invites the study of the beginner in Upanishadic literature. One wishes very much that Natesan might add the translation of the five remaining Upanishads, Māṇḍūkya, Bṛihadāraṇyaka, Śvetāśvatara, Kaushitaki, and Maitri to the already translated eight, so as to make a fine set of volumes of the Translations of the chief Upanishads along with Texts. Sitanatha Tattvabhushan’s Translation of the Upanishads in three volumes, Calcutta, 1900, contains all the thirteen principal Upanishads except Maitrāyaṇī. S. C. Vasu has edited the Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, and Māṇḍūkya Upanishads with extracts from Madhva’s commentary, Panini Office, Allahabad, 1911. He has translated the Chhāndogya and the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishads likewise with extracts from the commentary of Madhva. Tukaram Tatya has brought out an eclectic edition of the Translations of the Twelve principal Upanishads which includes the translation of the Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Aitareya, Taittirīya, Śvetāśvatara and Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishads by Röer, of the Chhāndogya by Rajendralal Maitra, and of the Kaushītaki by Cowell. The Maitri is unrepresented in this volume. R. E. Hume’s translation of the Thirteen Principal Upanishads, Oxford, 1921, is the latest, most handy, and most serviceable of all. Mr. Hume has profited by the translations of all his predecessors, while his Bibliography is remarkably clear and useful. Our own Bibliographical Note owes not a little to him.

c13.s3.4

Of the translations of the Upanishads in the Vernaculars, there are many. We might mention C. G. Bhanu’s translation of the various Upanishads in Marathi along with the commentary of Śaṅkara in a series of volumes, and H. R. Bhagavat’s text and translation in Marathi of various Upanishads in two volumes, the first containing the more important and classical Upanishads, and the other a few of the minor Upanishads. Vishnu Shastri Bapat’s translation of the Upanishads in Marathi as well as his translation of the Bhāshya of Śaṅkara on the Upanishads are the most pains-taking of Marathi translations. There are translations of the Upanishads in every language of India, and particularly the Bengali. The Bibliography would be inordinately swollen if we were to mention all the translations in the various languages.

c13.s3.5

As regards the translations of single Upanishads in serial order, we might mention first Aurobindo Ghose's translations of the Īśa, Kaṭha, and other Upanishads, which are interspersed with the philosophical reflections of the author. Prof. M. Hiriyanna's translations of the Kena, Kaṭha, and other Upanishads with the commentary of Śaṅkara have appeared recently, while the Kenopanishad has been transliterated and translated by Oertel, Professor at Yale, 1894. The Kaṭhopanishad seems to find particular favour with translators, and there are numerous translations of it in various languages. Thus Paul Regnaud published a translation of the Kaṭhopanishad in French, Paris, 1898, while the same Upanishad was also translated into Swedish by Butenschön, Stockholm, 1902, and into Italian by Belloni-Filippi, Pisa, 1905. Whitney's translation of the Kaṭhopanishad, Boston, 1890, is a remarkable piece of work, in which he proposes a number of textual emendations, and adds a critical introduction.

c13.s3.6

Johannes Hertel has recently published a critical edition of the Muṇḍakopanishad, Leipzig, 1924. Hertel's is an ambitious method of editing. He goes into questions of Metre and Language, differentiates the Traditional from the Original text, then gives a Restored text, and then discusses the contents, the origin, and the age of the Muṇḍakopanishad, along with its references to Jainism. After this prelude, Hertel prints the text of the Muṇḍakopanishad by the anastatic method, borrowing it from the Bibliotheca Indica. Hertel may have been inspired to adopt his method of the discussion of the Muṇḍakopanishad from attempts like that of Father Zimmermann on the Mahānārāyaṇa Upanishad, which was his Ph. D. Thesis, in which he discusses the Sources and the Relation between the different recensions of that Upanishad. Prof. Zimmermann goes into the text-parallels of the Upanishad, and the relation of them, and then proceeds to point out the contents and the sources of the Upanishad, and then ends with an arrangement of matter. In fact, such a method of procedure should be made applicable to every Upanishad.

c13.s3.7

M. N. Dvivedi's translation of the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad with the Kārikās of Gauḍapāda and the Bhāshya of Śaṅkara, 1894, is remarkable in many respects. It was the first notice of that great Heracleitian philosopher Gauḍapāda in English. Recently an amount of literature is coming out on Gauḍapāda and on his relation to the Mādhyamika Sūtras. Prof. Vidushekhara Bhattacharya, Shantiniketan, is making a special study of Gauḍapāda, and one feels no doubt that when Gauḍapāda is rendered well into English, his relation to the Mādhyamika Sūtras is pointed out, and a survey is taken of his contribution to Philosophy, he is bound to startle the world of thought. As regards the Taittirīya Upanishad, A. Mahadeva Shastri has brought out a classical edition of that Upanishad with an English translation and the Commentaries of Śaṅkarāchārya, Sureśvarāchārya, and Vidyāraṇya, pp. 791, Mysore, 1903, which would be most serviceable to all the students of that Upanishad.

c13.s3.8

Otto Böhtlingk has done very classic work in turning out the editions of two of the biggest Upanishads, namely the Bṛihadāraṇyaka and the Chhāndogya, the one printed at St. Petersburg, and the other at Leipzig. It is remarkable that the two editions were printed simultaneously, and appeared in the same year, namely 1889. While both the editions have been carefully edited, the Chhāndogya has particularly a very beautiful appearance. The principle of paragraphing is retained in both the Upanishads, and Böhtlingk has emended the text in various places, though not always successfully. For example, for the reading Vijitāya (Chhāndogya IV. I. 4) Böhtlingk substitutes Vijitvarāya, and for Tajjalāniti, he reads Tajjānānīti (Chhāndogya III.14.1), of which the first is unnecessary, and the second awkward. Nevertheless, the editions of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka and the Chhāndogya edited with text and translation by Böhtlingk have remained quite classical, though they are somewhat inaccessible in India. Böhtlingk soon followed this achievement by his editions of the Kaṭha, Aitareya and Praśna Upanishads, with their texts in Devanāgari, and translation and notes in German, Leipzig, 1891. Whitney published a review of Böhtlingk's translations of the various Upanishads in the American Journal of Philology, subjecting them to a very detailed examination, and Böhtlingk replied to these criticisms in 1891. All this is a matter of literary give and take, which would certainly be enjoyed by those who take a philological interest in the Upanishads.

c13.s3.9

E. B. Cowell's translations of the Kaushītaki and the Maitri Upanishads with the commentary of Rāmatīrtha (1861, 1870), have also remained classical works on those two Upanishads. A. Mahadeva Shastri's edition of the Amṛtabindu and Kaivalya Upanishads, text and translation, is a handy little volume. Narayanaswami Iyer has translated Thirty Minor Upanishads at Madras, 1914. Finally, S. K. Belvalkar's "Four Unpublished Upanishads," containing texts and translations of the Bāshkala, the Chhāgaleya, the Ārsheya, and the Śaunaka Upanishads (1925), of which the first was printed by Dr. Schrader but the rest were only in MS. form in the Adyar Library, has been published by the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, and can be had at its Poona Branch, Poona, India.

IV. Selections

c13.s4.1

One of the earliest of books of Selections from the Upanishads was by Paul Regnaud entitled *Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire de la philosophie de l'Inde*, Paris, 1876. It contains numerous passages from the original Upanishads in transliterated form together with French translation and topical arrangement. Regnaud had intended this book for a short account of the ancient philosophy of India. Another book on *Selections from the Upanishads* in English by John Murdoch, Madras 1895, is intended not so much to illustrate the philosophy of the Upanishads, as to prove the superiority of Christianity to the philosophy of Hinduism. L. D. Barnett's *Some Sayings from the Upanishads*, London, 1905, as well as his *Brahma-Knowledge*, London 1906, are sprightly little volumes which take us to the heart of Upanishadic teaching. Deussen's *Die Geheimlehre des Veda*, Leipzig, 1907, is intended as a summary of the "Sechzig Upanishad's" and contains selections from fourteen Upanishads. Hillebrandt, the famous Vedic scholar, has produced a work of selections entitled *Aus Brāhmaṇas und Upanishaden*, Jena, which contains typical passages from the Brāhmaṇas as well as the Upanishads to illustrate the early philosophy of India. Hillebrandt does not make a sufficient differentiation between the Brāhmaṇas on the one hand and the Upanishads on the other, and hence finds "ritual and superstition freely mixed with pure ideas of philosophy" in his little volume. He says that he is satisfied that he has many agreements with Oldenberg, particularly when the latter says that the philosophy of the Upanishads cannot, in any way, be compared to the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer, and is therefore open to the same criticism which we have made against Oldenberg in the Preface. As a sprightly little volume, Johannes Hertel's *Die Weisheit der Upanishaden*, Munchen, 1921, is more stimulating than Hillebrandt's selections, though occasionally one-sided. Hertel brings together selections from the Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Chhāndogya, Bṛihadāraṇyaka, Aitareya, and Kaushītaki Upanishads, and says that he wants to present the Upanishads in readable German, not that his book is intended specifically for Indologists. Hertel's work whets thought, even though his conclusions are not always satisfactory. We have noticed in the Preface how in two little points we disagree with the meaning which Hertel finds in the Kenopanishad. Hertel gives introductions to all his selections, which makes the book more valuable than Hillebrandt's, which does not contain such introductions. Paul Eberhardt's *Der Weisheit letzter Schluss*, Jena, 1920, is also a book of selections from the Upanishads, and contains thirty-seven passages topically arranged. The author of the present work has also an intention of bringing out an edition of *Selections from the Upanishads* from the specifically spiritual point of view. It was Ram Mohan Roy's deliberate opinion that Selections from the Upanishads published and largely circulated would contribute more than anything else to the moral and religious elevation of his countrymen, and it may seem as if the spiritual Selections from the Upanishads which the author of the present work intends to bring out will satisfy this urgent need.

V. References

c13.s5.1

The references to Upanishadic literature are vast and various. We can tabulate here only the principal among them under three different heads, references in the Histories of Literature, references in the Histories of Religion, and references in the Histories of Philosophy. Weber's *Indische Studien* Vols. I. and II. contain series of articles on almost all of the Upanishads in this volume, with the exception of the Aitareya and the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. We have also a treatment of the Upanishads in his *History of Indian Literature*, as well as in Monier Williams's *Indian Wisdom*. Other references to the philosophy of the Upanishads are to be found in Leopold von Schroeder's *Indiens Literatur und Cultur*, 1887, in Prof. Macdonell's *History of Sanskrit Literature*, pp. 218-243, as well as in Winternitz's *Geschichte der indischen Literatur* Vol. I., pp. 210-229. All these try to sum up concisely the teachings of the Upanishads, and indicate their general place in the history of Sanskrit Literature.

c13.s5.2

So far as the Histories of Religion are concerned, we may mention Hopkins's *Religions of India*, and Geden's *Studies in Eastern Religions*, as well as his later *Studies in the Religions of the East*. These indicate the religious place of the Upanishads in Indian thought.

c13.s5.3

Among Histories of Indian Philosophy we might make special mention of Prof. Radhakrishnan's *Indian Philosophy* Volume I., and Das Gupta's *History of Indian Philosophy* Vol. I., which contain recent pronouncements on the philosophy of the Upanishads. Strauss's *Indische Philosophie* contains a treatment of the philosophy of the Old Upanishads at pp. 42-61, and of the New Upanishads at pp. 62-85, which would amply repay perusal.

c13.s5.4

Among other references to Upanishadic literature, we might make mention of Prof. Keith's chapter on the Upanishadic Period in the *Cambridge History of India* Vol. I, chapter 5, wherein he points out that the theory of Transmigration was a new theory in the Upanishadic days, having been entirely absent in the Brāhmaṇa period. He also suggests that it would not be correct to suppose that the Brahman Doctrine was the reaction of the noble class against the devotion of the priests to the ritual. On the other hand, he points out that it must have been through policy that the Brahmins ascribed the Brahman doctrine to the noble class (pp. 142-144). We have pointed out in the third chapter of this book how the idea of Transmigration could be traced even to the Vedic days; hence it was not entirely new to the Upanishads. Also, we have suggested at the end of the first chapter that the doctrine of Brahman could be regarded neither as Brahmanic nor as Kshatriyan, and that anybody, who came to "know", to whatever class he might have belonged, was regarded as a Sage. To attribute policy to the Brahmins would not be a satisfactory solution.

c13.s5.5

A last reference to Upanishadic literature we should make mention of is an Article on the Upanishads in the *Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics* by the Rev. A. S. Geden, the Translator of Deussen's *Philosophy of the Upanishads*. The editor of the Encyclopaedia could not have pitched upon a more suitable person to write the article on the "Upanishads." The article also contains a useful little Bibliography at the end of it.

VI. Essays and Works

c13.s6.1

There are a number of important essays and systematic treatises connected with either a part or the whole of Upanishadic Philosophy. We must begin by noting a somewhat brilliant idea in Otto Wecker's *Der Gebrauch der Kasus in der älteren Upanishad-literatur*, Tübingen, 1905, wherein by a consideration of the various cases in ten of the principal Upanishads he comes at a chronological order of the Upanishads relative to the age of Pāṇini. This is rather an important idea; for, Pāṇini seems to have flourished before the Upanishadic era had faded away, and therefore, some Upanishads wherein the Pāṇinian uses do not occur may safely be taken to be pre-Pāṇini, while others where they do occur may be taken to be post-Pāṇini. With this important hint, Wecker arranges the Upanishads in four groups; Group one consists of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, the Chhāndogya, and the Kaushītaki; Group two, of the Aitareya, the Taittirīya, and the Kaṭha; Group three, of the Kena, and the Īśa; Group four, of the Svetāśvatara and the Maitri. The first two are evidently pre-Pāṇini, the third possibly pre-Pāṇini, while the last is post-Pāṇini. In fact, this procedure of Wecker, in which he tries to arrive at a date of the Upanishads from a grammatical point of view is far more valid than that which avails itself of the presence or absence of the idea of Transmigration which we have noted in the first chapter of this work. One wonders why the idea of Incarnation has not been similarly requisitioned for such purposes. In an essay on *The Dramatic Element in the Upanishads* in the Monist, 1910, Charles Johnston discusses certain dialogues from the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, the Chhāndogya, and other Upanishads. A. H. Ewing writes a study in Upanishadic psycho-physics by considering the *Hindu conception of the function of Breath*. Dr. Betty Heimann offers a review of the Upanishadic speculations on deep-sleep in his *Die Tiefschlaf-Spekulation der alten Upanishaden*, 1922, while Rumball has written an essay on *The Conception of Sin in the Upanishads*, Open Court, 1909. We thus see how a searching analysis of the Upanishads has been made in the interest of the different studies pursued by Scholars.

c13.s6.2

Similar is the case with certain other essays on Upanishadic subjects. We have already pointed out in our Preface how in his *Die Sāmkhya-Philosophie*, Leipzig, 1894, Richard Garbe goes into a detailed survey of the relation of the Upanishads to the Sāmkhya system, and comes to the conclusion that the Sāmkhya system originated in the mid-Upanishadic period. Dr. Macnicol's chapter on the Theism of the Upanishads in his work on *Indian Theism* is a very clever analysis of the theistic teaching of the Upanishads. Macnicol's thesis is that we may suppose that the Upanishads maintain the theistic theory, because, as he says, the doctrine of Māyā is unknown to the Upanishads. Macnicol comes to the conclusion that the Upanishadic theory of God is theistic-mystic, instead of pantheistic: "Dr. Caird in his luminous exposition of the closely parallel speculation of Plotinus has distinguished the body of ideas to which it appears to me the reflection of the Upanishads belongs as Mysticism from what is properly to be denominated Pantheism" (p. 59). We cannot go with Dr. Macnicol when he says that the Doctrine of Māyā is unknown to the Upanishads; but we do agree with him when he speaks about the mystic trend of Upanishadic doctrine, though a mysticism need not always be a mere theism. Professor John McKenzie's *Hindu Ethics*, Oxford, contains an excellent essay on the Ethics of the Upanishads (pp. 67-99). We entirely agree with Mr. McKenzie that the Upanishadic ethical thinking is conducted in full view of the wider implications of human existence, namely, in other words, that the Upanishadic Ethics reposes on a solid Metaphysical basis: but we do not agree that the Upanishadic morality is ultimately unreal, or only Antinomian. A survey of the various views on Upanishadic Ethics in our Chapter VI would surely disprove all such partial views.

c13.s6.3

Of the strictly philosophical essays on Upanishadic subjects, we have, in the first place, Josiah Royce's essay on the Mystical Conception of Being, as illustrated primarily from the Upanishads, in his *World and the Individual*. Royce tells us that he dwells so long on the Upanishads, because, as he says, "they contain already the entire story of the mystic faith so far as it had a philosophical basis" (p. 175). Royce characterises the mystical method as immediacy, and though he is not himself in sympathy with mysticism, nobody could have explained the mystic position better than Royce has done. Prof. Radhakrishnan's *Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy*, McMillan, 1920, ends with a chapter on "Some suggestions for an approach to Reality based on the Upanishads ”. We might see from this how Prof. Radhakrishnan himself regards the Upanishads as capable of giving us a point of view in contemporary thought. Prof. G. H. Langley, of Dacca University, writes an essay on the *Conception of the Universal Spirit in the Upanishads, and its identity with the Individual Spirit* in the *Indian Philosophical Review*, edited by A. G. Widgery and R. D. Ranade, April, 1920. Herein also he points out how the Upanishads differ from Kant. Not that Kant himself, according to Prof. Langley, is ultimately right, “for Kant regards that the Self in synthesising the given intuitions distorts the representations of the real object which give rise to them. On the other hand, Croce must be regarded as nearer the truth than Kant, when he says that the Self in synthesising is not distorting that which is given in experience, but is exercising only the essential function of spirit in revealing its true nature ” ( pp. 126-127 ). Finally, Dr. Barua in his *Pre-Buddhist Philosophy*, Calcutta, 1921, goes into a very detailed analysis of all the Thinkers of India before the days of Buddha, and naturally has to consider *in extenso* the teachings of Upanishadic philosophers like Uddālaka, Yājñavalkya, Pippalāda, and others. The great difficulty in the case of these Upanishadic Philosophers is, however, to clinch their personalities and doctrines, and if this could be successfully done, a volume on the “ Philosophers of the Upanishads ” could well be written on the lines followed by Dr. Burnet in his *Early Greek Philosophy*. Rudiments of such a possible work have been already indicated in the first chapter of the present volume.

c13.s6.4

It is to the great credit of the Christian Missions in India that they should have instituted research in various departments of Indian thought, and the Upanishads have not escaped their close attention. Even though the views that they take are bound to be in the interest of Christianity, nobody could question the labour they bestow upon the subjects they deal with. Slater’s book on *Studies in the Upanishads*, Madras, 1897, is a very good and clever production ; only Slater does not suppose that the Upanishads are capable of supplying the idea of a universal religion :

c13.s6.5

“ If the dream of a universal religion be true—and we have but one science of the universe; and if the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man be true, there can be but one bond of spiritual union for such a family—that religion cannot possibly be based on the Upanishads. If you make them your religion, then you must be content to see it confined to a small corner of the globe, and to a select coterie even in that corner. For if, as it has often been urged, this ancient system can be properly understood only in the original Sanskrit, then true religion at its highest, depends, not only on superior intellect, but also on special linguistic talent, and talent to study a dead language! The thing, at lowest, is impracticable ” (pp. 72). We fail to see what connection the idea of a universal religion has with language; it has to do only with spirit, and not with the expression of it in any language. H. D. Griswold’s treatise on *Brahman: a study in the History of Indian Philosophy* discusses at length the doctrine of Brahman in the Upanishads, and considers its religious, ethical, and philosophical consequences. Urquhart’s *Upanishads and Life*, Calcutta, 1916, the argument of which work he also pursues further in his larger book on *Pantheism and the Value of Life*, discusses the theism and the pessimism of the Upanishads, their metaphysical inadequacy, their religious and ethical effects, and ends with the message of Christianity for India.

c13.s6.6

Of the more systematic works on Upanishadic Philosophy as a whole, we have to mention first A. E. Gough’s *Philosophy of the Upanishads*, London 1882, which is probably the earliest of the kind, and which is a brilliantly written work, though it has a somewhat unsympathetic tone. Gough’s view about the relation of Śaṅkara to the Upanishads is that his philosophy may be supposed to be a legitimate outcome of the teachings of the Upanishads—an opinion which has been challenged by critics who point out that Śaṅkara’s philosophy is not the legitimate outcome of the teachings of the Upanishads. Deussen’s *Philosophy of the Upanishads*, which has been translated by the Rev. A. S. Geden, 1906, is the next most systematic work on the Upanishads.

c13.s6.7

Having spent a number of years on his "Sechzig Upanishad's", Deusen could speak with a master's voice on the central teachings of the Upanishads. Deussen's work is entirely indispensable to students of Upanishadic thought. Prof. Radhakrishnan's *Philosophy of the Upanishads*, a separate print from his *Indian Philosophy* Vol. I., which has lately appeared, is a masterly and running survey of the teachings of the Upanishads, and comes from the hand of one who is deeply read in Western thought. Dr. S. K. Belvalkar and R. D. Ranade's *Creative Period of Indian Philosophy* which will be published under the patronage of the University of Bombay, has been in the Press for some time past, and gives a detailed analysis of the contents of the various Upanishads arranged in their chronological and stratificatory order. There is also a very exhaustive survey in that book of a Century of Minor Upanishads, most of which have never been hitherto translated, and some of which have never been even printed.

c13.s6.8

There remain, however, two masterly treatises on the Philosophy of the Upanishads, one by Oltramare and the other by Oldenberg. Oltramare's *L'Histoire des Idées théosophiqes dans l'Inde*, Paris, 1907, contains a full account of Upanishadic philosophy in French, pp. 63-131. Oltramare first discusses such topics as Brahman, the Individual Soul, and the Identity of the Brahman with the Individual Soul. Then he proceeds to tell us how to know the Individual Soul is to know Brahman. He proceeds next to the question of the individualisation of Brahman, as well as the relation of the World to Brahman and Soul. Further, Oltramare proceeds to discuss the doctrines of Samsāra and Moksha. Under these headings, he discusses such problems as the Mechanism of Metempsychosis, Works and Salvation, Knowledge and Salvation, and finally, the Meaning of Salvation. Lastly, he winds up by discussing the new tendency of religious thought in the Upanishads, as well as by an examination of the intellectual and moral influence of the Upanishads. Oldenberg's *Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus*, Göttingen, 1915, pp. 374, is entirely worthy of the veteran scholar. In part one of this work, Oldenberg discusses the old Upanishads; in part two, the new Upanishads and the beginnings of Sāmkhya and Yoga; while in part three, he discusses the beginnings of Buddhism. After a preliminary chapter discussing such topics as the Land and Folk, the pre-historic back-ground, the Vedic gods, Death and the other world, and so forth, Oldenberg goes to the central conceptions of the Upanishads, namely those of Brahman and Ātman, and their identification. He then discusses the problem of the relation of the Absolute to the World, and the meaning of the One and the Many. He proceeds next to discuss the question of the Absolute in itself, and the problem of the Personal and the Impersonal. He then applies himself to the question of "Seelenwanderung", as well as to that of the Worth of Existence. He proceeds to discuss the question of Emancipation, the relation of Knowledge and Works, and the problem of the knowability of the Absolute. He ends his first part by a review of the literary form of the Upanishads, namely the prose and poetry of the Upanishads, their dialogues, and such other similar matters. In part two, he considers the beginnings of Sāmkhya and Yoga, wherein he discusses such problems as the Guṇas, the Purusha and the Prakṛiti, the discipline of Prāṇa, the Āsanas, and Miracles. In part three, he discusses the origin of Buddhism in a survey spreading over about sixty pages. We might easily see from these contents of Oltramare's and Oldenberg's works that, like their great predecessor in the field, Deussen's Philosophy of the Upanishads, they are fully philosophical in tone, and grapple with the central problems of Upanishadic thought. But they aim less at construction than at mere exposition, and they have been written from the standpoint of the philosophy of the past. It might be easily seen, therefore, how a constructive presentation of Upanishadic Philosophy from the standpoint of contemporary thought was the necessity of the hour.