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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2: Preface

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2

Language
English

Contents

Preface

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1. *The Occasion of the Work.*—Ever since the nucleus of the following Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy was presented for the first time to the public of Bangalore and Mysore in a series of lectures inaugurated under the Presidentship of His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda at the time of the foundation of the Sanskrit Academy in Bangalore in July 1915, the author has been bestowing continual attention on the substance of these lectures, and making them suitable for a thorough-going philosophical survey of the Upanishads, in the firm hope that what may thus be presented by way of exposition of Upanishadic philosophy will satisfy every seeker after Upanishadic truth by giving him in a brief, though in a very solid, compass all the chief points of Upanishadic thought in their full philosophical sequence. I must thank Pandit Mahabhagvat of Kurtkoti, now Shankaracharya of Karvir, and Mr. V. Subrahmanya Iyer, B. A., Registrar of the University of Mysore, for having given me an opportunity at that time of placing my thoughts on the Upanishads for the first time before the *élite* public of Bangalore and Mysore. It seems that the lectures were much appreciated in Bangalore at the time of their delivery, and His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar advised that "the lectures be printed in English and the Vernaculars and distributed broad-cast, so that the knowledge imparted might be made widely available". But what through stress of other work and what through unforeseen difficulties that beset the progress of any important undertaking, this volume could see the light of day only after the lapse of such a long period after the idea first sprang into my mind that the Upanishadic Philosophy was worth while presenting, and would serve as an incentive both to students of European and Indian thought alike.

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2. *The Combination of Philosophy and Philology.*—Though I had begun my study of the Upanishads much earlier than 1915, it was in that year that I first conceived the idea of a presentation of Upanishadic Philosophy in terms of modern thought, while a literary inspiration in that direction came to me first from a lecture of the late Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar in February 1915. It was not long before I could discover that the Upanishads contained not one system of philosophy, but systems of philosophy rising one over another like Alps over Alps, and culminating in a view of Absolute Reality which was worthy of the fullest consideration of our contemporary Philosophers of the West. With that end in view and in order that the Upanishadic philosophy might be made intelligible to the Western mind, I boldly struck out the plan of presenting it according to the methods of Western thought, so as to make it understandable and appreciable by those who were trained to think according to those methods. It might easily be seen by casting a glance at the contents of this volume that the manner of presentation is strictly one which is amenable to the methods of Western philosophy. Another difficulty, however, stood in my way. In trying to present the spirit of Upanishadic philosophy in the garb of European thought, it was incumbent on me not to do injustice to the letter of Upanishadic philosophy. It was thus that philological considerations weighed with me equally with philosophical considerations. I had seen in my study of Greek Philosophy how much Dr. Burnet’s method of interpreting the Early Greek Philosophers by reference to the Original Sources had revolutionised the study of Greek Thinkers, and I thought a similar presentation of Upanishadic Philosophy according to that method was certainly one which was worth while attempting. It was hence that I culled out Sources from Upanishadic literature, classified them into groups according to the various departments of Upanishadic thought, arranged them in philosophical sequence, and interpreted them with due regard to considerations of philology, taking care all the while that the philological interpretation of these Texts would not become so crude and unintelligible as not to appeal to students of philosophical thought. It was this problem of the combination of philology with philosophy that has made the task of an intelligent interpretation of the Upanishads in philosophic sequence so taxing and formidable. I leave it to the student of Upanishadic philosophy and philology to see how far I have succeeded in my attempt.

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3. The Place of the Upanishads in Indian Philosophy.—The Upanishads indeed occupy a unique place in the development of Indian thought. All the later Systems of Indian Philosophy, as we believe has been shown in detail for the first time in the history of Upanishadic literature in the fourth Chapter of this work, have been rooted in the Upanishads. The indebtedness of particular systems of Philosophy to the Upanishads has been partially worked out by a Garbe or an Oldenberg; but the entire problem of the relation of all the later Systems of Philosophy to the Upanishads has been hitherto an unattempted task. Oldenberg has indeed fairly worked out both in his earlier volume on "Buddha" as well as in his later "Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus" how the Upanishads prepared the way for Buddhistic thought, and deserves praise for having attempted a hitherto unattempted task. Garbe in his "Samkhya-Philosophie" has discussed how far we could legitimately trace the origin of Sāmkhya Philosophy to the Upanishads, and has come to the conclusion that the roots of the Sāmkhya Philosophy cannot be traced to the oldest Upanishads (p. 27), but that the Sāmkhya ideas came into existence only during the interval elapsing between the older period of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka and the Chhāndogya on the one hand, and the later period of the Kaṭha, the Śvetāśvatara, the Praśna, and the Maitri on the other. Garbe points out truly that the Ahaṃkāra of Chhāndogya VII. 25 is to be understood not as the egoism of Sāmkhya philosophy, but as the mystical ego, and there is much truth in what Garbe says. He similarly makes a discussion about such conceptions as those of Sambhūti and Liṅga occurring in the earlier Upanishads, and comes to the conclusion that even they have no Sāmkhyan connotation. So far so good. It is, however, when Garbe refuses altogether to find any traces of Sāmkhya doctrine in the older Upanishads that it becomes impossible for us to go with him. Indeed, in our fourth Chapter we have pointed out how the conception of the three colours in the Chhāndogya must have led to the conception of the tri-coloured Prakṛiti in Sāmkhya Philosophy (pp. 182-183), and as the Chhāndogya is recognised to be an old Upanishad all round, a general statement such as the one which Garbe makes that no traces whatever of Sāmkhya doctrine are to be found in

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the older Upanishads becomes hardly convincing. As regards the Vedānta, also, we have tried to work out systematically in what respects all the later Vedāntic systems, the monistic, the qualified-monistic, and the dualistic, could be traced to the Upanishads as to a parent. Indeed, when we recognise that all the great commentators, Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Madhva have made the Brahma-sūtras the pivot for their philosophical speculations, and when we remember also that the Brahma-sūtras were an aphoristic summary of the doctrines of the Upanishads, it would seem a little strange why we have not discussed the arguments of these philosophers at even greater length than we have done. There are however two reasons why we have not done so. In the first place, we wanted to take recourse to the objective method of presentation, going to the Texts of the Upanishads themselves, unbiassed by any theological interpretations of the Commentators whether on the Upanishads or the Brahma-sūtras. And, in the second place, it was thought desirable that a full discussion of all the theologico-philosophical points would best be reserved for a later volume on Vedānta philosophy proper. Indeed the Vedānta Philosophy stands to the Upanishads almost in the same relation in which the Philosophy of the Schoolmen stood to Aristotle. We might say about the theological disquisitions of these Commentators what Bacon said about the arguments of the Schoolmen, borrowing the idea from Ariston, that they “resemble more or less a spider’s web, admirable for the ingenuity of their structure, but of little substance and profit”: τοῖς μὲν ἀραχνίων ὑφάσμασιν εἴκαζεν, οὐδὲν μὲν χρήσιμους, λίαν δὲ τεχνικούς. This might be a little harsh judgment; but it shows how there is a fundamental difference in the methodologies of the Upanishads and the Vedānta.

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In the one case, we have the intuitional method, in the other only the logical. We have no desire to exalt the intuitional at the expense of the logical. The intuitional, we believe, is not contradictory of the logical, but subsumptive of it. It must be remembered that we are not speaking here about the sub-relational intuitional method, but rather of the super-relational. Hence, even though we agree with Oltramare in his judgment that the Upanishads "regard the normal operations of Intellect as powerless to grasp Ultimate Reality" (p. 134), we differ from him when he says that "fearlessly and imperiously doth the Intuition of the Upanishadic Philosophers say fie to experience and give discharge to all demonstrations, while it does not even try to eliminate contradictions" (pp. 131-132). The relation of Intuition to Intellect raises a large philosophical problem, and, as we have said at a later place in this volume (pp. 339-341), we cannot enter into a philosophical discussion about their comparative competence to solve the problem of reality in a work professedly dealing with Orientalia.

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4. Examination of the Opinions of a few Orientalists.—The work which has been accomplished by Western Scholars upon Upanishadic literature has not been by any means scanty. Though the volume of work turned out by them on Upanishadic literature is neither so large nor so profound as that turned out on Vedic literature, it is neither on the other hand either meagre or small. Towards the end of the present volume may be found a succint account of all the work that has been done on Upanishadic literature by scholars like Weber, Röer, Max Müller, Böhtlingk, Whitney, Deussen, Oldenberg, Oltramare, Hertel, and Hillebrandt. Deussen's work on the Upanishads is a monument to his great scholarship, industry, and insight, and so is the work of Oldenberg and Oltramare. We do not wish to enter here into a detailed examination of the various opinions held on the subject of Upanishadic literature by early scholars, which have become the common property of all Upanishadic students; we only wish to examine here a few of the latest utterances on the subject. When Hertel, for example, says in his brilliant, though somewhat one-sided, introduction to the Kenopanishad in his "Die Weisheit der Upanishaden," that Brahman in that Upanishad is not to be understood as "the World-Soul in which all the individual Souls ultimately merge", he forgets to notice the point that the aim of that Upanishad is simply to describe Brahman, in Wordsworthian fashion, as a power or a presence,

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"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

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This must verily be the upshot of that Upanishad wherein we are asked to meditate on Brahman as the Reality in the world of Nature and in the world of Mind: *tasyaisha ādeśo yadetad vidyuto vyadyutadā itīti nyamīmishadā ityadhidaivatam; athādhyātmam yadetad gachchatīva cha mano anena chaitad upasmaratyabhīkshṇam saṃkalpaḥ* (Kena IV. 29, 30). With all due deference to Hertel's favourite theme of the identification of Brahman with Fire, we must say that we cannot accuse the Upanishad of not having considered a point which is not the point at issue. The point at issue being the spiritual description of Brahman as a presence or power, it would be an *ignoratio elenchi* on the part of that Upanishad to go into the description of the Brahman as a "World-Soul in which all the other souls ultimately merge." Then, secondly, when Hertel points out that the Kenopanishad dispenses with the necessity of a Spiritual Teacher for the purpose of spiritual realization, that the Self must according to that Upanishad be regarded as capable of being realised simply by internal illumination, and that Umā in that Upanishad does in no way help Indra in realising the Absolute, he forgets entirely to notice the fact that the true rôle of a Spiritual Teacher consists just in the office which Umā has been performing, namely, like a lamp-post on the Pathway to God, of simply directing the benighted wanderer on the path of spiritual progress without herself going it.

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Dogmatic statements such as this about the teachings of Upanishads come merely out of taking partial views about a subject. This is also illustrated in Oltramare’s accusation against the Upanishads in his “L’Histoire des Idées théosophiques dans l’Inde” that “in affirming the identity of the Universal and the Individual Soul, from which follows necessarily the identity of all souls, the Upanishads have not drawn the conclusion—Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (p. 137). True that the Biblical expression “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” is not to be found in the Upanishads; but it would be bold on the part of any writer on Upanishadic Philosophy to affirm that the sentiment is not present in the Upanishads. What else is the meaning of that Upanishadic dictum yasmin sarvāṇi bhūtāni ātmaivābhūd vijānataḥ (Īśa 7), except that a Sage, who has realised the Ātman, must see the Ātman in all human beings, must, in fact, regard all human beings as living in a Kingdom of Ends?

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Finally, when Oldenberg in his brilliant work on the Upanishads “Die Lehre der Upanishaden” tells us that the true parallel for Upanishadic Philosophy is to be found rather in the teachings of Plotinus, the Sufis, and the Christian mystics like Eckhart than in the Philosophy of Kant, and when he therefore a little superciliously disposes of the teaching of the Upanishads by saying “ Der eine der Weg der Mystik, der andre der Kants”, we are tempted to say about Kant with a little variation upon what Aristotle said about Plato, “Let Kant be our friend, but let Truth be our divinity”. When Oldenberg commends Kant by saying that the central principle of Kant's philosophy is the “Formbegriff,” while that of Upanishadic Philosophy is the “Formlosigkeit,” he is blinding himself to the fact that his Critique of Pure Reason was only the first premiss of a grand philosophical syllogism whose minor premiss and conclusion were respectively the Critiques of Practical Reason and Judgment, wherein conceptions of Goodness and Value supplemented the considerations of Pure Reason, for, on the grounds of Pure Reason, what philosophy could there be about the ultimate realities of human life, the Self, the World, and God, except a philosophy of paralogisms that paralyse, antinomies that make one flounder, and ideals which can never be realised at all?

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The “ Cognoscendo ignorari ” of Augustine, the “ Neti Neti ” of Yājñavalkya, the “ Weder dies noch das ” of Eckhart, would be far more sure indexes of spiritual humility, and consequent possession of reality, than the self-satisfied and half-halting dictates of an Agnosticism on the grounds of Pure Reason, which must destroy knowledge in order to make room for faith.

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5. The Upanishads and Contemporary Thought.—The comparison of Upanishadic Philosophy with Kant suggests the parallelism, in a number of points, of the philosophical thought of the Upanishads with the tendencies of Contemporary Thought. Time was when Upanishadic Philosophy was compared with the doctrine of Plato and Parmenides; time was yet again when it was compared with the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer; we, however, who live in the world of Contemporary Thought can scarcely afford to neglect its parallelisms with the tendencies of the thinking world of to-day. Anybody who will take the trouble to read the argument of the present work will see how very provocative of thought it would be for one who is interested in the tendencies of contemporary philosophy. Here, in the Upanishads, we have doctrines of Absolute Monism, of Personalistic Idealism, of Pluralism, of Solipsism, of Self-realisation, of the relation of Intellect to Intuition, and so forth,—doctrines which have divided the philosophic world of to-day. Had it not been for the fact that Comparative Philosophy, like a virgin consecrated to God, bears no fruit, the parallelism of Upanishadic Philosophy with the tendencies of Contemporary Thought would have even invited a volume on Comparative Philosophy. What we, however, would much rather like to have is a constructive than a comparative philosophy.

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With the advance of knowledge and with the innumerable means for communication and interchange of thought, the whole world is being made one, and the body of Western philosophers could ill afford to neglect the systems of Indian philosophy, and more particularly the Upanishads. The same problems which at the present day divide a Bradley from a Bosanquet, a Ward from a Royce, a Pringle-Pattison from a McTaggart, also divided the Upanishadic philosophers of ancient times. Here we have the same conflict of views about the relation between the Absolute and the Individual, the nature of Immortality, the problem of Appearance, and the Norm of human conduct. The *élan vital*, which, in Bergson, wears not much more than a physiological aspect, appears in Āruṇi (Chh. VI. 11) as a great organic force, only much more psychologised and spiritualised. The pyramidal depiction of Reality as on the basis of Space and Time with the qualitative emergence of Life and Mind and Deity in the course of evolution, which we meet with in Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, is present in those old Upanishads only with a stress on the inverted process of Deity as the primary existent, from which came forth Mind and Life and Space and Time in the course of devolution.

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The very acute analysis of the epistemology of Self-consciousness, which we meet with in the Upanishads, can easily hold its own against any similar doctrine even of the most advanced thinker of to-day, thus nullifying once for all the influence of that ill-conceived and half-thought-out bluster of an early European writer on the Upanishads that " they are the work of a rude age, a deteriorated race, and a barbarous and unprogressive community." Our presentation of the problems of Upanishadic philosophy would also lay to rest all the charges that are made against it on the supposition that it is a block-philosophy and does not allow of any differentiation inside it. For is it not a familiar charge that we hear made against Indian philosophy, that it is all Pantheism, Determinism, Karmism, A-moralism, and Pessimism? It would be out of place here to answer each and all of the charges that have been thus made against Indian Philosophy in general, and Upanishadic Philosophy in particular. If our present work brings to the notice of these critics the variety and wealth of Upanishadic ideas on every conceivable subject in the domain of philosophy, it should have fulfilled its *raison d'etre*. Thus, to say that the Upanishads teach only "an unreal morality, or a mere Antinomianism”, would entirely miss the mark, because it would be a flank-attack and not directed against the main body of Upanishadic doctrine.

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Finally, to say that the Upanishads teach only a Pessimism is to entirely miss the tenor of Upanishadic Philosophy. For the simple reason that there is a phase of Pessimism in a certain portion of Upanishadic teaching, it does not follow that all Upanishadic teaching is pessimistic. It has been customary with European writers on Indian subjects to suppose that all was pessimism and sorrow before the days of Tagore in India, and that Tagore brought the evangel of joy and bliss from the West. It is nothing of the kind. Tagore’s philosophy of joy and bliss is only the crest-wave of that great huge ocean of blissful existence depicted in Upanishadic philosophy. If the present book points to any moral, it is the moral of the life of beatific vision enjoyed at all times by the Mystic. When Lord Ronaldshay, therefore, fixing himself, among other things, on a passage of the Upanishads, says in his book on “India, a Bird’s eye-view” that pessimism infects the whole physical and intellectual life of India, and that the Indian Philosophers have never been able to paint any positive picture of bliss (p. 313), with all due deference to him we must ask him to see if the final upshot of Upanishadic Philosophy, as we have depicted it, would not enable him to revise his judgment.

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To the charge, finally, that even supposing that the Upanishads teach a doctrine of bliss, the bliss of the Indian is one thing and that of the Christian another, that the one is negative while the other is positive, (“Upanishads and Life” pp. 69, 70), we may say, as against Mr. Urquhart, in the first place, that we cannot conceive of any bliss being negative, for it would be a contradiction in terms, and in the second place, that this bliss is the same for all human beings whether they live in India or in Europe, for where the same intellect and feeling and will have been ordained to mankind by God, He has also made provision for a like consummation in each case. Oldenberg indeed has the candidness to admit, which these critics have not, that the opposite view is at least equally tenable that it should be inconceivable how the world which is "pierced by Brahman through and through" should ever wear a pessimistic aspect (pp. 115-116). Let those, however, who wish to find sorrow in the Upanishads, find sorrow, and those who wish to find bliss, find bliss! πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος.

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6. The three-fold purpose of the Work.—As may have been noticed from our previous discussion, the two chief purposes of the Work with which we have been hitherto concerned are to put into the hands of the Orientalists a new method for treating the problems of Indian Philosophy, and into the hands of European Philosophers a new material for exercising their intellects on. But these are not the only purposes with which the Work has been written. The ultimate purpose of the Work is the spiritual purpose. To that end, everything else is subservient. Time and oft have the Upanishads compelled a spiritual admiration from all Oriental Scholars, both European and Indian. Dr. Goldstücker said that the Upanishads formed the basis of the enlightened faith of India. R. C. Dutt, when he read the Upanishads, felt a new emotion in his heart, and saw a new light before his eyes. Ram Mohan Roy felt his whole life transformed when he happened to read a page of the Īśa Upanishad flying past him. Pratt regards the Upanishads as essentially a religious rather than a philosophical work. Geden acknowledges how all the attempts at religious reform in India have taken their rise from the study of the Upanishads. Mead has gone to the length of calling the Upanishads a World-Scripture. From these utterances it may be seen in what high spiritual esteem the Upanishads have been held by Thinkers, both of the East and the West.

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If we may say so without exaggeration, there is no piece of literature in the whole realm of Indian Philosophy, except possibly the Bhagavadgītā, which is so truly religious as the Upanishads, and demands from young India an intellectual justification of her faith in the light of modern thought. Those who have observed the course of the development of European thought during the last half century know how very much it owes its existence, its inspiration, and its fulfilment to the establishment of the Gifford Lectures. It is a good sign of the times that the University of Calcutta should have risen to the occasion, and been a pioneer in establishing Lectureships by means of which a similar ambition might be fulfilled in India. The Upanishads well deserve to constitute a very important chapter in the World's Philosophy of Religion. It will not be possible hurriedly to estimate the contribution which the Upanishads are likely to make to the formation of tendencies in Contemporary Thought. The trend of the present volume is to show how all the teachings of Upanishadic Philosophy converge towards the realisation of the mystical goal. We do not wish to enter here into any philosophical disquisition about the nature and meaning of Mysticism; nor have we any desire to discuss how the Mystic criterion of reality compares with those of the Idealist, the Pragmatist, and the Realist.

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The veracity and the virility of any metataphysical theory is to be gauged by its power of making life more divine, and therefore more worth while living. Readers of the last Chapter of this volume may feel that, after all, the consummation that the Upanishadic philosophy affords is the realisation of the divine in the Individual Soul, and that it is not seen there working itself out in the social and political affairs of humanity. The practical application of the spiritual philosophy was, however, to come later on from the Bhagavadgītā, which taught a life of a disinterested activism on a spiritual basis, so that the divine purpose may come to be realised in the affairs of men. It cannot be denied that the Upanishads supply the philosophic foundation upon which the Bhagavadgītā later on erects its theory of spiritual activism. In either case, however, the mystical motive has been most predominant. It would be a problem for the Philosophy of the Immediate Future to place Mysticism on a truly philosophical basis. Rational Mysticism, which has been hitherto regarded as a contradiction in terms, must now be a truism. The author shall feel his labours amply rewarded if he finds that his exposition of the Upanishadic Philosophy makes a contribution, however small, to the realisation of this Ideal.

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7. *The Academy of Philosophy and Religion and its Aims.*—The present work is the first publication of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, an institution which has been recently founded in India with the purpose of bringing together all those who are interested in a philosophical investigation of the problem of God. This aim of the Academy is to be achieved primarily by Publications, embodying continued and sustained research in all the Philosophies and Religions of the world. There will also be a number of Lectures from time to time on behalf of the Academy at great educational centres in India, which might also help the propagation of the cause of the Academy. The present centres of the Academy will be P o o n a, B o m b a y, and N a g p u r, and so on, while the work of the Academy will be extended to other centres also in course of time. The Academy is intended to be an All-India Body, the Personnel of whose Council is drawn from representatives of all the Universities of India. For all those who are interested in the work of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, there will be an Ashram at Nimbal, a Railway Station on the M. S. M. Railway in the District of Bijapur, which might be used as an intellectual and spiritual resort. If Bacon's maxim may be requisitioned for our present purposes, we may say that the Academy must take all philosophical and religious knowledge for its province, irrespective of differences of creed, caste, nation, or race. The universal vision which must inspire the work of the Academy may be made apparent from the following quotation from the preamble of its Prospectus: " The problem of finding the universal in the midst of particulars, the unchanging in the midst of change, has attracted the attention of every man of vision, whether he be Philosopher or Prince. Plato and Śaṅkarācārya among Philosophers, Aśoka and Akbar among Princes are illustrations of the way in which this universal vision has been sought. Plato is known for nothing so much as for his synoptic vision of the universal among the particulars. Śaṅkarācārya spent a lifetime in seeking to know that by knowing which everything else comes to be known. Aśoka, in one of his Rock-Edicts, forbade the decrying of other people's faiths,—for in that way he said one was doing disservice to one's own faith,—

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and he taught the virtue of Concourse ( Samavāya ). Akbar sought after the universal vision by summoning a Council of Religion, for perchance, in that way, he thought that ‘ that lock whose key had been lost might be opened ’. There is a far cry from the days of Plato and Śaṅkarācārya, or of Akbar and Aśoka, to the present day. Knowledge has taken immense strides with the growth of time. Scientific inventions have enormously enriched the patrimony of man. The old order has changed, and a new one has taken its place. Nevertheless, the goal of human life as well as the means for its attainment have remained the same. Unquestionably, the search after God remains the highest problem even to-day, and a philosophical justification of our spiritual life is as necessary to-day as it was hundreds of years ago.” More information about the Academy could be had from the Director of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, Poona Branch, Poona, or, Nimbal, M. S. M. Railway, District Bijapur, India.

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8. *Patronage for this Volume.*—I must express my heartfelt gratefulness to the late Shrimant Capt. Sir Parashuramrao Bhausaheb Patwardhan, K. C. I. E., Chief of Jamkhandi, to whose kind patronage the preparation of this volume has been entirely due. It is impossible for me to express adequately how much I owe to him and to his State, in which I was born and educated, and from which I was sent out into the literary world. At a time when the idea of free Primary Education was not even mooted in British India, Shrimant Appasaheb, the father of the late Chief, boldly conceived the idea of making even Secondary Education free in his Native State. It was only becoming in the generous successor of Shrimant Appasaheb to have been so kind in his patronage of letters as to even voluntarily offer to patronise this among a number of other projected publications. It pains me all the more that Shrimant Bhausaheb did not live to see the publication of this volume which was brought out under his generous patronage. He met a hero's death in trying to educate a wild tusker, and it is all the more to be mourned that he did not live to see the fulfilment of the projected series of works of which this is only the first. It is not too much to say that it was the promise of patronage which I received from the late Chiefsaheb of Jamkhandi that impelled me and my friend Dr. S. K. Belvalkar to approach, among others, Lord Ronaldshay, the late Governor of Bengal, who in a previous Convocation address had discoursed so ably on the aims of Indian Philosophy, for sympathy in the cause of the History of Indian Philosophy, which was then only recently projected. It was the encouragement that we received from Lord Ronaldshay, as well as the keen interest which Sir George Lloyd, the late Governor of our Presidency, took in our work that enabled us to approach the University of Bombay to extend their kind patronage to our projected scheme for a History of Indian Philosophy, and we are glad to point out that our University came forth, in the first instance, with a generous grant for three Volumes in the Series, which will be brought out under their patronage in course of time. Two of these Volumes, out of a total number of sixteen that have been projected, are now in the Press, and may see the light of day before long.

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9. The "Constructive Survey" and the "Creative Period".—The mention of the grant of the University of Bombay to three volumes in the History of Indian Philosophy makes it necessary for the present writer to say here a few words in regard to the relation that subsists between the present volume on the "Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy" and the Volume on the "Creative Period of Indian Philosophy" in the H. I. P. Series, which latter, it is hoped, may be published before long. The "Creative Period" discusses the contribution that was made by the Brāhmaṇas, the Āraṇyakas, the Upanishads, and the Post-Upanishadic period to the development of Indian Thought, and so far as the Upanishads are concerned, as befits a volume in the History of Indian Philosophy, undertakes a full discussion of the Upanishads one after another in their chronological and stratificatory order, paying attention to the analytical study of Upanishadic thought. The "Constructive Survey," on the other hand, focusses its attention only on the Upanishads, groups the various problems of Upanishadic thought under suitable headings, and takes a synoptic view of Upanishadic Philosophy. The one is an entirely analytical study, the other a thoroughly synthetic one. The relation that exists between these volumes can be made clear, if we give a parallel from Greek philosophy. The "Dialogues of Plato," to which the Upanishads might best be compared, could be discussed either analytically or synthetically; that is to say, we could either undertake an analytical investigation of the various Dialogues one after another in their chronological and stratificatory arrangement, or else we might take a synoptic view of the philosophical doctrines of Plato as advanced in the various Dialogues together. There is the same relation between the "Creative Period" and the "Constructive Survey", as there is, for example, between Gomperz's analytical survey of Plato's Dialogues, and Zeller's synthetic presentation of Plato's philosophy, the one looking at the Dialogues *seriatim*, the other *in toto*. It is needless to add that for the student of Upanishadic thought, both the volumes are equally indispensable, the one only supplementing and not at all supplanting the other.

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10. *The method followed in this Volme.*—The method followed in this presentation of Upanishadic Philosophy is, as the name implies, a method of construction through a systematic exposition of all the problems that emerge from the discussion of Upanishadic thought in their manifold bearings. As the alternative title of this work suggests, it is also a systematic Introduction to the problems of Indian Metaphysics. We have already pointed out how a systematic study of the Upanishads may serve as an excellent introduction to the Systems of Indian Philosophy. For long the necessity has been felt of an adequate text-book for introduction in the curricula of our Indian Universities on the subject of Indian Philosophy, and it is hoped that this work may supply the long-felt want. The aim of the present writer has been to group together all the different theories that have been advanced in the Upanishads under suitable headings such as Cosmogony, Psychology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Mysticism in their logical sequence, and to make an attempt at envisaging his own point of view through a developmental exposition of these problems. The writer is only too aware of the value attaching to an objective presentation of philosophical problems, and it is for this reason that his own point of view has never been deliberately stated throughout the Volume; but anybody who will take the trouble of following the full sequence of the logical argument of the volume will see what elements of constructive thought the writer has to offer. Such a method of presentation is not new to Western Scholars, and has been ably illustrated in Pringle-Pattison's "Idea of God" published during recent years. The aim of the present writer, as may become apparent from a study of the work, has been to prepare the way for a deliberate formulation of his own thought on the problems of Metaphysics, which, God willing, he hopes to achieve in a forthcoming publication of the Academy on "The Pathway to God".

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11. *Thanks.*—To Dr. Brajendranath Seal, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore, I must express my most heartfelt thanks for the very kind trouble he took in reading through the typescript of this volume at his usual lightning speed, and in making important suggestions. To Prof. K. N. Dravid, M. A., of the Willingdon College, Sangli, I am most indebted for reading the whole volume with me before it was sent to the Press, as well as for suggesting improvements. Dr. S. K. Belvalkar has laid me under deep obligations by allowing me to quote in this work a passage or two from our joint Volume on the Creative Period of Indian Philosophy, as well as for help in other respects. I am also indebted to my friend Prof. R. Zimmermann, S. J., of St. Xavier's College, Bombay, for having looked through this Preface, as well as in having checked the Bibliographical Note which occurs at the end of the volume. I must express my most heartfelt thanks to my nephew, Prof. N. G. Damle, M. A., of Fergusson College, Poona, who has helped me much by looking through a larger part of the proofs of this volume. I must also thank my young friend, Mr. R. D. Wadekar, B. A., for his very conscientious help in discussing the Upanishadic Bibliography with me, as well as in looking through certain proofs of the Volume. Also, I must express my obligations to my former pupils, and now Professors, V. S. Gogate, M. A., and K. V. Gajendragadkar, M. A., of the Arts College, Nasik, for having helped me in the General Index and the Upanishad Index respectively. The untiring efforts of my pupil and friend, Mr. G. K. Sane, M. A., in the preparation and final disposition of the General Index deserve all commendation. The constant, day-to-day, cheerful help which my stenographer Mr. S. K. Dharmadhikari has extended to me, as well as his indefatigable diligence and resolve to stick to his guns through thick and thin, can never be adequately praised. The zealous and constant interest which Dr. N. G. Sardesai, Manager of the Oriental Book Agency, Poona, has evinced in this work cannot be praised too highly. Mr. Nanasaheb Gondhalekar, the Proprietor of the Jagaddhitechu, Press, Poona, has not spared himself, his Press, and his men for turning out this Volume in the fashion in which it is offered to the public. There are also a few other persons to be thanked. But as their interest in this Volume is spiritual, it behoves me, in the manner of the Kenopanishad, to leave their names unmentioned. "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet.... Is wasteful and ridiculous excess".

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R. D. RANADE.

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CHAPTER I

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THE BACKGROUND OF UPANISHADIC SPECULATION

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1. The Significance of the Study of the Upanishads... .. 1
2. The Upanishads and the Ṛigveda. .. .. .. 2
3. The Upanishads and the Atharvaveda. .. .. 4
4. The Upanishads and the Brāhmaṇas. .. .. 6
5. Meaning of Revelation. .. .. .. 8
6. The Upanishadic view of Revelation. .. .. 10
7. Chronological arrangement of the Upanishads. .. 12
8. The Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad. .. .. .. 18
9. The Chhāndogya Upanishad. .. .. .. 21
10. The Īśa and the Kena Upanishads. .. .. .. 24
11. The Aitareya, the Taittirīya, and the Kaushītaki Upanishads . . . . . 25
12. The Kaṭha, the Muṇḍaka, and the Śvetāśvatara Upanishads . . . . . 27
13. The Praśna, the Maitri, and the Māṇḍūkya Upanishads:.. 30
14. The Methods of Upanishadic Philosophy : .. .. 34 ( i ) The enigmatic method. .. .. .. .. 34 ( ii ) The aphoristic method. .. .. .. .. 35
(iii) The etymological method .. .. .. .. 36
(iv) The mythical method. .. .. .. .. 36 ( v ) The analogical method. .. .. .. .. 37
(vi) The dialectic method. .. .. .. .. 38
(vii) The synthetic method. .. .. .. .. 38 (viii) The monologic method. .. .. .. .. 38
(ix) The *ad hoc* method. .. .. .. .. 39 ( x ) The regressive method. .. .. .. .. 40
15. The Poetry of the Upanishads. .. .. .. 40
16. The Philosophers of the Upanishadic period. .. .. 44
17. Mystical, Moral, and other philosophers. .. .. 45 18. Cosmological, and Psychological Philosophers. .. .. 47
19. Metaphysical Philosophers: .. .. .. .. .. 50
(i) Śāṇḍilya . . . . . 50
(ii) Dadhyach . . . . . 51
(iii) Sanatkumāra . . . . . 52
(iv) Āruṇi . . . . . 53
(v) Yājñavalkya . . . . . 55
20. General social condition: .. .. .. .. .. 59
(i) Origin of Castes and Orders. .. .. .. 59
(ii) The position of Women. .. .. .. .. 61
(iii) The relation of Brahmins to Kshatriyas. .. .. 61
21. The Problems of Upanishadic Philosophy. .. .. 63 Sources I . . . . . 65

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CHAPTER II

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF UPANISHADIC COSMOGONY

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1. Search after the Substratum. .. .. .. .. 73
2. Progress of the Chapter .. .. .. .. .. 74

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I. Impersonalistic Theories of Cosmogony.

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3. Water as the Substratum. .. .. .. .. .. 76
4. Air . . . . . 78
5. Fire . . . . . 79
6. Space . . . . . 80
7. Not-Being . . . . . 81
8. Not-Being, and the Egg of the Universe. .. .. 83
9. Being . . . . . 85
10. Prāṇa . . . . . 87
11. The Controversy between Prāṇa and the Organs of Sense 88
12. Prāṇa, a bio-psycho-metaphysical conception. .. .. 91

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II. Personalistic Theories of Cosmogony.

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13. The idea of a Creator, and the Creation of mythological and philosophical dualities... .. .. .. .. 92
14. The Ātman, and the creation of the duality of sex. .. 93 15. Creation by Ātman through the Intermediary Person. .. 94
16. Ātman and the theory of Emanation. .. .. .. 97
17. The Personal-Impersonal theory of Creation in Muṇḍaka. 99
18. The Theistic theory of Creation in Śvetāśvatara. .. .. 100
19. The Theory of Independent Parallelism as an explanation of the analogies of Upanishadic and Greek philosophies . . . . . 101 Sources II . . . . . 105

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CHAPTER III

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VARIETIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL REFLECTION

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1. Empirical, Abnormal, and Rational Psychology. .. .. 113

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I. Empirical Psychology.

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2. The relation of Mind to Alimentation. .. .. .. 113
3. Attention involves suspension of breath. .. .. .. 114
4. Analysis of fear . . . . . 115
5. The claim of Will for primacy. .. .. .. .. 116
6. The claim of Intellect for primacy. .. .. .. 117
7. Classification of mental states. .. .. .. .. 118
8. Intellectualistic Psychology and Idealistic Metaphysics... 119

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II. Abnormal Psychology.

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9. The problem of Death in Chhāndogya. .. .. .. 120
10. The problem of Death in Kaṭha. .. .. .. .. 121
11. The problem of Sleep: the Fatigue and Purītat theories. 122
12. The problem of Sleep: the Prāṇa and Brahman theories. 124
13. The Dream Problem . . . . . 126
14. Early Psychical Research. .. .. .. .. .. 127
15. The Power of Thought . . . . . 128

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III. Rational Psychology.

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16. No psychology *ohne Seele* .. .. .. .. .. 129
17. The question of the seat of the soul. .. .. .. 130
18. The heart and the brain as seats. .. .. .. .. 131
19. The relation of the body and the soul. .. .. .. 133 20. The history of the spatial extension of the soul. . . . 134
21. The soul, both infinitely large and infinitely small. . . 137
22. Analysis of the states of consciousness. . . . . . 139
23. The microcosm and the macrocosm. . . . . . 140
24. The " sheaths " of the soul. . . . . . . . 141
25. Limitations of a modern interpretation. . . . . . 143
26. The problem of sheaths, at bottom the problem of substance . . . . . 144
27. The idea of Transmigration, an Āryan Idea. . . . 145
28. Transmigration in the Ṛigveda: the Xth Maṇḍala. . . 147
29. Transmigration in the Ṛigveda: the 1st Maṇḍala. . . 149
30. The ethno-psychological development of the idea of Transmigration. . . . . . . . . . . 152
31. Transmigration in the Upanishads : the Kaṭhopanishad. 153
32. Transmigration in the Upanishads : the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad . . . . . 154
33. The destiny of the evil soul... . . . . . . 157
34. Eschatology in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. . . . . . 158
35. Eschatology in the Chhāndogya: the two Paths. . . 159
36. The moral backbone of Upanishadic eschatology. . . 161
37. Upanishadic and Platonic eschatology . . . . . 162
38. Variation in the conception of the Path of the Gods. . 163
39. Idea of Immortal Life. . . . . . . . . 164 Sources III . . . . . 166

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CHAPTER IV

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ROOTS OF LATER PHILOSOPHIES

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1. Introductory . . . . . 178
2. The Upanishads and Buddhism. . . . . . . 179
3. Sāmkhya in the Chhāndogya, Kaṭha, and Praśna Upanishads . . . . . 182
4. Sāmkhya in the Svetāśvatara Upanishad... . . . 185
5. The Upanishads and Yoga. . . . . . . . 187
6. The Upanishads and Nyāya-Vaiśeshika. . . . . 190
7. The Upanishads and Mīmānsā. . . . . . . 192 8. The Upanishads and Śaivism. . . . . . 193
9. Phraseological and Ideological identities between the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgītā. . . . . . 195
10. Development of the Bhagavadgītā over the Upanishads. 196
11. The Aśvattha in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgītā. 198
12. The Kṛṣṇa of the Chhāndogya and the Kṛṣṇa of the Bhagavadgītā . . . . . . . . 201
13. The Upanishads and the Schools of the Vedānta. . 205
14. Madhvaism in the Upanishads. . . . . . 207
15. The Triune Absolute of Rāmānuja. . . . . 209
16. God, the Soul of Nature. . . . . . . 210
17. God, the Soul of Souls... . . . . . . 212
18. Rāmānuja's Doctrine of Immortality. . . . . 213
19. The fundamental propositions of Śaṅkara's Philosophy. 215
20. The Absolute, the only Reality. . . . . . 216
21. The negative-positive characterisation of the Absolute. . 219
22. Śaṅkara's Doctrines of Identity, Creation, and Immortality. . . . . . . . . . 221
23. Three theories about the origin of the Doctrine of Māyā. 223
24. The Doctrine of Māyā in the Upanishads... . . 225
25. Vicissitudes in the historical development of the Doctrine of Māyā. . . . . . . . . 228 Sources IV. . . . . . . . . . . 233

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CHAPTER V

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PROBLEM OF ULTIMATE REALITY IN THE UPANISHADS

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1. The Supreme Philosophical Problem. . . . . 246
2. The three Approaches to the Problem in the history of thought : cosmological, theological, psychological. . . 247

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I. The Cosmological Approach.

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3. Regress from the cosmological to the physiological categories. . . . . . . . . . 249
4. Regress from the cosmological and physiological to the psychological categories. . . . . . . . 251 5. The cosmological argument for the existence of God : God is all-powerful. . . . . . . . . 252
6. God is supreme resplendence. . . . . . . 255
7. God is the subtle essence underlying phenomenal existence . . . . . 256
8. The physico-theological argument. . . . . . 257

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II. The Theological Approach.

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9. Regress from polytheism to monotheism. . . . 258
10. The theistic conception of God and His identification with the Self. . . . . . . . . . 259
11. The immanence-transcendence of God. . . . . 261

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III. The Psychological Approach.

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12. The conception of the Self reached by an analysis of the various physiological and psychological categories. . . 263
13. The states of consciousness: waking consciousness, dream-consciousness, sleep-consciousness, Self-consciousness. . . 264
14. The ontological argument for the existence of the Self. . 269

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IV. The Significance of Self-consciousness.

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15. Self-consciousness: its epistemological and metaphysical significance contrasted with the mystical. . . . . 270
16. The Epistemology of Self-consciousness. . . . . 271
(i) The Self is unknowable in his essential nature. . . 272
(ii) The Self is unknowable because he is the eternal subject of knowledge. . . . . . . . 272
(iii) The Self can still know himself ; hence Self-consciousness is not only possible, but is alone real. . . 273
17. The Metaphysics of Self-consciousness. . . . . 275
18. The Ladder of Spiritual Experience. . . . . 276 Sources V . . . . . 278

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CHAPTER VI

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THE ETHICS OF THE UPANISHADS

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1. Metaphysics, Morality, and Mysticism. . . . . 287

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I. Theories of the Moral Standard.

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3. Heteronomy. . . . . . . . . 289
4. Theonomy. . . . . . . . . 290
5. Autonomy. . . . . . . . . 291

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II. Theories of the Moral Ideal.

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6. Anti-Hedonism. . . . . . . . . 292
7. Pessimism. . . . . . . . . 294
8. Asceticism, Satyāgraha, and Quietism. . . . 295
9. Spiritual Activism. . . . . . . . 296
10. Phenomenal Activism. . . . . . . . 297
11. Eudæmonism. . . . . . . . . 299
12. Beatificism. . . . . . . . . 300
13. Self-realisation. . . . . . . . 301
14. The Ethical and Mystical sides of Self-realisation. . 304
15. Supermoralism. . . . . . . . 306

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III. Practical Ethics.

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16. Virtues in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka. . . . . . 307
17. Virtues and Vices in the Chhāndogya. . . . 308
18. The hortatory precepts in the Taittirīya. . . . 309
19. Truth, the Supreme Virtue. . . . . . 311
20. Freedom of the Will. . . . . . . 313
21. The Ideal of the Sage. . . . . . . 315 Sources VI. . . . . . . . . . 317

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CHAPTER VII

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INTIMATIONS OF SELF-REALISATION

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1. Philosophy is to Mysticism as Knowledge is to Being. . 325
2. The Lower Knowledge and the Higher Knowledge. . 326
3. Qualifications for Self-realisation. . . . . 328
4. Necessity of initiation by a Spiritual Teacher. . . 329
5. The parable of the blind-folded man. . . . 331
6. Precautions to be observed in imparting spiritual wisdom. 332
7. Meditation by means of Om, the way to realisation. . 333

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