A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s1.1

c4.s1.1

Atharvaveda is veritably a store-house of the black art of the ancients. There is no doubt some relieving feature to the Mantraśāstra of the Atharvaveda, when auspicious charms take the place of destructive charms. But the general impression which the Atharvaveda leaves upon our mind is that of the blood-sucking activity of the ghoulish demon which saps the fountains of both devotion and reason, and leaves us in the arid wastes of witcheries and incantations. It is a far cry from the Atharvaveda to the Upanishads. The two are almost as poles apart. No doubt there can be found in the Atharvaveda some sort of philosophical reflection as in the hymns to Kāla xix. 53-54, nor can we say that the Upanishads contain no trace whatsoever of the Atharvic influence so far as incantations and charms are concerned, but the general distinction is quite clear, that when we pass from the Atharvaveda to the Upanishads, we pass from the domain of incantations to the domain of philosophy. We must not forget, however, to mention the few blemishes on Upanishadic thought that are to be found in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Kaushītaki, which show the influence of a degraded order of customs even in the reign of philosophy. When as in Bṛhadāraṇyaka vi. 4 we read of helps towards securing the love of a woman, or the destruction of the lover of a wife, or the fulfilment of the desire for procreation, or yet again when in Kaushītaki ii, we read of means for the magical obtainment of a rich treasure, or securing the love of any man or woman, or yet again of charms which may prevent the death of children during one’s life-time, or finally of the “ Daiva Parimara ” taught in that Upanishad by means of which the enemies die round about us as the effect of the charms exercised against them, we have to remember that these are the only specimens of blemishes on an age otherwise wholly devoted to philosophical and mystical reflection, and that, as the poet expresses it, instead of marring the beauty of Upanishadic thought, like spots on the face of the moon they only heighten the beauty of the philosophic reflection—*malinam api himāmśor lakshma lakshmīm tanoti*.