A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s1.4

c4.s1.4

6. Let us see what the Upanishads themselves have got to say on the question of the meaning that we have assigned to the term Revelation. The Bṛihadāraṇyaka tells us that "the Ṛigveda, the Yajurveda, the Sāmaveda and the Atharvāṅgirasa have all of them been breathed forth by that great Primeval Being; likewise also have all history, all mythology, all sciences, all Upanishads, all poems, all aphorisms and all the commentaries thereon been breathed forth by that Great Divinity" (S. 3.). It is important to remember that this Upanishadic passage classes the Vedas and the Upanishads on the one hand, with History and Mythology on the other, as being breathed forth by God. Now nobody has regarded the Histories and the Mythologies as "Śruti" or Revelation, even though the Vedas and the Upanishads have been so regarded, and yet the Upanishadic passage classes the two together as being the result of the breathing forth of God. The only meaning, it seems to us, that we can assign to the above passage