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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s2: The Prasna, the Maitri and the Mandukya Upanishads

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s2

Language
English

Contents

The Prasna, the Maitri and the Mandukya Upanishads

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such that they educe an evolving philosophy from Pippalāda, which we shall consider later. The nature, the style and the manner of presentation of the argument in the Praśnopanishad are also comparatively modern.

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The Maitri is a very important Upanishad in the history of Upanishadic literature, inasmuch as its vocabulary and its many references are peculiar to itself. It can be divided into two different strata, the first four chapters constituting the first stratum, and the last three constituting the second. We may even say that the first four chapters of this Upanishad may be taken to be a comparatively early redaction, and, therefore, alone relevant for our purposes. The last three chapters contain references to such astrological names as Śani, Rāhu and Ketu (VIII. 6), Bṛihaspati, the author of a heretical philosophy (VII. 9), and a six-fold Yoga (VI. 18), which is the pattern of the later eight-fold Yoga. For the purposes of the present work which considers only the old Upanishadic philosophy, therefore, we may even restrict our attention to the first four chapters of this Upanishad. Under the spell of the Sāṁkhya and Buddhistic doctrines, king Bṛihadratha is introduced in this Upanishad as giving vent to a pessimistic mood, which is unusual in Upanishadic literature. This king goes to Śākayanya and begs of him to teach him the secret of philosophy. Śākayanya tells him what he has himself learnt from the sage Maitri, who may thus be regarded as the promulgator of the doctrines of this Upanishad.

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The first point in his philosophy is a description of the pure noumenal Self who “arising from the body shines in his own greatness,” and the second is a description of the phenomenal Self called the Bhūtātman who is subject to the influence of actions good and bad, and who therefore undergoes transmigration. We do not know how far to regard the description of the Rājasa and the Tāmasa qualities in this Upanishad as a harbinger of the later doctrine of the Bhagavadgītā on that head; but it is worth while remarking that this Upanishad mentions among Tāmasa qualities such qualities as infatuation, fear, dejection, sleep, sloth, hurt, age, grief, hunger, thirst, niggardliness, anger, atheism, ignorance, jealousy, pitilessness, folly, shamelessness, roguery, haughtiness and changeability; and among Rājasa qualities such qualities as desire, affection, passion, covetousness, injury, love, a longing eye, activity, rivalry, restlessness, fickleness, instability, greed, partiality to friends, the support of those who are round about us, aversion for the undesirable, and attachment to the desirable (III. 5). It is interesting to note that while the pure noumenal Self is regarded as the Mover of the Body, under whose direction the Body goes round like a wheel driven by a potter, the sensory organs being the rein, the motor organs the horses, the body the chariot, the mind the charioteer, and the temperament the whip (II.

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9), the phenomenal Self is declared to be like a beast chained by the fetters of good and evil, bound like one in prison, subject to terror as one in the hands of death, deluded by pleasure like one intoxicated by liquor, rushing headlong like one possessed by an evil spirit, bitten by adversity as by a great serpent, blinded by passion as by night, filled by Māyā as by sleight-of-hand, false like a dream, unsubstantial like the pith of the Banana tree, changing its dress like an actor, and falsely delighting the mind like a painted wall (IV. 2). So far about the earlier portion of the Maitri. In the later portion we have a heliotheism bordering upon pantheism, a number of astronomical speculations (VI. 14-16), the doctrine of the Word and the non-Word, non-Word being even superior to Word, an exhortation to avoid the company of those who always live in a state of hilarity, those who beg, those who live on handicraft, those who perform sacrifices for the unworthy, the Śūdras who learn scriptures, the rogues who wear knotted hair, dancers, mercenaries, prize-fighters, mendicants, actors, those who have been dismissed from king's service, those who pretend to allay the evil influence of sprites and goblins, those who wear red-dress, ear-rings and skulls, and finally those who by their sophisms shake the faith of the people in the Vedas (VII. 8).

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We have also an adumbration of the later Haṭhayoga practices such as those of pressing the tongue against the palate, and conveying the breath through the Suṣumnā (VI. 18-21), and finally a description of the seven mystical sounds which are heard in the process of contemplation, namely, those of a river, a bell, a brazen vessel, a wheel, the croaking of frogs, the pattering of rain, and finally a voice which comes from a place of seclusion (VI. 22).

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The Māṇḍukya which is the last of the early great Upanishads—we may almost call it "the Last of the Romans"—is noticeable as laying once for all the foundations of the later Vedāntic philosophy. It partitions the symbol Om in three different morae and adds a fourth mora-less part, corresponding to which there are different states of consciousness, corresponding to which, again, are different kinds of Soul. The great originality of the Māṇḍukya consists in positing the four states of consciousness, namely, wakefulness, dream, sleep, and a fourth un-nameable state of consciousness; while it teaches that there is an aspect of the Godhead corresponding to these states of consciousness, the last alone being ultimately real. The Absolute of philosophy surpasses even such a theological conception as that of God.

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14. After having taken a brief review of the contents of the Upanishads, we shall pass on to a discussion of the various methods that have been employed by the Upanishadic philosophers. There is not one method alone which is adopted by the Upanishadic philosophers: various methods have been resorted to by them at different times according to the necessities of discussion.

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(i) In the first place, we must note the enigmatic method which occurs from time to time in these Upanishads. When Śāṇḍilya said that reality was “tajjalān,” he was adopting a cryptic way for saying how God could be regarded as the origin, the end, and the life of all things. When the philosopher of the Īśāvāsyopanishad introduced the Vidyā and Avidyā, and the Saṃbhūti and Asaṃbhūti triplets, he was also taking recourse to the same method, pointing to a synthesis of opposites underlying the apparent contradictions involved in the formulation of the two riddles. The best illustration, however, of the enigmatic method is to be found in the Śvetāśvataropanishad, where we are told that reality is like a great circumscribing felly, whose tyres are the three Guṇas, whose ends are the sixteen Kalās, whose spokes are the fifty Bhāvas or conditions of Sāṃkhya philosophy, whose counter-spokes are the ten Senses and their ten Objects, whose six sets of eights are the eights such as the Dhātus, the Gods, the eight-fold Prakṛiti and so on, whose single rope is the Cosmic Person, whose three paths are the Good, the Bad and the Indifferent, or yet again, the Moral, the Immoral, and the A-moral, and finally which causes the single infatuation of the Ignorance of Self on account of the two causes, namely, Good and Bad works (S. 9. a). The philosopher of the Śvetāśvatara again tells us that he contemplates Nature which is like a vast expanse of water contributed to by the five different streams of the Senses, whose springs are the five Elements which make it fierce and crooked, whose waves are the five Prāṇas, whose fount is the Antaḥkaraṇapañchaka, whose whirl-pools are the five Objects of sense which entangle a man into them, whose five rapids are the kinds of grief caused by Generation, Existence, Transformation, Declination and Decay, which diverts itself into the fifty channels of the Bhāvas of Sāṃkhya philosophy, and finally, which has the five tides of periodic overflow namely, at Birth, in Childhood, in Manhood, in Old age and at Death (S. 9. b). Philosophy would be arid and dry, if it did not occasionally contain such enigmatic riddles. Even Plato describes how a man and no-man, seeing and not-seeing a bird and no-bird on a tree and not-tree, killed it and did not kill it, with a stone and no-stone.

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(ii) Then, there is the *aphoristic* method as employed in the Māṇḍukya, which is the pattern of the later Sūtra literature of the various Systems of philosophy. This method has the advantage of compressing all the material of thought in short pregnant sentences, while leaving the commentator to scratch his head as best he may on the interpretation of them. It is for this reason probably that the same Vedānta-sūtras, for example, came to be interpreted in such different fashions by the various commentators on them. To translate from the Māṇḍukya, we are told how “the syllable Om is verily all that exists. Under it is included all the past, the present and the future, as well as that which transcends time. Verily all this is Brahman. The Ātman is Brahman. This Ātman is four-footed. The first foot is the Vaiśvānara, who enjoys gross things.....in the state of wakefulness. The second foot is the Taijasa, who enjoys exquisite things......in the state of dream. The third is the Prājña, who enjoys bliss......in the state of deep-sleep......The fourth is the Ātman, ....who is alone, without a second, calm, holy and tranquil''. This passage has been verily the basis upon which all the later systems of Vedāntic philosophy have come to be built.

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(iii) We have next the *etymological* method which was adopted in many places by the Upanishadic seers under the spell of Brāhmaṇism, which had not yet ceased to influence the formulation of thought. In the Chhāndogya we are told how “svapiti” means “satā sampanno bhavati,” or “svamapito bhavati,” that is, becomes one with himself; how “aśiśishati” means “apa eva tadaśitam nayante,” or water is leading off all that is eaten; how “pipāsati” means “teja eva tatpītam nayate,” that is how heat is drying up what is drunk (S. 10. a). The Bṛihadāraṇyaka tells us that “purusha” is really “purīśaya”, that is inhabiting the citadel of heart (S. 10. b). Finally even such a late Upanishad as the Māṇḍukya tells us that the first letter A of the syllable Om is equivalent to Āpti or attainment, because it possesses the property of Ādimattva or beginningness; the letter U means Utkarsha or exaltation, because it signifies Ubhayatva or intermediateness; and the third letter M means Miti or Apiti, because it signifies measurement or destruction (S. 10. c). But we may put it to the credit of the Upanishadic philosophers that such word-puzzles are to be met with only occasionally in Upanishadic literature.

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(iv) The fourth is what we may call the *mythical* method which is resorted to very often in the Upanishads. This method is adopted in the first place for the purpose of conveying a moral lesson, as for example, in the Kenopanishad, where the parable of Indra and the Damsel is introduced to convey the lesson of humility, to show, in other words, that nobody can attain Brahman unless he is humble at heart. In the second place, the myth introduced may have an aetiological purpose, as for example, the myth of the Sun as coming out of the huge World-egg, the myth being serviceable here to mark the course of the generation of the world-system from a Primeval Egg, which itself originally came from Being, and Being from Not-Being. Thirdly, the transcendental myth itself is not wanting, when, for example, we are told, as in the Aitareya, how the Ātman entered the human skull and became individualised as the human soul, from which place again he looked back at his origin, and convinced himself that he was the Ātman. Or, finally, we may have a myth introduced even for the sake of parody, as for example, the Canine Chant which we have already had the occasion to notice in a previous section of this chapter.

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(v) Then, again, we have the *analogical* method, which is to be found employed in many places by the Upanishads. When, for example, the sage Yājñavalkya introduces the analogy of the drum, the conch or the lute in order to explain the process of the apprehension of the Self, or when again Āruṇi introduces the analogy of the juices, which in constituting honey cease to be different from it, or yet again of the rivers that flow into the ocean and become merged in it, or of salt which becomes one with water when it is poured into it—all these illustrations serving to show the non-difference of the Individual Soul from the Universal Soul—we have the analogical method which tries to envisage by images what cannot be explained by the rigour of logic.

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(vi) Then, sixthly, we have the *dialectic* method which is the stock-in-trade of the Upanishadic argument, and could be seen employed at every stage of the development of Upanishadic philosophy. We must take care to understand the word " dialectic " here in its root sense, as the method of the dialogue, instead of in the Platonic or the Hegelian sense in which it may otherwise be understood. The dialogue occasionally takes the form of a severe disputation as at the Symposium in king Janaka's court, which unfortunately became a tragedy on account of the imprecation uttered by Yājñavalkya on his last disputant, namely, Śakalya. In short, unless the superiority of the leading philosopher is implicitly acknowledged, a discourse very often takes the form of wrangling, and may end tragically, as it did at the Symposium we are referring to.

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(vii) As contrasted with the dialectic method, we have what we may call the synthetic method of philosophy. Here an attempt is made not to destroy, but to fulfil, as may be seen by the synthesis of thought effected by Aśvapati Kaikeya out of the doctrines of the six cosmological philosophers in the Chhāndogya, or by Pippalāda out of the six psycho-metaphysical questions propounded to him by the six seers in the Praśnopanishad, or finally by Yājñavalkya out of the six metaphysical points of view suggested to him by King Janaka in Bṛihadāraṇyaka IV. There is neither a *tu quoque* argument here, nor any indifferent and precise cutting of the knot, but a sympathetic inclusion of the points of view suggested by others in a higher synthesis.

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(viii) As against the dialectical and the synthetic methods, we have what we may call the monologic method, the method of soliloquy. The Upanishadic philosophers are generally very chary of imparting spiritual wisdom; but it so happens occasionally that when they have given the right answer to their questioners' problem, they overhit themselves in their exposition, and lose themselves in a soliloquy in the midst of many. Thus it was that Yājñavalkya at the Symposium, after he had answered the question propounded to him by Uddālaka, lost himself into a reverie, and began to think aloud on the universal immanence of God in the famous passage which has been known as the Antaryāmi-Brāhmaṇa. Thus was it also that Yājñavalkya poured himself out in his conversation with Janaka on the immutable nature of Ātman in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka IV. 3-4. Finally, even though Yama, in the Kaṭhopanishad, was unwilling to impart wisdom to Nachiketas on the third question which was asked him by Nachiketas, when once he began to speak, he spoke in a philosophical monologue which absolutely overhit the bounds of the original question. The truth is, that in the case of these Upanishadic philosophers, it does not generally rain; but when it does rain, it pours profusely.

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(ix) We have next the *ad hoc* or temporising method which is also a noticeable feature of Upanishadic philosophising. Very often the philosophers are absolutely pertinent, and never illuminate on any topic except the one which is immediately before them, and according to the capacity of the learner. In the celebrated Indra-Virochana myth, their preceptor Prajāpati tells them the secret of philosophy not all at once, but only when either of them has prepared himself for receiving the wisdom to be imparted. It thus happens that Virochana is completely satisfied with the first answer of Prajāpati, but Indra is not, and presses his Master again and again for the solution of his difficulties, Prajāpati disclosing the secret of his philosophy only ultimately. It thus comes to pass that the Ātman is successively proved to be no longer a mere bodily double, or as identical with the Self in the states of dream or deep-sleep, but with the Self as-identical-with-itself. Prajāpati only gives what his pupils need, and thus supplies us with an excellent example of the *ad hoc* method employed in Upanishadic philosophy.

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(x) Finally, we have the regressive method which takes the form of many successive questions, every new question carrying us behind the answer to the previous question. Thus it was that when Janaka asked Yājñavalkya what was the light of man, Yājñavalkya said it was the Sun. Janaka went behind answer after answer, carrying Yājñavalkya from the Sun to the Moon, from the Moon to the Fire, from the Fire......to the Ātman, which exists behind them all as the Light-in-itself (Bṛi. IV. 3). Thus it was also how Gārgī took Yājñavalkya from question to question, asking him what was the support of water and Yājñavalkya answering it was air, asking again what was behind air and Yājñavalkya answering it was the intermundia, and so on, until from behind the intermundia, the world of the Sun, the world of the Moon, the world of the Stars, the world of the Gods......Gārgī carried Yājñavalkya to the region of Brahman. But when Gārgī asked again what lay behind the world of Brahman itself, she exhibited the inordinate curiosity of the female kind, especially when given to philosophy, which leads necessarily to a regress *ad infinitum*, Yājñavalkya checking the progress of the questionnaire in the only appropriate way—" Thy head shall fall off if thou inquirest again " (S. II).

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15. There is a branch of the Upanishadic method of philosophising which calls for treatment under a separate section. It is what we may call the poetical method of philosophy. This method does really suffer from the defect, that what is suggested under the garb of poetry can never be regarded as the rigorous

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