A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s3.5.4

c4.s3.5.4

This sage, who seems to have been intensely interested in the question of rebirth, declares that "while yet in embryo he tried to know all the births of the gods. A hundred iron citadels tried to hold him; but a hawk that he was, with swiftness he came down to the earth. In embryo indeed did Vāmadeva speak in this manner." Vāmadeva seems to have held that there were three births of man: the first birth of a man occurs when the spermatozoon combines with the ovum; his second birth occurs when a child is born to him; his third birth takes place when he is himself reborn after death. Bhr̥igu, who is mentioned in the Taittirīya, was a great metaphysical psychologist, who held that food, life-breath, mind, intellect and bliss constituted, in the order of gradation, the expressions of Ātman. Finally, we are introduced in Br̥ihadāraṇyaka IV to the doctrines of certain psycho-metaphysicians, when we are told that Jitvan Śailini held that speech was the highest reality; Udaṅka Śaulbāyana that breath was the highest reality; Varku Vārṣṇa, Gardabhī-vipīta Bhāradvāja, Satyakāma Jābāla and Vidagdha Śakalya held respectively that the eye, the ear, the mind and the heart constituted the ultimate reality; while Yājñavalkya, following the synthetic method, found a place for each of these doctrines in his final synthesis.