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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5: Chapter II. The Development of Upanishadic Cosmogony

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5

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Contents

Chapter II. The Development of Upanishadic Cosmogony

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1. When Sir Henry Maine said that except the blind forces of nature nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin, he should have at least excluded from the scope of his assertion the Upanishadic philosophy, and more particularly, the Upanishadic cosmogony. The hey-day of Upanishadic philosophy was that great millenium before ever the earliest Greek philosophers, Thales and Anaximander, began to speculate, and as in Greek philosophy, so in Upanishadic philosophy, the primary impulse to thought came from cosmologic, and more particularly from cosmogonic, speculation. The starry heavens above, the regularities of the moving seasons, the roaring of wind in the firmament, the conflagrations of the all-powerful fire, the periodical inundations of waters, in general, the settled recurrence of all happenings in nature, must have filled the natural inquirer with an impulse to find out the real meaning of all these phenomena; and it is no wonder that as in Greek philosophy, so in Upanishadic philosophy, the primary search was after the φύσις of things. What is that which abides in the midst of changes? What is that, which as the Upanishad puts it, may be called the "Tajjalān"? What is that from which all things spring, into which they are resolved, and in which they live and have their being? (S. 1. a)? From the Taittirīyopanishad we learn that "that alone might be regarded as the Ultimate Reality of things, from which all these beings were born, by which they live when born, to which they repair and into which they are finally resolved" (S. 1. b). This is very much like the way in which Aristotle tells us the early Greek cosmologists conceived of their primary substance: ἐξ οὗ γάρ ἐστιν ἅπαντα τὰ ὄντα, καὶ ἐξ οὗ γιγνεται πρῶτον καὶ εἰς ὃ φθείρεται τελευταῖον.... τοῦτο στοιχεῖον καὶ ταύτην ἀρχήν φασιν εἶναι τῶν ὄντων. Then again, when the Sage of the Śvetāśvataropanishad asks in wonder at the very beginning of his treatise, "From whom are we born, in whom do we live and have our being?" (S. 1. c), we are put in mind of a similar remark of Hesiod at the opening of his "Theogony" when he asks "Who made all this, and how did he make them?". The search after the ultimate cause of things, the substratum, the φύσις of things, is as characteristic of the early Upanishadic cosmogony, as it is of the later Greek cosmogony; and even though, as we may see in the sequel of this chapter, there is no justification for saying that Greek cosmogony was derived from the Upanishadic, still on account of the universally acknowledged, and definitely proved, priority of the Upanishadic speculation, he must be a bold man indeed who dares to say that all things except the blind forces of nature have come from Greece!

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2. Coming to the details of Upanishadic cosmogony, even though it may not be impossible for us to trace the probable historical evolution of the different theories held on the subject of the genesis of the universe by the Upanishadic seers, based upon a more or less final chronological stratification of the different passages in the Upanishads,—a task which has been attempted by us elsewhere,—the necessities of methodology require that in a work like the present which professedly takes a synoptic view of the problems of Upanishadic thought, we should re-arrange the theories in such a way as to enable us to institute a comparison between those theories and the theories held on the subject in a country like Greece. We may thus at once proceed to divide the theories of Upanishadic cosmogony into two main groups: the impersonalistic and the personalistic. Among the impersonalistic theories may be included the theories which regard either or all of the elements as the substratum of things, or even such abstract conceptions as not-Being, or Being, or Life-force as lying at the root of all things whatsoever. Among the personalistic theories are theories which try to account for the origin of creation from the Ātman or God, and insist in various ways either on the dualistic aspect of creation, or the emanatory, or even the highly philosophic aspect implied in Theism proper. When the Upanishadic Sages regard the elements as the source of things, we must take them to mean what they say, and not, as certain later commentators under the spell of their theological idea have done, regard those elements as equivalent to deities. Thus for example, when it is said that either fire or water or air is the source of things, we have to understand the Upanishadic sages to imply that it is the elements that go by those names that are to be regarded as responsible for the unfoldment of creation. All theological commentators on the Upanishads such as Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja have understood these elements as meaning deities and not the elements proper. But if we just consider for a while the naiveté with which the theories were ushered into being, it may seem impossible for us to doubt that the Upanishadic seers meant by the elements the elements proper, and not the deities corresponding to those elements. It is true that the word “divinity” is, on certain occasions, used in the case of these elements, but it must be remembered that a similar word θεός was used in the case of their elemental substrata even by Greek philosophers, and it is not without reason that Aristophanes should call such apotheosisers of elements by the name of θεοί. Then again, the idea of creation *ex nihilo* seems to be generally repugnant to the Upanishadic mind, and as in Greece, so in India we have the firm belief of the Upanishadic sages in the impossibility of the generation of anything from out of Nothingness, or Not-Being. When, again, it seems to have been felt impossible by the Upanishadic seers that either the elements, or such abstract conceptions as Not-Being or Being could be held responsible for the explanation of creation, they felt the necessity of explaining that genesis from Life-force or Cosmic-force. Finally, when even this could not be regarded as a sufficient explanation of creation, they were obliged to take recourse to the idea of the Person, by whom the creation could be said to have been brought into being. We must also note that there is not much room for the idea of creation in an absolutistic system of metaphysics, which would try to explain away all creation as being only an illusion or appearance. We shall take this aspect of the problem of creation also into account before we proceed, at the end of the Chapter, to say what the theistic idea of creation in the Upanishads was, especially in the account given by the Śvetāśvataropanishad.

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3. To begin with the elements as constituting the φύσις of things, we have first to take into account the theory in the Bṛhadāraṇyakopanishad which tells us almost in Thalesian fashion that water was the source of all things whatsoever: “In the beginning, verily, the Waters alone existed; from the Waters was born Satya or Truth; Satya produced Brahman, Brahman gave birth to Prajāpati, and from Prajāpati were born the gods; these gods worship Satya alone" (S. 2. a). In this passage we are told not that the Ātman or any personal Being existed originally, but that the waters were the first to exist, and that everything later came from them. It is curious to note also that Brahman is here declared to have been created from Satya, which means that we have not to understand the word Brahman in the sense of primal reality as we understand it later. Then, again, when it is said that Satya was born from Water, we have to understand by Satya the ultimate "concrete" existent. We are also told that the Satyam consists of three syllables: the first is Sa, the second is Ti, and the third is Yam, the first and the last being real, and the second unreal (S. 2. b). Freely interpreted, this passage would mean that unreality is enclosed on both sides by reality: the present moment which is evanescent is enclosed on both sides by an eternity which is real: we move from eternity to eternity, halting for a short while in the caravansary of the present; and it is wonderful to notice that the whole of the "Satyam" has been supposed to have come out of the primeval waters. This is almost Thalesian, for Thales regarded water as the origin of all things and his philosophy did not need the hypothesis of a God as responsible for the creation of Water, unlike the Genesis which required the spirit of God to move upon the face of the primeval waters, or unlike Manu who said that water was only the first existence that was created by God. The Bṛihadāraṇyakopanishad, like Thales, regards Water as the origin of all things whatsoever, disposing of a belief in God as the creator of the Water itself.

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4. After water comes air. Raikva, who holds the theory of air as the final “absorbent” of things, and therefore probably as the origin of them, has an interesting story connected with him. Once upon a time, we are told, king Jānaśruti was wandering in a forest when he happened to overhear the conversation between two swans. One of these swans said to the other, just as all the lower throws of dice merge in the highest throw, that is, pass to the winner, similarly all the good things that people do in the world pass to the sage Raikva, the philosopher with the car. Now Jānaśruti was so astonished at the conversation, that he at once sent his attendant to inquire and return to him with the knowledge as to where this sage Raikva dwelt. The attendant, after having visited different places, found out Raikva who was scratching his itch beneath a car, and then returned to his master to tell him that he had found out Raikva. King Jānaśruti went to Raikva with a number of cows, a gold necklace and a chariot drawn by a she-mule, and prayed to the Sage to teach him what god he worshipped. The sage Raikva replied that he had no business with the cows, the necklace and the chariot of the Śūdra king, and advised him to return. King Jānaśruti returned, but went back again to the Sage with the cows, the golden necklace, the chariot, as well as his beautiful daughter; whereupon, the sage Raikva seemed to be satisfied, and having lifted the beautiful daughter’s face towards himself, said, “Verily, O Śūdra, you are making me speak on account of this face,” and then he imparted to the king the knowledge which he possessed, namely that he believed that the Air was the final absorbent of all things. “When fire is extinguished it goes to the air, when the sun sets it goes to the air, when the moon sets it goes to the air, when the waters dry up, they go to the air : thus verily is Air the final absorbent of all things whatsoever ” (S. 3). In this way did the sage Raikva with his car, who reminds us singularly of Diogenes with his tub, tell king Jānaśruti that Air was the end of all things. The logical conclusion from such a position is that if air be the end of all things, it may also be regarded as the beginning of them. In fact, Raikva’s philosophy is like that of Anaximenes, the Greek philosopher, who taught that air was both the beginning and the end of all things : only Raikva does not say definitely that air is the φύσις, but only leaves us with the remark that air is the end of all things. This is indeed a very crude conception and has not much scientific value, because Raikva does not explain the actual process of the absorption of all things into air, as Anaximenes later explained both the origin and the end of all things in air by the processes of rarefaction and condensation. We must, however, praise Raikva for having had the boldness to regard Air as the final absorbent of all things, more particularly, of both Water and Fire, which according to other philosophers of his time, were regarded as constituting the φύσις of all things whatsoever.

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5. The theory of fire as the origin of all things is not maintained very explicitly in the Upanishads ; but there is a passage in the Kaṭhopanishad whcih tells us that Fire, having entered the universe assumed all forms (S. 4. a), which is almost equivalent to the Heracleitean formula that Fire is exchanged for all things and all things for Fire. On the other hand, in the Chhāndogyopanishad, we are told that Fire was the first to evolve from the primeval Being, and that from fire came water, and from water the earth (S. 4. b). It is interesting to note that in this passage the Heracleitean idea of the Way Up and the Way Down is also brought in, inasmuch as it is maintained that from fire is born water and from water earth, while, counter-logically, at the time of dissolution, the earth may be dissolved in water, the water in fire, and the fire in the Primeval Being. It is rather difficult for any philosopher to hold the opinion that fire is the origin of all things, inasmuch as it seems evident that fire burns up all, and is therefore a fit instrument for the process of a general ἐκπύρωσις, and it is not difficult to deduce from the theory advanced in the Chhāndogyopanishad the idea of a periodic conflagration of things. The difference, however, between the Chhāndogyopanishad and Heracleitus is that while Heracleitus regards Fire as the very origin of all things, the Chhāndogyopanishad makes Fire the first evolute from the primeval Being; while the Chhāndogyopanishad does not insist upon the idea of change, of which Fire seems to be the very type to the change-loving mind of the Ephesian philosopher.

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6. When we come to Pravāhaṇa Jaivali’s doctrine of space as the origin of all things, we come to a much higher conception than has yet been reached in the schemes of the foregoing philosophers. Even in Greek philosophy, the conception of space as the “archē” of things came very late in the development of thought. With Thales, Anaximenes, Heracleitus and Empedocles we meet with the conceptions of water, air, fire, earth, either individually or collectively. It is only when we come to the time of Philolaus, that, according to Aristotle’s evidence, we get to the notion of space as the “archē” of all things. Fire, air, water and earth are more or less tangible; but “space” to be regarded as the “archē” of all things requires a higher philosophical imagination. When Pravāhaṇa Jaivali was asked what was the final habitat of all things, he answered it was Space. “All these beings emerge from space and are finally absorbed in space; space is verily greater than any of these things; space is the final habitat” (S. 5. a). This passage from the Chhāndogyopanishad is corroborated by another passage from the same Upanishad in which we are told that “space is really higher than fire. In space are both the sun and the moon, the lightning and the stars. It is by space that man is able to call.....In space and after space are all things born. Meditate upon Space as the highest reality” (S. 5. b). According to these passages from the Chhāndogyopanishad, then, we must regard space as a higher entity than any of the conceptions that have been hitherto reached.

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7. There are certain passages in the Upanishads which teach that Not-Being, τό ὄν, was the primary existent. The Taittirīyopanishad tells us that “at the beginning of all things what existed was Not-Being. From it was born Being. Being shaped itself of its own accord. It is thus that it is called well-made or self-made” (S. 6). Commentators on this passage who do not want a privative conception like not-Being to be the “archē” of all things, rightly understand this passage to signify that at the very beginning of things it was “as if” nothing existed and not that not-Being was verily the first concrete existent, and that it was from such a semblance of non-existence that Being was created. We could very well conceive how philosophers like Śaṅkarāchārya who believe in an Ultimate Being would explain such a passage; but it must be remembered that in this agnostic conception of a primal nonexistent, the Taittirīyopanishad is anticipated by that famous Sūkta in the Ṛgveda, which is called after its opening words, the Nāsadīya Sūkta, which tells us that at the beginning of all things, there was neither Being nor not-Being, but that what existed was only an ocean of Night (RV. X. 129). It must be remembered that the conception of a primary Void or Night is to be met with even in Greek philosophy in the theory of Epimenides. A passage from the Bṛhadāraṇyakopanishad also tells us that "in the beginning of all things, verily nothing was existent but that everything was covered by Death or Hunger, for Hunger is verily Death. Death made up his mind, let me have a Self, and thus worshipping, he began to move. From his worship were born the waters. The froth of the waters solidified, and became the earth. Death toiled on the earth, and as a result of his toil, fire was produced" (S. 7). Here we have the origin of the elements water, earth, and fire from primeval Not-Being, call it either Death or Hunger, or equate it, if you please, with the Void or Night of Greek philosophy. In any case, it seems to be implied in such passages that there is a stage in the development of human thought, when finding it impossible to grapple with any concrete existence, it is compelled to take recourse to a privative logical conception like Not-Being, from which even positive Being comes to be later explained. Even in such highly developed systems of philosophy as those of Plato and Aristotle, we have the recognition of a Not-Being, and it cannot be gainsaid that at least for the purposes of logic the existence of Not-Being has to be taken account of even in positive constructions of philosophy. When, on the other hand, philosophers like Gorgias try to prove that there is a real Not-Being as contrasted with the Being of Parmenides, we must suppose that they are doing so merely for the purposes of eristic; for by what other name shall we call that process by which from the equational fact of Not-Being being Not-Being, they deduce the existence of Not-Being, from which, contrariwise, they try to prove that Being does not exist? We need not be concerned with such an eristic philosophy like that of Gorgias, but we must needs take into account the recognition of Not-Being in philosophies of positive construction like those of Plato and Aristotle. It was in this sense, it seems to us, that the passages from the Taittirīyopanishad and the Bṛhadāraṇyakopanishad are to be explained, and by Not-Being we must understand not absolute Not-Being but only relative Not-Being, the primal semblance of existence as contrasted with later concrete existence.

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8. There is however, an interesting side to the theory of Not-Being as the "archē" of all things. The Chhāndogyopanishad connects the philosophy of Not-Being with the myth of the Universal Egg. We are told in the Upanishad that "what existed in the beginning was Not-Being. It then converted itself into Being. It grew and became a vast egg. It lay in that position for the period of a year, and then it broke open. Its two parts were, one of gold and the other of silver. The silvery part became the earth, and the golden part became the heaven. The thick membrane of the egg became the mountains; the thin membrane became the clouds; the arteries of the egg became the rivers of the world; the fluid in its interior became the ocean; while what came out of the egg was the Sun. When the Sun was born, shouts of hurrah arose" (S. 8). Readers of comparative mythology need scarcely be reminded as to how similar the myth from the Chhāndogyopanishad is to corresponding myths in Babylonian, Egyptian, Phœnician, Persian, and Greek mythologies. In Greece, we know, how in the Orphic cosmogony, Chronos and Adrastea produced a gigantic egg which divided in the midst, and with its upper half formed the sky, and with the lower the earth, and how out of the egg came Phanes, the shining God, containing within himself the germs of all the other gods. It is interesting to note that behind Chronos and Adrastea, as we have them in this myth, are ideas of time and necessity respectively. The word Ἀδράστεια occurs in Greek literature so far back as the 8th century B.C.; and it is customary to derive it from διδράσκω and take it as signifying "that which is not inclined to run away." May we venture to make a suggestion that the word Adrastea seems very much to be the Greek counterpart of the Sanskrit "Adṛṣṭa" which also signifies necessity? One does not know how, but it seems probable that, the idea of Adṛṣṭa was conveyed to the Greek people at a time when the Greek and the Indian Aryans lived together. To return to our argument, however, the myth of the Sun coming out of the egg has parallels in the mythologies of many ancient peoples; but the creation of this egg from a primeval Non-existent seems to be peculiar to the Indian myth as we have it in the Chhāndogyopanishad. We must notice also that just as the universe was regarded by the Upanishadic sages as a huge egg, similarly it also came to be regarded as "a huge chest with the earth as its bottom and the heavens as its upper lid, the sky as its inside and the quarters as its corners, containing in its inside a rich treasure" (S. 9). We are noting here this alternative conception of the universe regarded as a huge cubical chest merely for the purpose of contrasting it with the universe regarded as a great spherical egg, though it has got nothing to do with the philosophy of Not-Being.

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9. After the conception of Not-Being as the "archē" of things we come to the conception of Being. A passage from the Chhāndogyopanishad tells us directly that Being alone existed at the beginning of things. It takes to task those who suppose that the primeval Existent must be regarded as Not-Being, and that Being must be regarded as having been produced therefrom. "How could it possibly be so," asks the Upanishad, "how could Being come out of Not-Being, existence from non-existence? It is necessary for us to suppose that at the beginning verily all this was Being, and it was alone and without a second. This Primeval Being reflected, let me be many, let me produce; having bethought thus to itself, it produced fire. Fire thought, let me be many, let me produce; and it produced water. Water thought, let me be many, let me produce; and it produced the Earth (food or matter)" (S. 10. a). "The Primeval Being then thought, verily I am now these three deities. Let me enter into them by my Self, and unfold both Name and Form. Let me make each of them three-fold and three-fold" (S. 10. b). "It thus comes about that what we call the red colour in a flame belongs really to fire. Its white colour is that of water and its black colour belongs to the earth. Thus does vanish the flame-ness of a flame. The flame is indeed only a word, a modification and a name, while what really exists is the three colours.

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What we call the red colour in the Sun, is really the colour of fire, its white colour is the colour of water, its black colour is the colour of the earth. Thus verily vanishes the sunness of the Sun. The Sun is only a word, a modification and a name. What really exists is the three colours. Thus likewise does depart the moon-ness of the moon, and the lightning-ness of the lightning. What really exists is the three colours only" (S. 10. c). It is interesting to note in these passages, in the first place, that the primeval existent is regarded as Being, and is described as being one without a second. In the second place, we see how from this primeval Being is produced the three-fold Prakṛti which we might call "tejobannātmikā" Prakṛti, that is consisting of fire, water, and earth. Then, thirdly, it must be noted that the Chhāndogyopanishad teaches us definitely the doctrine of "trivṛitkaraṇa" which is the Upanishadic prototype of the "pañchīkaraṇa" of later Vedānta.

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Just as in the Vedāntic theory of pañchīkaraṇa, out of the five original elements, fire, air, water, earth, and space, half of each element was regarded as being kept intact, while the other half was regarded as being divided into four equal different parts, four such parts from the different elements one after another going to make up a half, which in combination with the half of the original element made up one transformed evolute of the original element, similarly, in the case of the Upanishadic trivṛitkaraṇa each of the three original elements namely fire, water and earth is to be regarded as being divided into two equal portions, one half being kept intact, while the other half is divided into two equal portions, the two quarters of the two other elements in combination with the one-half of the original element making up a transformed evolute of the original element. This idea of the mixture of the elements in the Upanishads is a very interesting one from the point of view of its analogy with a similar idea in the philosophy of Anaxagoras who taught that there was a portion of everything in everything, and thus that the elements came to be mixed with each other and gave rise to transformed products.

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Then, fourthly, we must remember that the Chhāndogyopanishad tells us that there are three different colours belonging to the three different elements namely the red, the white and the black, which it must be noted were later borrowed by the Sāmkhya philosophy and made to constitute the three different colours corresponding to the three different qualities of the Sāmkhya Prakriti. Finally, the Chhāndogyopanishad tells us that what really exists is the three different colours, or the three different elements, while all such objects of nature as, the sun, the moon, and the lightning, which are constituted out of the three original elements or colours are merely words or names or modificatory appearances of the original elements. In the spirit of an extreme nominalism, the Chhāndogyopanishad tries to reduce all later products to mere semblance or appearance, while it keeps the door open for the real existence of the three elements alone, all of them having been born from the Primeval Being—a sort of a philosophical trinitarian monism!

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**10. Prana.** When we come to the conception of Prāna as the φύσις of things, we rise to a higher conception than was reached in Greek philosophy. Prāna originally meant breath; and as breath seemed to constitute the life of man, Prāna came to signify the life-principle; and just as the life-principle in man came to be called Prāna, similarly the life-principle in the universe came also to be designated Prāna. By Prāna is thus meant either life-force or cosmic-force. When Ushasti Chākrāyana was asked in the Chhāndogyopanishad what might be regarded as the ultimate substratum of all things, he said it was Prāna: for “verily it is into Prāṇa that all these beings enter and it is from Prāṇa that they originally spring" (S. 11. a). Of the same import is the doctrine of Raikva in the Chhāndogyopanishad when he tries to bring out a correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm, and when he says that just as air is the life-principle of the universe—a theory which we have already noticed—similarly breath is the life-principle in man. "Prāṇa is verily the final absorbent; for when man sleeps, his speech is reduced into Prāṇa, his eye and his ear and his mind are all absorbed in Prāṇa. It is Prāṇa which is the final absorbent of all these things" (S. 11. b). "We may thus say," says Raikva," that there are these two absorbents; one in the macrocosm and the other in the microcosm, the one being Air, and the other being Prāṇa" (S. 11. c). Having recognised this supremacy of Prāṇa, the Chhāndogyopanishad, in the doctrine which Sanatkumāra imparts to Nārada, has no difficulty in maintaining that, "just as all the spokes of a wheel are centred in its navel, similarly all these beings, and in fact, everything that exists is centred in Prāṇa" (S. 12. a). Prāṇa may thus be regarded as the very navel of existence. The philosopher Kaushītaki tells us that "Prāṇa is the ultimate Reality, the mind being its messenger, the eye the protector, the ear the informant, and the speech the tire-woman. To this Prāṇa as the Ultimate Reality, all these beings make offerings, without Prāṇa having ever sought them" (S. 12. b). We thus see in a general way how Prāṇa comes to be recognised as superior to all the organs of sense in the human system.

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11. There are, however, one or two classical passages in the Upanishads which tell us in the language of myth the supremacy of Prāṇa. It was once resolved, we are told in the Chhāndogyopanishad, by the senses of man to decide which of them was supreme, and for that reason they went to Prajāpati, their Creator. The Creator replied that that sense might be regarded as the sovereign of them all, which after departing leaves the body powerless and in a pitiable condition, upon which the senses resolved to run the race for supremacy. Speech was the first to go out of the body, and having lived outside for a year, came back and wondered how the body could exist in spite of its absence. It was told that the body lived like a dumb man not speaking, but breathing with the breath, seeing with the eye, hearing with the ear, and thinking with the mind, upon which speech returned. Then the organ of vision departed, and having lived outside for a year, came back and wondered how the body could live in spite of its absence. It was told that the body lived like a blind man not seeing, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the mouth, hearing with the ear, and thinking with the mind, upon which the eye re-entered. Then the organ of audition departed, and having lived outside for a year, came back and wondered how the body could still exist in spite of its absence.

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It was told that the body lived like a deaf man not hearing, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the mouth, seeing with the eye, and thinking with the mind, upon which the ear returned. Then the mind went out, and having lived outside for a year, returned and wondered how the body could still exist in spite of its absence. It was told that the body lived like a child without mind, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the mouth, seeing with the eye, and hearing with the ear, upon which the mind re-entered. Then, finally, when the breath was on the point of departing, it tore up the other senses as a well-bred horse might tear up the pegs to which it is tethered. Then the organs of sense assembled together and said to: Prāṇa, ‘Sir, thou art our lord; depart not from us’; and the tongue said to the Prāṇa, ‘if I am richest, it is really thou that art richest’; and the eye said, ‘if I am the support, it is really thou that art the support’; and the ear said, ‘if I am wealth, it is really thou that art wealth’; and the mind said, ‘if I am the final abode, it is really thou that art the final abode’. It is for this reason that people have declared the primacy not of the organs of sense, of the speech, or the eye, or the ear, or the mind, but of breath. ‘For the breath is verily all these’ (S. 13. a).

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This passage in the Chhāndogyopanishad is probably the earliest and the most classical as illustrating the controversy between the organs of sense and Prāṇa, and the resulting supremacy of Prāṇa over the organs. With a little variation, the same story occurs in the Kaushītaki Upanishad (II. 14), which, being so much the later, we are not much concerned as merely repeating for us the story of the Chhāndogyopanishad. But there are one or two points in the story of the controversy of the Senses and Prāṇa in the Praśnopanishad which we cannot leave unnoticed. There, in the first place, the elements namely space, wind, fire, water, and earth join hands with the organs of sense, namely, speech, mind, eye and ear in the controversy with Prāṇa. In the second place, we must note the two similies employed in the Praśnopanishad. The body is there called Bāṇa, which, as Max Müller suggests, may well be taken to mean a harp, and the elements as well as the organs of sense contend that they have the power to uphold this harp and to modulate it. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice the description of the body in the Praśnopanishad as a harp, which is almost Pythagorean or Platonic. Then again when Prāṇa wants to go out, it is compared to the queen-bee, which, when it goes out, is accompanied by all the bees that move after it, and which, when it is back, is likewise followed by the bees that re-forthwith.

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Thirdly, there is an almost henotheistic worship of Prāṇa by the organs of sense in the Praśnopanishad where it is regarded not merely as the sovereign of the organs of sense, but also as the sovereign of the deities of the universe. It is thus that Prāṇa comes to be identified with Agni, with Sūrya, with Parjanya, with Vāyu, with Being, as well as Not-Being; and in the spirit of the prayer offered in the Chhāndogyopanishad, here also the Prāṇa is requested not to move out, as it is the Prāṇa which informs, and is immanent in, the organs of sense, such as speech and hearing and vision, as well as mind (S. 13. b).

12. Prāṇa, a bio-psycho-metaphysical conception

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In the account of Prāṇa which we find in the Kaushitaki Upanishad there are certain noticeable features which do not occur either in the Chhāndogyopanishad or the Praśnopanishad. In the first place, Prāṇa is directly identified with life (Āyuḥ). This is as much as to say that life exists so long as Prāṇa exists and life departs as soon as Prāṇa departs. Then again, Prāṇa is identified with consciousness (Prajñā). It is interesting to note that consciousness is here distinguished from life as the higher category of existence. There may be forms of life without consciousness; but wherever there is consciousness there must be life; and the aki Upanishad seems to recognise this difference and describes Prāṇa not merely as the principle of life but as the principle of consciousness also. Then, thirdly, the Upanishad identifies Prāṇa with the Atma, the Ultimate Reality, which is ageless and immortal, which does not increase by good actions nor diminish by bad actions (§. 14). It thus comes about that Prāṇa is life from the biological point of view, consciousness from the psychological point of view, and Ātman from the metaphysical point of view. This is verily a philosophical apotheosis of Prāṇa.

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13. We now come to the personalistic theories of creation. Hitherto we have discussed theories which regard either or all of the elements, namely fire, air, water, earth and space, or even such privative conceptions as Not-Being or Night or Hunger or Death, or even such an abstract metaphysical conception as Being, or finally the highly developed bio-psycho-metaphysical conception of Prāṇa, as the φύσις of things. We must note that in all these theories of creation, no creator with a personal existence is brought in for the purposes of creation. We have a more or less naturalistic account of cosmogenesis. On the other hand, in the theories which we are now about to discuss, we shall have to take account of the personal element in creation. In the Praśnopanishad we are told by Pippalāda that at the beginning of creation, the creator became desirous of creating, and, with that end in view, practised penance, and after having practised penance, first created a pair namely Rayi and Prāṇa, corresponding respectively to matter and spirit, with the intention of creating all existence whatsoever from them. While we must give credit to Pippalāda for having conceived the notion of a duality of primary existences, Rayi and Prāṇa, almost in the spirit of Aristotle's Matter and Form, the application which Pippalāda makes of his twofold principle is rather amusing. The moon is matter, he says, while the sun is spirit; the path of the fathers is matter, while the path of the gods is spirit; the dark half of the month is matter, while the bright half is spirit; night is matter, while day is spirit. It was in this way that the Creator was able to create all the dual existence whatsoever in the world (S. 15. a). In a similar spirit does the Taittirīyopanishad tell us that "the Creator at the beginning of things practised penance, and having practised penance, created all things that exist, and having created them entered into them, and having enered into them, became himself both the manifest and the unmanifest, the defined and the undefined, the supported and the unsupported, the conscious and the unconscious, the true and the false" (S. 15. b). Though the Taittirīyopanishad agrees with the Praśnopanishad in positing a Creator who at the beginning of things was required to practise penance, still it differs from it in substituting the philosophical duality of the defined and the undefined, the conscious and the unconscious, the true and the false, instead of the mythological duality of the Praśnopanishad, namely, the dark half of the month and the bright half of the month, the path of the fathers and the path of the gods, night and day, the moon and the sun, and the rest. But it is evident that in the two passages we have been considering, we have the idea of a Creator introduced, which enables us to say that these passages logically mark an advance over the earlier ones which give merely an impersonalistic account of creation.

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14. Another explanation of the duality of existence, this time of the duality of sex, occurs in the Bṛhadāraṇyakopanishad, where we are told that "the Atman alone existed in the beginning of things.

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and he had the form of man.....He first said to himself, I am He, and it was for this reason that he came to be called I. It is for this reason also that when a man is asked who he is, he first replies it is I, and then he gives out his name.....This Ātman was afraid; it is for that reason that when a man is alone, he fears. Then the Ātman began to reflect, why should I fear if there is nothing existing beside me, of which I might be afraid; it was thus that all fear departed from him.....It is said verily that fear proceeds only from a second. But the Ātman could not still find satisfaction; for that reason it is that when a man is alone, he does not find satisfaction. The Ātman therefore wished for a second,......and having divided himself into two halves, became both the husband and the wife, man as well as woman. The woman began to reflect, 'how having generated me from himself, he seeks intercourse with me?' 'Let me hide myself' she said, and so she became a cow; the Ātman, however, became a bull and had intercourse with her. .....She became a mare, while he became a horse. She became a she-ass, and the other became a he-ass and had intercourse with her. It was thus that both the male and the female creatures were created by the Ātman up to the very ants. All these were created by him" (S. 16). It must be noted, as we have pointed out above, that this passage gives us an explanation of the generation of the duality of sex from the Ātman in the organic world, but it yet leaves the inorganic generation entirely unexplained.

15. Creation by Atman through the Intermediary Person

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A very much more elaborate explanation of the generation of all the objects in the universe is offered in the Aitareyopanishad, which we might very well regard as giving us the fullest account of the fact of creation in the Upanishads. We are told there, that in the beginning the Ātman alone existed, and that there was no other blinking thing whatsoever. The Ātman thought to himself, let me create the worlds; whereupon he created the four worlds, namely those of the super-celestial region of waters, the heavens with their celestial lights, the mortal earth, and the subterranean region of waters. It was thus that the heaven and the earth were encompassed on the upper and the nether sides by regions of water. After these worlds were created, the Ātman proceeded to create first a World-Person—an intermediate entity subsisting between the Ātman, the primary reality, and the Universe, the object of later creation—whom he fashioned out of waters, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. It is interesting to note in passing that this is the only analogue in the Upanishadic cosmogonies to the conception of Logos in Greek or Christian philosophy, but it must be remembered that this Logos in the Upanishadic philosophy plays quite a subservient and secondary part to the Ātman. The Ātman then brooded upon this World-Person, and as a result of his brooding, created first his various organs of sense, then the functions corresponding to them, and lastly the deities or the world-governors corresponding to such functions in the Cosmos.

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He first created the Mouth from which proceeded Speech, and from Speech, Fire.
He created the Nostrils from which proceeded Breath, and from Breath, Air.
He created the Eyes from which proceeded Sight, and from Sight, the Sun.
He created the Ears from which proceeded Hearing, and from Hearing, the Quarters.

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He created the Skin from which proceeded Hair, and from Hair, the Herbs and Trees. He created the Heart from which proceeded Mind, and from Mind, the Moon. He created the Navel from which proceeded the Down-Breath, and from Down-Breath, Death. Finally, he created the Generative Organ from which proceeded Semen, and from Semen, Water.”

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It is interesting to note that in this explanation of the creation of various categories of existence, the function always follows the structure in the microcosm of the intermediary Person, but always precedes it in the macrocosm of the Universe. Thus the organs of sense, such as the mouth, the nostrils, the eye and the ear were created in the Person before their functions namely, speech, breath, sight, and hearing, which having been created were the cause of the creation of objective existences such as fire, air, the sun and the quarters in the macrocosm of the Universe. The Ātman thereupon attacked the Person with Hunger and Thirst, which, in the Aitareyan cosmogony, reminds us of Love and Hate in Empedoklean cosmology. Hunger and Thirst said to the Ātman, find us places in this creation. The Ātman replied to them that he would find them places in the deities themselves, and thus he made them co-partners with them. It is for this reason that whenever any offerings are made to a deity, Hunger and Thirst are always allotted a share in those offerings. After the creation in this fashion of the Worlds, the Cosmic Person, the World-governors, and Hunger and Thirst, the Ātman next proceeded to create Matter as food for them all, ......which being created, the Ātman finally proceeded to create the Soul in the human body. ‘How shall this body live without me ?', he thought to himself, ' but how may I enter this ?' Having thus bethought himself, he rent open the place where the hair are made to part, and entered by that door. This is called the " door of division ". This also is the " place of rejoicing ". It is at that place that women part their hair. It is at that place that on the skulls of children we see a hole. It is on that spot that when a Saṃnyāsin dies, a cocoanut is broken with the purpose of releasing his pent-up Soul. To come to our argument, when the Ātman entered the body by the door of division, and was so born as the individual Soul, he began to be subject, so the Aitareyopanishad tells us, to the three states of consciousness, namely, the waking, the dreaming and the deep-sleep state of consciousness. After having been born, the individual Soul began to look about himself at all things to see whether they proclaimed a *ἕτερος*, but to his great astonishment only saw the supreme Brahman spread everywhere. It is for the reason that the individual Soul saw (drā) the Brahman (Idam) spread everywhere that he is called Idandra, which by contraction has become Indra, a mysterious name given to the Godhead by the mystery-loving gods (S. 17). We thus see how the individual Soul was the last object to be created by the Ātman and how ultimately there is a metaphysical identity between the individual Soul and the supreme Soul.

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16. So far we have had more or less mythological explanations of the creation of objects from the primeval Ātman. We have said at the beginning of the chapter that there are a few descriptions in the Upanishads which come very near to full-fledged theories of creation. But before we proceed to these accounts, we must consider briefly how in the

Atman and the theory of Emanation

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Taittirīyopanishad we have an emantaory theory of cosmogony where we are told that " from the Ātman, in the first instance, proceeded space, from space air, from air fire, from fire water, and from water the earth " (S. 18). This is a complete enumeration of the five different Elements which are described as having proceeded one after another from the primeval Ātman, who, to all intents and purposes, is described in the passage as not playing any very active part in creation. It is important to remember that the expression that is used in the passage to designate the fact of emanation is Sambhutiḥ. From the Ātman emanated Space, and from Space in the course of progressive generation the rest of the Elements. We are not told that the Ātman " created " Space, and from Space created Air, and so on. It is also important to notice in this passage the ὁδὸς ἄνω and the ὁδὸς κάτω. At the time of the origin of the universe, from the Ātman proceeded space, and from space air, from air fire, from fire water and from water the earth : this is the Way Down. At the time of destruction, counter-logically, the earth would be resolved in water, water in fire, fire in air, air in space, and space in the eternal Ātman : this is the Way Up. In general, we may say that the passage from the Taittirīyopanishad which we are discussing is very significant for us, first, as enumerating most definitely for the first time in the whole region of Upanishadic literature the five different Elements ; secondly, for having introduced the Heracleitean conception of the Way Up and the Way Down; thirdly, for the theory of emanation as apposed to creation implied in it ; and lastly, for the realistic trend of its argument which has been a standing crux to all absolutistic interpreters of Upanishadic philosophy, who would try to reduce everything except the Ātman to an appearance or illusion.

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17. The Muṇḍakopanishad offers a connecting link between such an emanatory theory of creation and a theistic theory as in the Śvetaśvatara which we shall presently discuss by suggesting a personal-impersonal theory of the origin of the universe and telling us that “at the beginning of creation, there existed a heavenly Formless Person who was unborn, without a mind, lustrous, and super-immutable. From him were born life, mind, senses, space, air, light, water, and earth, which last is the basis of the universe.....From him also were born gods of various descriptions, angels, men, beasts, and birds. From him were born rice and barley, penance and faith, truth, celibacy, and religious law .....He was likewise the source of all the oceans and mountains, the rivers which run to and fro, the herbs and trees, and the essence which runs through them, by which verily the inner Soul holds them all together” (S. 19). In this way were all earthly and celestial existences, all organic and inorganic nature, all moral and psychological qualities born from the primeval Person, who is yet described as formless and beyond even what we call the immutable. Even this account of the origin of the universe from the primeval Person is not entirely untainted by mythological considerations; but it stands much higher than any of the afore-discussed theories, and approaches the truly theistic theory of creation which accounts for the creation of all sorts of existences by the primeval Person. The truly theistic tinge, however, is yet lacking, because the passage from the Muṇḍakopanishad which we are discussing describes the Person as impersonal and speaks of emanation (Syandante) or generation (Jāyate) instead of creation proper.

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18. This entirely personal setting for the supreme Godhead is to be found in the Śvetāśvataropanishad. It is true that the Śvetāśvataropanishad was written in the interest of a Śaivite theory of theism; but if we just divest our minds of this sectarian aspect and equate the god Śiva of the Śvetāśvataropanishad with the supreme Godhead, which has, in fact, been done in many places by the Śvetāśvataropanishad itself, we may see how the Śvetāśvataropanishad tries philosophically to account for the creation of the world by the Godhead by the method of construction through criticism of the various extant opinions on the subject of the origin of the world. The passage from the Śvetāśvataropanishad I. 2 makes a classical enumeration of the various opinions held at the time of the Upanishad on the subject of the origin of the world. "Some people say", says the Upanishad, "that it is Time, others Nature, others Necessity, others Chance, others the Elements, others yet the Person, still others the Combination of these, and yet a few others the Ātman, which is the cause of all things whatsoever" (S. 20. a). The Śvetāśvataropanishad in the course of its chapters criticises all these theories and puts forth a constructive programme of Śaivite theism in explanation of the origin of the universe. We cannot say, says the Śvetāśvataropanishad, that Time is the origin of all things, for, is not God, it asks, the very Time of Time, or as another Upanishad puts it, Death to the very God of Death? (S. 20. b). We cannot try to explain the origin of the world from Nature, says the Śvetāśvataropanishad; for is not Nature itself brought to maturity by the presence of God inside it? (S. 20. c). Nor can we say that Necessity and Chance are the origin of things: they are either too fatalistic or too unphilosophical ways for the explanation of creation. The Ele-

The Theistic theory of Creation in Svetas-vatara

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ments cannot be regaded as the "archē" of things, for the elements are merely the garment of God, and it is due to His supreme skill in work that earth, water, fire, air and space were created (S. 20. d). Nor can we say that the Combination of all these elements is a veritable "archē," because for these to be combined, we must have an eternal Being who is the primal cause of their combination (S. 20. e). Nor can we finally say that either the Purusha of the Sāmkhyas, who is too free from creation to be ever regarded as responsible for it, or the Ātman of the Vedāntins, who is really a powerless Being if we just consider that he is the cause of happiness as well as of sorrow, can be regarded as responsible for creation. Rudra alone who rules the world by his powers, who stands before every being at the time of destruction, and creates the universe at the time of its origin, can be regarded as the Creator of all things that exist. He is the supreme Godhead, to whose power is due the whirling round of the wheel of the universe (S. 20. f). He is the supreme cause, the lord of all Souls; of him there is neither generator nor protector; he is the self-subsisting mover of the unmoving manifold, and causes the one primal seed to sprout in infinite ways (S. 20. g). In this manner does the Śvetāśvataropanishad advance a truly philosophic theory of creation, in which all power is ultimately due to a personal Godhead who causes the whole universe to move round his finger—" Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse."

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