A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.10.4

c5.10.4

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!