A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.3

c5.3

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.