A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.8

c5.8

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.