A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.9

c5.9

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.