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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.s2: 15. Creation by Atman through the Intermediary Person

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.s2

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15. Creation by Atman through the Intermediary Person

c5.s2.1

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.

c5.s2.2

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.

c5.s2.3

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.”

c5.s2.4

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.

c5.s2.5

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

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