A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.s2.1

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.