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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6: Chapter III. Varieties of Psychological Reflection

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6

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Contents

Chapter III. Varieties of Psychological Reflection

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1. If we were to consider the date at which the Upanishadic seers lived in India, we would be surprised to find that they could have to their credit such an amount of psychological reflection. The Upanishadic seers were foremost in their age in philosophical reflection in general, and psychological reflection in particular. The three departments of their speculation in the field of Psychology may be classified as the Empirical, the Abnormal, and the Rational; and even though their Empirical Psychology was less developed than the Abnormal, and the Abnormal less than the Rational, we would have to take account of their speculation in all these fields before we could adjudge the value of their psychological reflection as a whole.

I—Empirical Psychology

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2. We must, however, bear in mind that Empirical Psychology is a science of recent growth, and thus we must not expect to find a full-fledged empirical investigation of mental science in the days of the Upanishads. We must, on the contrary, be content with what little information is supplied to us under that head in the various Upanishads. The Upanishadic philosophers believed that the mind for its formation was dependent upon alimentation. The mind was supposed to be manufactured out of the food that we take (S. I. a). "The food that we eat", says a passage, "is transformed in three different ways: the heaviest part of it becomes the excrement, that of medium density is transformed into flesh, and the subtlest part goes to form the mind" (S. i.b). "Just as in the churning of curds, the subtlest part rises up and is transformed into butter, so when food is eaten, the subtlest part rises up and is transformed into mind" (S. i. c). Later, even in the days of the Bhagavadgītā, we find that the three different mental temperaments, the Sāttvika, the Rājasa, and the Tāmasa were supposed to be due to the different kinds of food that we eat (XVII.8-10). When once it was believed that the qualities of the food consumed formed the quality of the mind of the consumer, it was natural to insist, in the interest of the highest morality, upon a kind of katharsis in alimentation. "When the food is pure," says a passage (S. 2), "the whole nature becomes pure; when the nature becomes pure, memory becomes firm; and when a man is in possession of a firm memory, all the bonds which tie a man down to the world become unloosed. It was because he (Nārada) had his impurity destroyed, that the venerable Sanatkumāra pointed out to him the way beyond darkness". The way which leads us beyond darkness, therefore, must be sought for in purity of alimentation, which involves in its train the purity of mind.

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3. One of the acute observations which these ancient seers made concerns the fact that in the process of attention we always hold our breath, and seem neither to breathe out nor to breathe in. When we speak, we neither expire nor inspire (S. 3. a). When we do an action which involves voluntary effort, as, for example, "producing fire by rubbing two sticks together, or running a race, or bending a bow and stringing it, we neither exhale, nor inhale" (S. 3. b). Our attention in such acts is concentrated on the action itself, and it cannot be diverted to such subsidiary processes as those of breathing out and breathing in. This is what in the Kaushitaki Upanishad is called the "inner sacrifice", which goes after the name of its discoverer, the sage Pratardana, and is called the Prātardana sacrifice. Pratardana said, that while a man is speaking, he is not able to breathe, and therefore may be said to sacrifice his breath in his speech; on the contrary, while a man is breathing, he is not able to speak, and may be said to sacrifice his speech in his breath. "These two endless and immortal oblations," said Pratardana, "man offers always, whether waking or sleeping. All other oblations have an end, for they consist of works. Knowing this, the ancient sages did not offer the ordinary sacrifice" (S. 3. c). In this passage, a justification is found for not performing the ordinary sacrifice when one knows that an inner sacrifice is ever going on inside him.

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4. Another curious observation which these seers made may be mentioned in passing. This concerns the analysis of the emotion of fear. It is only when a feeling of otherness gains lodgment in us (S. 4. a) that we come to entertain the emotion of fear. The primeval Ātman feared, as he was alone; but "on finding out that there was no other person whom he should fear, he became fearless; for it is only from (the idea or existence of) a second that fear proceeds" (S. 4. b). It is in this way that all feeling of fear departs from a man who recognises his own true Self, because this recognition implies that beside his own true Self there is no other entity which might cause fear.

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5. Another very important point in connection with the psychology of the Upanishads is the conflict manifested in the Chhāndogya Upanishad beween the respective claims for primacy of the Will or the Intellect. Here we have in brief the indication of a future quarrel between Voluntarism and Intellectualism. The following passage most eloquently describes the stress which the seer first lays on Will as the primary reality: "All these therefore......centre in will, consist of will, abide in will. Heaven and earth willed, air and ether willed, water and fire willed. Through the will of heaven and earth, rain falls; through the will of rain, food wills; through the will of food, the vital airs will; through the will of the vital airs, the sacred hymns will; through the will of the sacred hymns, the sacrifices will; through the will of the sacrifices, the world wills; through the will of the world, every thing wills. This is Will. Meditate on Will. He who meditates on Will as Brahman......he is, as it were, lord and master as far as Will reaches—he who meditates on Will as Brahman" (S. 5). The seer of this Upanishad is evidently imbued with the all-pervading power of Will. It seems that this passage among others must have influenced the philosophy of that admirer of the Upanishads, Schopenhauer, who laid so much stress on Will as the Ding-an-sich. We may compare the following passage from The World as Will and Idea (Book I). "If we observe the strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the magnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be reunited, and which, like human desire, is increased by obstacles; if we see the crystal quickly take form with such wonderful regularity of construction,......if we observe the choice with which bodies repel and attract each other,......if we observe all this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination to recognize, even at so great a distance, our own nature. That, which in us pursues its ends by the light of knowledge, but here, in the weakest of its manifestations, only strives blindly and dumbly in a one-sided and unchangeable manner, must yet in both cases come under the name of Will." According to the doctrine which is common to this Upanishad and Schopenhauer, the whole world seems to be filled with the force of will; and "what appears as *motivation* in human beings is the same as what appears as *stimulation* in the vegetative life and as *mechanical process* in the inorganic world"—motivation, stimulation, and mechanical process being different manifestations of the same force of Will.

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6. As against this primacy of Will, the seer of the Chhāndogya Upanishad goes on in the very next section of that work to affirm the primacy of Intellect. The affirmation of Will is the thesis, to which the seer opposes the affirmation of Intellect as the antithesis: "Intellect is better than Will. For it is only when a man thinks that he wills..... All these centre in Intellect, consist of Intellect, abide in Intellect. Therefore, if a man does not think, even if he knows much, people say of him, he is nothing......But if a man thinks, even though he knows little, people indeed desire to listen to him.

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Intellect is the centre, Intellect is the self, Intellect is the support of all these. Meditate on Intellect. He who meditates on Intellect as Brahman ......... he is, as it were, lord and master as far as Intellect reaches—he who meditates on Intellect as Brahman" (S. 6. a). The seer of this Upanishad is here definitely asserting the supremacy of Intellect over Will: Voluntarism here makes way for Intellectualism. This conclusion is supported by another passage from the Maitri Upanishad, where the writer speaks of the mind in its reflective aspect as being the fount and source of all mental modifications whatsoever: "He (man) sees by the mind alone; he hears by the mind; and all that we call desire, will, doubt, belief, disbelief, resolution, irresolution, shame, thought, and fear,—all this is but mind itself" (S. 6. b).

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7. This intellectualistic way of thought finds its culmination in the Aitareya Upanishad, where, by a bold stroke of genius, the seer of that Upanishad makes a noteworthy classification of the various mental functions, at the basis of which, he says, lies Intellection. This passage is remarkable as being the earliest contribution to a classification of mental states: "Sensation, perception, ideation, conception, understanding, insight, resolution, opinion, imagination, feeling, memory, volition, conation, the will-to-live, desire, and self-control, all these are different names of Intellection" (S. 7). It is remarkable that the seer not merely mentions the different levels of intellectual experience such as sensation, perception, ideation, and conception, as different from one another, but also recognises the other two characteristic forms of experience, feeling and volition; makes a distinction between volition which need not involve the idea of activity, and conation which does; as well as recognises the processes of imagination and memory. Finally, the intellectualistic trend of thought in the seer is apparent from the way in which he makes Intellect the fount and source of all mental activity whatsoever.

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8. It is no wonder if this intellectualistic psychology makes room for an idealistic metaphysics. The intellectualistic seer of the Aitareya Upanishad is an idealist as well. In the very section that follows the one we have quoted, the author goes on to point out how Intellect is the backbone, not merely of psychical functions, but of reality itself: "This god Brahmā, and this god Indra,.........these five great elements (earth, air, ether, water, fire),.........creatures born from the egg, from the womb, and from perspiration, sprouting plants, horses, cows, men, elephants, whatsoever breathes whether moving or flying, and in addition whatsoever is immovable—all this is led by Intellect and is supported on Intellect. The world is led by Intellect. Intellect is the support. Intellect is the final reality" (S. 8. a). This is as outspoken an Idealism as Idealism can be. The author says that all the movable and immovable objects in this world, all those creatures which walk or fly, all the elements and gods exist by virtue of intellect and in intellect. This is in the very spirit of Berkeley who says in his "Treatise," "All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world have not any subsistence without a mind; that their being is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit:—it being perfectly unintelligible and involving all the absurdity of abstraction to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a Spirit". Of like import is the passage from the Maitri Upanishad which tells us that it is the inner self which governs "external" existence, that, in short, the inner Prāṇa is the source of the existence of the Sun—a knowledge, which, the passage says, is given only to a few (S. 8. b).

II—Abnormal Psychology

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9. We now pass on to consider the aspects of Abnormal Psychology as developed in the Upanishads. The question as to what becomes of a man's soul after the death of the body recurs time after time in the Upanishads. Not content with a discussion of man's life here below, the seers of the Upanishads make the eschatological question assume quite an extraordinary importance. The question is very often asked—what must be considered the root of human life? "The tree, if hewn down, springs anew from the previous root; what must be the root of a man's life in order that it may spring up again, even though hewn down by (the great cutter) Death" (S. 9. a). It is supposed, moreover, that eschatological knowledge is the highest kind of knowledge. Let nobody call himself wise unless he knows what becomes of a man after death. It was thus that the Sage Jaivali accosted Śvetaketu, the son of Aruṇi, and proved to him that even though he reckoned himself wise, he was after all merely an ignoramus :— “ Boy, has your father instructed you ? ” “ Yes, Sir.” “ Do you know where all the creatures go to from hence ? ” “ No, Sir.” “ Do you know how they return again ? ” “ No, Sir.” “ Do you know where the path of the gods and the path of the fathers diverge ? ” “ No, Sir.” “ Do you know why that (the other) world never becomes too full ? ” “ No, Sir.” “ Then, why did you say that you had been instructed? How can a man, who does not know these (simple) things, say that he has been instructed ? ” (S. 9. b).

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10. The most important passage, however, where eschatological knowledge is regarded as the “ highest good ” occurs in the celebrated dialogue in the Kaṭha Upanishad between Nachiketas and Yama, the God of death, where Nachiketas, being offered three boons by Yama, and having chosen two already, declines to choose for the third boon anything short of the knowledge of the soul’s existence after the death of the human body:—

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N: “ There is this doubt in the case of a dead man; some say that he is, others say he is not. I would like to be instructed by thee in this matter. This do I choose for my third boon.”

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Y: “ Even the gods have formerly entertained doubt about this matter. Nor is this matter easy of comprehension, being a subtle one. Choose another boon, O Nachiketas, press me not, and let me alone on this point.”

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N: “ Verily, the gods themselves have entertained doubt about this matter; and thou hast thyself said that this matter passes comprehension. It is impossible for me to find another instructor in that subject beside thyself, nor do I find that any other boon would be equal to this.”

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Y; “ All those desires which are impossible to be satisfied in this world of mortals, ask me for them if you so wish : these damsels with chariots and musical instruments, such as are indeed impossible for men to obtain—be waited upon by these, which I shall present to you; but, Nachiketas, do not ask me about death.”

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N: “ All these, O God of death, are but ephemeral objects, and wear out the vigour of the senses. Moreover, life itself would be short (for their full enjoyment) ; keep them unto thyself—these horses, these dances, and these songs. What mortal would delight in a long life, after he has contemplated the pleasures which beauty and enjoyment afford? No. That which has become a matter of doubt and inquiry, O Death, speak to me about that great Hereafter. Nachiketas chooses no other boon than that which concerns this great secret.” (S. 9. c).

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11. After the question of the nature of death, comes the question of the nature of sleep, which is only a palliated form of death. On this subject we find very interesting theories advanced by those seers of antiquity. One passage proclaims unmistakably an explanation of the nature of sleep given by modern physiology—the ‘Fatigue’ theory of sleep: “As a falcon or any other bird, after having flown in the sky, becomes tired; and folding his wings repairs to his nest, so does this person hasten to that state where, when asleep, he desires no more desires, and dreams no more dreams.” (S. 10). But beyond

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**The problem of Sleep:** **the Fatigue and Puri-** **tat theories.**

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this proper physiological explanation of sleep, we find very curious theories held on this point by the sages of the Upanishads. The seer of the Praśna Upanishad holds that sleep is caused by the senses being absorbed in that highest ‘sensorium,’ the mind: “as all the rays of the Sun, O Gārgya, become collected into the bright disc at the time of sunset, and emerge again from it at the time of sunrise, so do all the senses become collected into that highest sensorium—the mind: that is the reason why (in deep sleep) man is not able to hear, nor to see, nor to smell. People say about him that he has slept.” (S. II. a). This same seer qualifies his statement a little further, and says that the reason of the deep sleep is that the mind is merged into an ocean of light: “and when he is overpowered by light, then does this god (Soul) see no dreams, and at that time great happiness arises in the body.” (S. II. b). Another theory which is advanced in the Chhāndogya Upanishad is, that sleep is caused by the soul getting lodgment in the arteries: “When a man is fast asleep, and being happy knows no dreams, then his soul has moved in the arteries.” (S. II. c). This same idea is elaborated in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad, where a physiological explanation, which in the light of modern science appears almost a mythological explanation, is offered according to the ancient ideas. It was imagined that the heart sent forth about 72,000 arteries to the ‘Purītat’, which Deussen translates as ‘perikardium’, and which Max Müller, following the commentator, wrongly translates by ‘the surrounding body’. This Purītat corresponds to the pineal gland of Descartes, so far as function is concerned; but it differs from it in its anatomical location. The Purītat must be considered as meaning a kind of membraneous sac round the heart. It was imagined by those ancient seers, that in deep sleep the soul moved from the heart by means of the arteries and got lodgment inside the Purītat, whence sleep followed. This same idea was later developed in the Nyāya philosophy where sleep was explained as being due to the moving of the soul right inside the Purītat, the state of dream being explained as due to the soul's position just on the threshold of the Purītat—the soul knocking for entrance inside it,—while it was imagined that during the waking state the soul kept moving from the heart to the Purītat. The origin of this doctrine in the Nyāya philosophy is to be traced to the passage in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka which we are at present discussing: "When a man is fast asleep and when he is not conscious of anything, his soul moves by means of the arteries, called Hitāḥ, which are 72,000 in number, and which are spread from the heart to the Purītat; there he sleeps like a youth, or a great king, or a great Brahmin who has reached the summit of happiness." (S. II. d).

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12. Another explanation of the phenomenon of sleep is offered by the seer of the Chhāndogya Upanishad when he says that sleep occurs when the mind is merged in Prāṇa, that is breath or energy: "As a bird when tied by a string flies first in every direction, and finding no rest anywhere, settles down at last on the very spot where it is fastened, exactly in the same manner, my Son, the mind, after flying in every direction, and finding no rest anywhere, settles down on breath; for indeed, my Son, mind is fastened to breath" (S. II. e). The next explanation of sleep occurs in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad where we are told

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**The problem of sleep:** **the Prana and Brah-** **man theories.**

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that sleep occurs when the soul goes to rest in the ‘space’ inside the heart. In order to prove this to Gārgya an experimental inquiry was undertaken by Ajātaśatru. He took Gārgya by the hand and came to a place where a man was sleeping. He then called out to him by these names, “Thou, Great one, clad in white raiment, Soma, King of all”, and (yet) he did not rise. Then he rubbed him with his hand, (struck him with a stick—Kau.,) and he got up. Then said Ajātaśatru “when this man was asleep, where then was this Person full of intelligence, and from whence did he return?” Gārgya did not know the answer. Thereupon, Ajātaśatru said “when this man was asleep, then the Person full of intelligence (i.e. the Soul) lay in the space which is in the heart.” (S. II. f). The last explanation offered of the phenomenon of sleep is the very curious explanation, that, in deep sleep, the Soul is at one with Brahman! This is like saying that when one has no explanation to give, one might excuse himself with the Absolute! A passage from the Praśna Upanishad, again, tells us that in deep sleep “the mind, which is the sacrificer, is carried every day to Brahman,” which is corroborated by another passage from the Chhāndogya, which says “when a man sleeps, then, my dear son, he becomes united with the True, he is gone to his own (Self). Therefore they say, ‘svapiti’, he sleeps, because he is gone (apīta) to his own (sva).” (S. II. g). The idea was that in deep sleep the Soul was at one with Brahman, and thus deep sleep was likened to the state of ecstasy. There is, in fact, as much likeness, or as little, between sleep and ecstasy, as there is, as Spinoza would have said, between God and Dog : the same letters, but what an important difference! It seems that this difference was later appreciated even in the Upanishads when it was said that even though the soul was at one with Brahman in deep sleep, it still did not know this, was not cognisant of it: "as people, who do not know a field, walk again and again over a golden treasure that is hidden somewhere in the earth, and yet are not able to discover it, thus do all these creatures day after day become merged in Brahman, and yet do not discover it, because they are carried away by untruth." (S. 11. h).

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13. The next question to consider is the analysis which the Upanishadic philosophers make of the dream-state of consciousness in reference to the state of sleep. A famous passage in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad tells us how, at the end of sleep, the soul "moves away from his nest" wherever he likes; "guarding with breath the lower nest, the immortal one moves away from his nest, to where he can roam at will—That golden person, the lovely bird! Going hither and thither at the end of sleep, the God creates manifold forms for himself, either rejoicing with women, or eating, or seeing terrible sights." (S. 12. a). The same passage tells us how the states of sleep and dream constitute an intermediate state between consciousness and unconsciousness: "there are two states for that person, the one here in this world, the other in the other world, and there is an intermediate third state (which we may call the twilight state of consciousness), consisting of the states of dream and sleep; remaining in this third state, he sees both those states which belong to this and the other world." We are also told how the soul in this state resembles a fish moving from bank to bank: "as a large fish moves along both the banks, the nearer and the farther, so does this person move along both these states, the state of sleeping and the state of waking.” And it is also said how the soul puts forth a great deal of creative activity in this state: “And there are no chariots, nor horses, nor any roads, but he himself creates the chariots and the horses and the roads; there are no joys, nor pleasures, nor any blessings, but he creates the joys and the pleasures and the blessings; there are no ponds, or lakes, or rivers, but he creates the ponds and the lakes and the rivers—because he is indeed the Maker.” We see here what a great stress is laid on the constructive activity of the soul in the state of dream. Finally, we are told in a passage of the Praśna Upanishad, how dreams, even though they are usually a mere replica of actual waking experience, also occasionally involve absolutely novel construction; “There that god experiences greatness in sleep. What is seen over and over again, he sees once more (in the dream); what is heard over and over again, he hears once again (in the dream)...... ...What is seen and not seen, what is heard and not heard, what is enjoyed and not enjoyed, he experiences all, because he is the All.” (S. 12. b). This must indeed be regarded as a very subtle analysis of dream-experience.

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14. As the Upanishadic philosophers made this acute study of the sleeping and dreaming states of consciousness, they were not slow to take into account the aberrations of consciousness as manifested especially in the phenomena of mediumships and possessions. If we might say so, they conducted their own psychical research, however rudimentary, and however noiseless, it might have been. We have a definite illustration of this kind to show that the problem of psychical research had attracted their

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Early psychical research.

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attention even in those old days. For example, we are informed in a passage of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad (S. 13) how the sage Bhujyu, the son of Lāhyāyana, in his student days, went to the Madra country and came to the house of Patañchala, the son of Kapi. This Patañchala had a daughter who was possessed by a Gandharva, an aerial spirit, and who thus served as a medium. Bhujyu asked the spirit who he (the spirit) was, and received the answer that he was Sudhanvan, the son of Aṅgiras. On knowing this, Bhujyu asked the spirit two more questions: one was as to the actual extent of the world, and the other as to where the sons of Parīkshit were, who, by the bye, at that time, must have been regarded as historical personages. What answer Bhujyu received to these questions we are not told; but we see definitely how Bhujyu must, on account of these questions, be regarded as an occultist who worked according to his own lights in his days on the lines of modern Psychical Research.

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15. Finally, we must notice the very great stress that is laid in various passages of the Upanishads on what the New Psychology calls "Thought-power". "He who knows and meditates on the foot of Brahman, consisting of the four quarters as resplendent, becomes (himself) endowed with splendour in this world;" "he who meditates on the Brahman as lustre becomes himself illustrious, reaches the illustrious and bright worlds;" "when the Sun was born, all sorts of shouts rose round about him......; he who knows this, and meditates on the Sun as Brahman, him shall reach pleasant shouts from all sides, and shall continue, yea, shall continue;" "if one meditates on Brahman as support, he himself will find support; if as greatness, he himself will become great ; if as mind, he himself will receive honour ; if as the *parimara* of Brahman, round about (*pari*) him shall die (*mṛi*) all the enemies who hate him ”; and lastly “ he who meditates on Brahman as Not-Being, shall himself cease to exist ; he, on the other hand, who will meditate on Brahman as Being shall (always) exist ; this is what they know” (S. 14). We recommend these passages to all those who believe in the thaumaturgy of thought.

III—Rational Psychology

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16. Modern writers on Psychology give no attention to Rational Psychology ; they consider it either useless or metaphysical. As Prof. James Ward points out, modern psychologists vie with each other in writing a psychology *ohne Seele*. The ancient conception of Soul has evaporated, and in its place we find a self, which is regarded as a “ centre of interest,” and which is supposed to be generated when a new interest springs up and destroyed as soon as the interest terminates. The *impasse* into which such a view brings the Psychologists may be realised at a glance when we consider that some of them have been forced to recognise the continuance of such a bloodless self even after the death of the body, and in place of the old-world view of an immortal Soul we find the idea of a “ centre of interest ” which survives (!) after the death of the body when the interest is not fulfilled in the person’s life-time. The old-world view, as in Plato so in the Upanishads, planted itself squarely on the recognition of the Soul as an entity which was free to take on a body, as it was also free to go away and transmigrate. Whatever the limitations of such a view, it was a view which one could at least understand; but the modern notion of an anæmic "centre of interest," which could continue to exist after the death of the body, passes absolutely beyond the comprehension of anybody except a metaphysician who makes such concessions to naturalism as to make an entire farrago of his philosophical ideas.

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17. The first question with which a Rational Psychology may be concerned is the question of the seat of the soul. And when this question is asked, it is not unusual to answer it by taking a spatial view of the habitation of the soul. It is likely to be ignored that the soul is an unextended entity, and that as such it is bereft of all spatial connotation. And yet, Rational Psychology has concerned itself with a discussion of the part or parts of the body with which the soul comes more directly into contact. Prof. James says: "In some manner our consciousness is present to everything with which it is in relation. I am cognitively present to Orion whenever I perceive that constellation, but I am not dynamically present there, I work no effects. To my brain, however, I am dynamically present, inasmuch as my thoughts and feelings seem to react upon the processes thereof. If, then, by the seat of the mind is meant nothing more than the locality with which it stands in immediate dynamic relations, we are certain to be right in saying that its seat is somewhere in the cortex of the brain."' The views that have been held in regard to this question have been many and various. I. H. Fichte, as we know, supposed that the soul was a space-filling principle. Descartes imagined that the seat of the soul was the pineal gland, while Lotze maintained that the soul must be located somewhere in the "structureless matrix of the anatomical brain-elements, at which point....all nerve-currents may cross and combine." We have already seen the opinion of Prof. James that if the soul's activity is to be referred to one part of the body more than to any other, it ought to be referred to the cortex of the brain. Aristotle supposed that the seat of the soul was in the heart; and he came to this conclusion by observing "(1) that the diseases of the heart are the most rapidly and certainly fatal, (2) that psychical affections, such as fear, sorrow, and joy cause an immediate disturbance of the heart, (3) and that the heart is the part which is the first to be formed in the embryo."' The Upanishadic psychology agrees with the Aristotelian in locating the soul in the heart. We have already seen how important a part the "pericardium" plays in the Upanishadic psychology of sleep. The Upanishadic philosophers felt no difficulty in locating the soul in the heart; and it is not till we reach a later era in the evolution of Indian thought that we find that the seat of consciousness is transferred from the heart to the brain. It is only in the Yogic and the Tāntric books² that the cerebro-spinal system comes to be recognised, and it is there that consciousness comes to be referred to the brain instead of to the heart.

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² Vide Seal's *Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus* pp. 218-219.

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18. In one important Upanishadic passage, however, we already find an incipient transition from the one view to the other. Though in the Upanishads as a whole we find that the heart is regarded as the seat of the soul, in a passage of the Taittirīya Upanishad, in a very cryptic style and with a good deal of prophetic insight, the Upanishad-seer gives his reflections as to the way in which the soul in the heart

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The heart and the brain as seats.

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¹ Hammond, *Aristotle's Psychology* p. xxiii.

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moves by a passage through the bones of the palate right up to the skull where the hairs are made to part, and on the way greets the Brahman who is his lord and master. It is important to remember that while the soul in the heart is characterised as the *manomaya purusha*, the Brahman that resides in the brain is called *manasaspati*, the soul’s overlord. "What we know as the space inside the heart, therein is this immortal golden being, namely mind (or soul). What we know as hanging like a nipple between the bones of the palate, through it is the entrance to the Lord¹ on the passage right up to the skull where the hairs are made to part. *Bhūḥ*.. *Bhuvaḥ*....*Suvaḥ*......*Mahaḥ*—when these (mystic) words are uttered, the soul moves right up to Brahman. The soul gains autonomy, joins the Ruler of mind (or soul), becomes the lord of speech, the lord of sight, the lord of hearing, the lord of knowledge, becomes (in short) the Brahman who bodies himself forth in space" (S. 15). A great deal of difficulty has been experienced in the interpretation of this passage. The passage no doubt tells us that the sense-centres as well as the intellect-centre are to be referred to the brain, inasmuch as it says that the soul can obtain mastery over these only by moving to the brain from the heart; yet, the actual path which has been indicated in the above passage cannot be traced without difficulty. What is the "nipple-like" appearance of which the Upanishad speaks? Is it the uvula, or the pituitary body? Deussen and Max Müller have both understood it to be the uvula. Are we then to understand that the Upanishad-philosopher was so struck by the inexplicably hanging uvula that he regarded it to be the door to the overlord of soul, and are we to understand that Deussen and Max Müller took into account the experiences of the mystic who regards the uvula as the medium by which he comes to taste the nectar which oozes in the state of ecstasy from the ventricles of the brain into the pharynx ? Or, are we to suppose that the Upanishad-philosopher was so fortunate as to witness a skull dissected open and to observe that the pituitary body is situated just above the pair of bones of the hard palate, and then to be able to suppose that the soul in the heart could travel along the course of the sympathetic nerves to the pituitary body, and through it move further to its overlord in the lateral ventricle, around which, in the grey matter, are situated the various special sense-centres ? The latter interpretation is not improbable : but one does not know whether the Upanishad-philosopher knew anatomy enough to trace the actual path, or was interested in occultism enough to see the path with his mental eye !

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¹ Indra, elsewhere paraphrased as Idandra, breaking through the skull; cf. तस्मादिन्द्रो नामेन्द्रो ह वै नाम तामिन्द्रं सन्तमिन्द्र इत्याचक्षते परोक्षेणप्रिया इव हि देवाः । ऐ. 1. 3.14.

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19. However this may be on the physiological side, we may say that the Upanishadic philosophers definitely raised the psychological question of the relation between body and soul. The Maitri Upanishad, though it is a late Upanishad, raises the question of an efficient cause, and in Platonic fashion endows the soul with the power of motion. It tells us that there were certain sages in ancient times called the Vālakhilyas who went to the Prajāpati Kratu and asked him who was the driver of the chariot of the body : " The body, venerable Sir, is verily like an unmoving cart ; may your Honour be pleased to tell us if you know who is the mover of it." And the Upanishad tells us that the

The relation of the body and the soul

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answer which they elicited from the Prajāpati was that the mover of the body-chariot was the soul, "the pure tranquil, imperishable, unborn entity who stands independently in his own greatness" (S. 16. a). Moreover, the Kaushītaki Upanishad tells us that the soul must be regarded as the master of all bodily faculties, the lord of all sense-functions: "As a razor is placed in the razor-case, or fire in the fire-hearth, similarly does this conscious self pervade the body up to the very hairs and nails. These senses depend upon the soul as the relatives upon the rich man. As the rich man feeds with his kinsmen, and as the kinsmen feed on the rich man, even so does this conscious self feed with the senses and the senses feed on the self" (S. 16. b). This passage tells us how the various bodily senses are dependent on the self and how the self is immanent in the whole body.

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20. The passage quoted above leads to the view that the soul fills the whole of the body, a doctrine which is not unlikely to have led to the Jaina doctrine that as large as the body is, even so large is the soul,—that the soul of the elephant is as large as the body of the elephant, while the soul of the ant is only as large as the body of the ant—"hastipudgalam prāpya hastipudgalo bhavati, pipīlikāpudgalam prāpya pipīlikāpudgalo bhavati." This is the reductio ad absurdum of a belief in the extended nature of soul, which will not allow us to think of the soul except under spatial limitations. The history of the doctrine of the space-filling nature of the soul as advanced in the Upanishads is a very interesting one. In the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad we are told that "the intelligent luminous self in the heart is as small as a grain of rice or barley, and yet it is the ruler o all and lord of all, overruling all this and whatsoever else exists" (S. 17. a). In a passage of the Kaṭha Upanishad, as well as elsewhere, we find that the soul is no longer conceived as of the size of a mere grain of rice or barley, but is thought to be of the size of a thumb—an idea which plays a very important part in the Upanishads: "The soul, who is the lord of all things that have been and that are to be, and is therefore over-awed by none of them, is of the measure of a thumb and dwells in the midpart of the body (that is, in the heart)" (S. 17. b).

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In a passage of the Chhāndogya Upanishad, the soul is understood as not of the size of a thumb, but of the measure of a span (S. 17. c). The soul is here called "prādeśamātra" and "abhivimāna." These words have occasioned a very great difficulty to the commentators. Śaṅkarāchārya, who understands the soul as all-pervading, cannot bring himself to be reconciled to the statement that the soul should be merely a span long, prādeśamātra.¹ Now the word prādeśa is really an important word. In the Amarakosha,² it is understood as meaning a span, as also in the Medinīkosha.³ Śaṅkarāchārya himself knew that the word prādeśa was "elsewhere" used in the sense of a span,⁴ which his scholiast Ānandagiri explains as being the meaning of the word in Jābālaśruti. According to Śaṅkara, the word prādeśa elsewhere signified not merely a span’s length but the span’s length from the forehead to the chin. This is a very significant fact as we shall presently see. In the Mahābhārata,¹ Bhīmasena has been described as being a span’s length taller than his younger brother Arjuna. In the Maitri Upanishad,² the word prādeśa has manifestly the same meaning. Under these circumstances it is but natural that the word prādeśa in the passage which we are discussing may be taken to mean a span, especially, as Śaṅkara points out, the span’s length between the forehead and the chin. The word “abhivimāna” has also caused a great deal of difficulty.

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The interpretation which Śaṅkarācārya has put upon it, and with which Deussen, Max Müller and Rajendralal Mitra have all agreed, seems after all to be an unnatural interpretation. Thus Śaṅkara³ explains the word as meaning one who knows himself—the Kantian “I am I”—an interpretation which does not come out of the expression “abhivimāna.” Deussen⁴ translates the whole passage in a way which only supports the meaning of Śaṅkara so far as the word “abhivimāna” is concerned : “Wer aber diesen Ātman Vaiśvānara so [zeigend] als eine Spanne gross auf sich selbst (abhi) bezogen (vimāna) verehrt, der isst die Nahrung in allen Welten, in allen Wesen, in allen Selbsten.” Max Müller⁵ translates “abhivimāna” as, “identical with himself,” while Rajendralal Mitra⁶ says it means “the principal object indicated by the pronoun I.” All these interpretations err in understanding too much by the preposition *abhi*. By no manipulation, however clever, could the meaning of "self" be extracted out of it as Deussen and others have tried to do. Would it not be much more natural to understand " *abhivimāna* " as meaning simply "measuring"?

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The expression " *prādeśamātram abhivimānam* " could then be understood as equivalent to "measuring the span's length from the forehead to the chin," and the interpretation of the whole passage becomes easy: "He who worships the Self as measuring the span's length from the forehead to the chin, and as existing in all men, he enjoys food in all worlds, in all beings, and in all selves." In fact, we are asked in this passage to worship the Soul who resides in the span's distance between the forehead and the chin, and who is therefore the master of the head, which by a consensus of opinion is recognised in Hindu thought as the " *uttamāṅga* " or the best part of the body. No wonder that Prof. James could trace the feeling of Self in certain cephalic movements of his, and say that "the Self of selves, when carefully examined, is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar motions in the head, or between the head and the throat."¹

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¹ This is the reason why he explains the expression as द्युमूर्द्धादिभिः पृथिवीपादांतैर्विशिष्टमेकं प्रादेशमात्रम् ।

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² प्रादेशतालगोकर्णस्तर्जन्यादियुते तते । II. 6. 83. The Commentator explains प्रादेश by saying that it means तर्जन्यादिसहितविस्तृतांगुष्ठः ।

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³ प्रादेशो देशमात्रे स्यात्तर्जन्यंगुष्ठसंमिते ।

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⁴ शास्त्रान्तरे तु मूर्द्धादिश्चिबुकप्रतिष्ठ इति प्रादेशमात्रं कल्पयति । इह तु न तथाऽभिप्रेतम् । C. on छां V. 18. 1.

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¹ प्रमाणेन भीमसेनः प्रादेशेनाधिकोऽर्जुनात् । म. भा. V. 51. 19.

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² शरीरप्रादेशांगुष्ठमात्रमप्यप्यं ध्यात्वा अतः परमतां गच्छति । मै. VI. 38.

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³ प्रत्यात्मतयाऽभिबीमीयतेऽहमिति शयत इत्यभिमानः । C. on छां. V. 18. 1.

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⁴ Sechzig Upanishad’s pp. 150-151.

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⁵ Sacred Books of the East Vol. I. p. 88

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⁶ Twelve Principal Upanishads by Tukaram Tatya p. 578,

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¹ Principles of Psychology I. 301.

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21. We have hitherto seen some of the stages in the logical, not necessarily historical, evolution of the idea of the extension of the soul. Being first regarded as merely of the size of a grain of rice or barley, it was then regarded as of the size of a thumb, and later of the size of a span, while we have also seen that the Kaushītaki Upanishad speaks of the soul as filling the whole extent of the body and being hidden in it as the razor is hidden in a razor-case. We now come to treat of the idea of the soul as not being restricted to any part of the body, but being verily infinite and occupying all space. The Muṇḍaka Upanishad speaks of the "eternal, all-pervading, omnipresent, subtle, and imperishable Soul who is the origin of all beings, and whom the wise alone can perceive," and the Kaṭha Upanishad lends its support to this statement by saying that "the wise man ceases to grieve when he has known this great all-pervading Soul" (S. 17. d). The Maitri Upanishad, not being able to choose between the rival theories about the size of the soul, offers an easy eclecticism by combining all of them together in a promiscuous statement. It tells us that a man "reaches the supreme state by meditating on the soul, who is smaller than an atom, or else of the size of the thumb, or of a span, or of the whole body" (S. 17. e). In this promiscuous statement it is difficult to make out which theory this Upanishad advocates. An alternative interpretation of the passage can also be offered, as it has been offered by Cowell and Max Müller, following the commentator Rāmatīrtha, but to say as Rāmatīrtha says that the soul is "of the size of a thumb in the span-sized heart in the body" does not lessen difficulties. That the Upanishadic philosophers felt the necessity of reconciling such contrary statements as that the soul is only of the size of a grain of rice or barley, and that it is all-pervading and omnipresent, may be seen from a passage in the Kaṭha Upanishad which asks us to believe the contradiction that "the soul of the living being is subtler than the subtle, and yet greater than the great, and is placed in the cavity of the heart,"—a statement which, with equal seeming contradiction, is corroborated by the philosopher of the Chhāndogya Upanishad who says: "My soul in the heart is smaller than a grain of rice or barley, or a mustard or a canary seed; and yet my soul, which is pent up in the heart, is greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than the heaven, greater than all these worlds ” (S. 17. f). The Nemesis of the theory which attributes a spatial extension to the soul lies just in these contradictions, and there is no way out of the difficulty except on the supposition that the soul transcends all spatial limitations.

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22. And yet, so far as the soul comes to inhabit the body, it must be recognised as passing through certain psychical states; and the analysis which the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad makes of the four states of consciousness must be regarded as very acute, and considering the date of its production, wholly extraordinary. The credit which a modern psychologist gives to Swami Vivekānanda for having introduced the conception of the “superconscious” in psychology must be rightly given to the author of the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad. There are not merely the three obvious states of consciousness, says the philosopher of this Upanishad, but a fourth must also be recognised, which corresponds to what is usually called the “superconscious.” But the word superconscious in our opinion is an unhappy word to designate this fourth state: to speak of a “superconscious state of consciousness” is to utter a solecism. And so, we here propose to use the word “self-conscious” to designate this fourth state. The soul, then, according to the Upanishad, experiences four chief states, namely, those of wakefulness, dream, deep sleep, and pure self-consciousness: “This soul is four-footed (that is, has four conditions). The first condition is that of wakefulness, when the soul is conscious only of external objects and enjoys the gross things, and then it is to be called Vaiśvānara. The second condition is that of dreaming, when the soul is conscious of internal objects and enjoys the subtle things, and then it is called Taijasa. When the person in sleep desires no desires, and dreams no dreams, that state is to be called the state of sound sleep. Thus, the third condition of the soul is that of sound sleep, when being centred in itself and being full of knowledge and bliss, it feeds on bliss : it is then called Prājña. The fourth state of the soul is that of pure self-consciousness, when there is no knowledge of internal objects nor of external ones, nor of the two together ; when the soul is not a mass of intelligence, transcending as it does both consciousness and unconsciousness ; when it is invisible, uncommunicable, incomprehensible, indefinable ; when it is beyond thought and beyond the possibility of any indication, being virtually the quintessence of self-intuition, in which all the five kinds of sensation are finally resolved ; when it is tranquil and full of auspiciousness and without a second : it is then to be called Ātman” (S. 18).

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23. This recognition of the four chief states of individual consciousness, the waking, the dreaming, the sleeping, and the self-conscious, as well as the names which are assigned to the soul in these states, namely those of Vaiśvānara, Taijasa, Prājña, and Ātman, have played a very large part in the later more systematized Vedānta. This is the reason why the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad has been regarded as a late Upanishad. But it is to be noted that the Upanishad does not make mention of the corresponding four states of the consciousness of the Cosmic Self. In later Vedānta, the Cosmic Self as it passes through its four states comes to be called the Virāj, Hiraṇyagarbha, Īśa and Brahman respectively. Corresponding to the four

The microcosm and the macrocosm

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aspects of the microcosm, there come to be recognised the four aspects of the "makranthropos," a decidedly better word to use than "macrocosm". The Cosmic consciousness comes to be regarded as corresponding state by state to the Individual consciousness, and what is in the Individual comes to be found also in the World. Even though this idea is not fully brought out in the Upanishads, we already trace in them an incipient tendency towards that view. Leibnitz's theory of representation is already present in the Chhāndogya Upanishad : "Within this city of Brahman (this body), there is a small lotus-like place (the heart), and within it a small internal space ; that which is within this small space is worthy of search and understanding....Of the very kind as this outer space is, of the same kind is this internal space inside the heart ; both heaven and earth are contained within it, both fire and air, both the sun and the moon, both the lightning and the stars" (S. 19). Here we see the root of the theory that the individual is to be regarded as the world in miniature, and the world only the individual writ large, and that the individual object serves as a mirror in which the whole of reality is reflected—a theory to which Leibnitz gives expression when he says : "In the smallest particle of matter, there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. Each portion of matter may be conceived as like....a pond full of fishes."'¹

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¹ Monadology 66-67.

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24. Another interesting problem in connection with the Upanishadic psychology is the problem of the so-called sheaths or bodies of the soul. We all know what importance has been attached to the conception of these "bodies of man" by modern Theoso-

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