A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s1.8

c6.s1.8

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).