A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t1.2

Language: English

c6.s3.t1.2.1

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).

c6.s3.t1.2.2

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.

c6.s3.t1.2.3

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"?

c6.s3.t1.2.4

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