A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t2.25

c6.s3.t2.25

29. But is hylozoism the final word of the Rigveda? By no means. We have one very characteristic hymn of the Rigveda which, we fear, has not been noticed with even a tithe of the attention which it really deserves. The meaning which Roth, and Böhtlingk and Geldner have found in at least two verses of the hymn has been strangely overlooked, and it is wonderful that people keep saying that the idea of Transmigration is *not* to be found in the Rigveda. The hymn we refer to is the great riddle-hymn of the Rigveda, i. 164. It consists of fifty-two verses and breathes throughout a sceptico-mystical atmosphere. It says that He who made all this does not himself probably know its real nature,¹ and it sets such a high price on the mystical knowledge which it glorifies that any one who comes to be in possession of this knowledge, so the hymn proclaims, may be said to be his father’s father.² It is no doubt true that even though the hymn occurs in the first Maṇḍala of the Rigveda, it is not for that reason to be understood as belonging to the oldest part of the Rigveda. For example, it advocates a facile unity of godhood,³ which is only a later development of thought. It quotes the