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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t3: Upanishadic and Platonic eschatology

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t3

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Upanishadic and Platonic eschatology

c6.s3.t3.1

philosophers. This could be explained on the simple hypothesis that to the Upanishadic seers, as to the later Indian philosophers, the world itself was a grand purgatory where the effects of sin were to be wiped out by good action. On the other hand, we find that creatures low in the scale of evolution were " sundered as with a hatchet " from the rest of creation ; to them the Chhāndogya Upanishad denies the right to enter on the path of liberation, ordaining that they must for ever be fixed in the round of births and deaths. Neither on the path of the Gods, nor on the path of the Fathers, are these base creatures allowed to tread. They must keep up the round of coming and going : their rule is not " die to live " but " live to die." And it is wonderful that the Upanishad includes even " a tiger or a lion, a wolf or a boar," in the same category with " a worm or a moth, a gnat or a mosquito" (S. 24. e).

c6.s3.t3.2

38. There is, however, a later phase in the development of the conception of the path of the Gods which we must not fail to notice. The Kaushītaki Upanishad makes a curious development in the conception of the Path of the Gods. It tells us that when a soul comes to the Path of the Gods, " he first goes to the world of Fire, then to the world of Wind, then to the world of Varuṇa, then to the world of the Sun, then to the world of Indra, then to the world of Prajāpati, and finally to the world of Brahman." It does away with the relays recognised in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad or the Chhāndogya Upanishad and substitutes new ones. Instead of such unmeaning conceptions as the " world of day," or " the world of the bright half of the month," or " the world of the six months during which the sun is moving towards the

Cites (3)