A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t3.1

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).