A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.21

c7.21

14. The dualistic school of philosophy initiated by Ānandatīrtha finds justification for its maintenance of the doctrine of the entire disparateness of the Individual and the Universal Souls in such a passage as the one from the Kaṭha, which tells us that " in this world there are two Souls which taste of the fruits of action, both of which are lodged in the recess of the human heart, and which are as different from each other as light and shade " (S. 18. a), corrected, as later, in the passage from the Muṇḍakopanishad which tells us that " there are two birds, companions and friends, both sitting on the same tree, of which one partakes of the sweet fruits of the tree, while the other without eating merely looks on " (S. 18. b). The difficulty in the passage from the Kaṭhopanishad which we have quoted above is—how can we regard the Universal Soul as enjoying the fruits of action? The enjoyment of the fruits of action could be predicated only about the Individual Soul and not about the Universal Soul which must be regarded as above such enjoyment. Hence, it was probable, that the Muṇḍaka Upanishad relieved the Universal Soul of the burden of the enjoyment of the fruits of such action, and laid the fact of enjoyment at the door of the Individual Soul. In any case, it is worth while noting that the Individual Soul is in the above two passages spoken of as being entirely distinct from the Universal Soul, and as being probably dependent upon it. These are the texts, which, like the later one from the Bhagavadgītā " there are two Persons in this world, the Mutable and the Immutable; the Mutable is all these beings, while the Immutable is the one who exists at the top of them " (XV. 16), have been quoted in support of their doctrine of the entire disparateness of the Individual and the Universal Souls by the followers of Madhva. Then, again, when they speak about