A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.5

Language: English

c7.5.1

histic period are contemporaneous, and that the one gradually and imperceptibly merges into the other. When the Chhāndogyopanishad said that in the beginning verily Not-Being alone existed, and that it was later that Being was born from it (S. I. a), we have to understand that a reference was made here to a doctrine which was to become full-fledged in the later denial of existence and the maintenance of a void in Buddhistic literature. When in his commentary on the above passage, Śaṅkarāchārya states that this may refer to the doctrine of the Buddhists, who said that “sadabhāva” alone existed before the creation of anything, he is right in referring it to the doctrine of the Buddhists. The metaphysical maintenance of Not-Being has its psychological counterpart in the maintenance of the theory of the denial of Soul. When the Kaṭhopanishad said, that when a man is dead, various people think variously about the spirit that inspired him, some saying that it still lives, others saying that it has ceased to exist (S. I. b), we have in embryo the “anattā-vāda” of the Buddhists, the theory of a denial of Soul, a theory which the Buddhists probably held in common with the Chārvākas with whom there was no soul except the body.

c7.5.2

Then again, the cry of Nachiketas—that everything that exists exists only for the nonce and never for the morrow, that objects of sensual enjoyment only wear away the vigour of the senses, that life is only as short as a dream, that he who contemplates the delights issuing from attachment to colour and sex may never crave for longevity (S. I. c)—all this may be taken to be equally well the cry of Buddhism, which is almost contemporaneous with the thoughts put into the mouth of Nachiketas, that everything in this world is full of sorrow, “sarvam duḥkham duḥkham,” that every thing that exists is fleeting and evanescent, “sarvam kṣaṇikam kṣaṇikam.” The injunction given in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka that a man who thus becomes disgusted with the world should rise from desires for progeny or wealth, and take to the life of a mendicant (S. 1. d) is only too prophetic of the order of Bhikkus in Buddhism as well as Jainism. When again, the Aitareyopanishad said that all the existence in this world—the five great elements, all the beings that are born from the egg or the embryo or owe their existence to perspiration or germination from the earth, all horses and cattle and men, and finally everything that breathes or moves or flies or is stationary—all these are known by intellect and are based in intellect (S. 1.

c7.5.3

e), we have here enunciated for us the root-principle of the metaphysics and the epistemology of the Vijñānavādins, when we remember that there is only an easy passage from the word “prajñāna” which is actually used in the quotation, to the word “vijñāna,” which the Vijñānavādins use. Finally, when in the conversation between Jaratkārava and Yājñavalkya in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, Jaratkārava pressed Yājñavalkya to the deepest issue, Yājñavalkya said that it behoved them to retire to a private place and discuss the merits of the question he had asked only in private, and we are told that what passed between Jaratkārava and Yājñavalkya was only a conversation about the nature of Karman, and that they together came to the conclusion that a man becomes holy by holy actions and sinful by sinful actions (S. 1. f)—a thought which was probably later reiterated in the Kaṭhopanishad where we are told that the souls take on a new body in inorganic or live matter according to their works and wisdom (S. 1. g)—a passage where we have once for all laid down for us the principle of Karman which became the inspiration of Buddhistic as well as other systems of philosophy in India, but which appears with a peculiar moral force in Buddhistic as in no other system of philosophy.

c7.5.4

Thus we see that all the main rudiments of Buddhism are present in embryo in the Upanishads: the doctrine of Not-Being, the doctrine of Denial of Soul, a contempt of sense-pleasure bordering upon pessimism, the order of mendicants, the idealistic theory of knowledge, and finally the doctrine of Karman. It is true that with these rudiments Buddhism constructed a philosophy which seems to be fundamentally different from the philosophy of the Upanishads, but which as we have seen, found sufficient inspiration from them to be traceable to them as to a parent.