A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.6.2

c7.6.2

When we are told in that Upanishad that above the Mind is Buddhi, above the Buddhi is the Mahat Ātman, above the Mahat Ātman is the Avyakta, above the Avyakta is the Purusha, and that beyond and above the Purusha there is nothing else (S. 3. a), and yet again, when we are told, just a little after the verse which we have considered above, that the Mind must be merged in the Jñāna Ātman, the Jñāna Ātman in the Mahat Ātman, and the Mahat Ātman in the Śānta Ātman (S. 3. b), we have evidently to equate the Buddhi of the one passage with the Jñāna Ātman of the other, the Mahat Ātman of the one with the Mahat Ātman of the other, and the Purusha of the one with the Śānta Ātman of the other, only the Avyakta of the first passage which comes in between the Mahat Ātman and the Purusha having been elided in the second scheme for the sake of convenience, or even for the sake of metre. In any case it stands to reason that we may suppose that in these two passages we have enunciated for us Mind and Intellect, the Mahat, the Avyakta, and the Purusha,—categories which play such an important part in the later Sāmkhya philosophy. Then also we have to note that the conception of the Liṅga-śarīra in the later Sāmkhya philosophy is already adumbrated for us in the Praśnopanishad, which reiterates from time to time the nature of the Purusha with sixteen parts. In this body verily is that Being who is made up of sixteen parts, says one passage (S. 4. a);