A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s2.12

c7.s2.12

However much a rigorously monistic philosophy may describe the Absolute in negative terms, the very negation becomes affirmation, and it cannot rid itself entirely of some positive characterisation at least of the Absolute. It was this that happened in the case of the Upanishadic Absolute. The Bṛihadāraṇyaka describes the Absolute as "the not-gross and the not-subtle, the not-short and the not-long, the not-glowing and the not-shadowy, the not-dark, the not-attached, the flavour-less, the smell-less, the eye-less, the ear-less, the speech-less, the mind-less, the Prāṇa-less, the mouth-less, the un-internal, the un-external, consuming nothing, and consumed by none" (S. 27. b). This is a purely negative characterisation of the Absolute in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. The Kaṭha mixes up negative and positive characteristics of it, as does the Muṇḍakopanishad. The Kaṭha tells us that the Brahman is "sound-less, touch-less, form-less, taste-less, imperishable, smell-less, beginning-less, end-less, greater than the great and eternal, garnering which one is able to escape the clutches of death" (S. 27. c). The Muṇḍaka tells us that the Brahman is "unpointable, ungraspable, without family and without caste, without eye and without ear, without hands and without feet, eternal, all-pervading, omnipresent, extremely subtle, imperishable, and the source of all beings" (S. 27. d). The typical formulation of the negative characterisation of the Absolute is in the famous formula "Neti Neti," which, as we shall presently point out, is itself interpreted in a negative as well as a positive signification. In most of the passages from the Bṛihadāraṇyaka in which this famous expression occurs, the intended meaning is that the Absolute is characterless and indefinable; that whatever may be predicated of it falls outside it and thus fails to define it. "The Ātman is ungraspable for he cannot be grasped;