A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s4: The Doctrine of Maya in the Upanishads

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s4

Language: English

c7.s4.1 — 4 parts

The Doctrine of Maya in the Upanishads

c7.s4.1.1

Darkness to Light, from Death to Immortality, merely voices the sentiment of the spiritual aspirant who wishes to rid himself of the power of Evil over him. Unreality is here compared to Not-Being, to Darkness, or to Death (S. 31. e). The Kaṭhopanishad declares that the Sages never find reality and certainty in the unrealities and uncertainties of this world (S. 31. f). Māyā is here described as an “adhruva”—an Unreality, or an Uncertainty. The Chhāndogya again tells us that a cover of Untruth hides the ultimate Truth from us, just as the surface of the earth hides from us the golden treasure that is hidden inside it. We, who unconsciously move to the region of Truth day after day, do yet labour under the power of Untruth, for we do not know the Ātman. This Ātman is verily inside our own hearts. It is only he, who reaches Him every day, that is able to transcend the phenomenal world (S. 31. g). Māyā is here compared to an Untruth, an “anṛita.” Then again, the Praśnopanishad tells us that we cannot reach the world of Brahman unless we have shaken off the crookedness in us, the falsehood in us, the illusion (Māyā) in us (S. 31. h). It is important to remember that the word Māyā is directly used in this passage, and almost in the sense of an illusion.

c7.s4.1.2

In the same sense is the word Māyā used in the Śvetāśvatara where we are told that it is only by meditation upon God, by union with Him, and by entering into His Being, that at the end there is the cessation of the great world-illusion (S. 31. i). Here again, as before, the word Māyā can mean nothing but illusion. It must be remembered, however, that the word Māyā was used so far back as at the time of the Ṛigveda in a passage, which is quoted by the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, where Indra is declared to have assumed many shapes by his “Māyā” (S. 31. j). There, apparently, the word Māyā meant "power" instead of "illusion"—a sense in which the Śvetāśvatara later uses it, when it describes its God as a Māyin, a magician, a powerful Being who creates this world by his powers, while the other, namely, the individual soul is bound down again by "Māyā" (S. 31. k). Here it must be remembered that there is yet no distinction drawn, as in later Vedāntic philosophy, between the Māyā that envelops Īśvara and the Avidyā that envelops Jīva: for both the generic word Māyā is used, and in the passage under consideration it means only "power"—almost the same sense which Küno Fischer gives to the "Attributes" of Spinoza. Then again, in the Śvetāśvatara, Māyā is once more identified with Prakṛti (S. 31. l), a usage which prevailed very much later, as may be seen from the way in which even the author of the Kusumāñjali had no objection in identifying the two even for his theistic purpose.

c7.s4.1.3

The Śvetāśvatara also contains passages which describe the Godhead as spreading his meshes and making them so manifold that he catches all the beings of the universe in them, and rules over them (S. 31. m). Here we have the conception of a net or meshes, inside which all beings are entangled. Then again, a famous passage from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, which we have already considered, which speaks of "as if there was a duality," implying thereby that there is really no duality, signifies the identification of Māyā with a semblance, an as-it-were, an appearance (S. 31. n). Finally, in that celebrated conversation between Śvetaketu and Āruṇi which we have also had the occasion to consider, we are told that everything besides the Ātman is merely a word, a mode, and a name (S. 31. o). We thus see from an examination of the various passages in the Upanishads that even though the word Māyā may not have been used for many times in the Upanishads, still the conception that underlies Māyā is already present there, and even though we do not find there the full-fledged doctrine of illusion in its philosophical aspects as in Gauḍapāda and later writers, still we do find in the Upanishads all the material that may have easily led Śaṅkara to elaborate a theory of Māyā out of it.

c7.s4.1.4

When we consider that we have the conceptions of a veil, of blind-foldness, of a knot, of ignorance, of not-being, of darkness, of death, of unreality and uncertainty, of untruth, of crookedness and falsehood and illusion, of the power of God, of this power as identical with nature, of meshes, of semblance, an as-it-were and an appearance, and finally, of a word, a mode and a name, let no man stand up and say that we do not find the traces of the doctrine of Māyā in the Upanishads!