A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s1.11

c8.s1.11

8. The cosmological argument, as it happens in the history of thought, seems also to take the help of the physico-theological proof and the two together seem to offer a formidable front to the thinking mind. Likewise does it happen in the case of Upanishadic philosophy. The argument from design and the argument from order are merely the personal and impersonal aspects of the physico-theological argument. Those who believe in God believe in design. Those who believe in an impersonal Absolute believ only in order. Very often, as in the case of the Upanishadic thinkers, the personal and impersonal aspects are fused together, and we are told how the Self as personal existence is yet "an impersonal bund which holds the river of existence from flowing by. Neither night nor day, neither age nor death, neither grief nor good nor evil, are able to transgress this eternal bund of existence" (S. 7. a). "It is at the command of this imperishable existence," says the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad, "that the sun and the moon stand bound in their places. It is due to the command of this Absolute that the heaven and the earth stand each in its own place. It is due to the command of this imperishable Brahman that the very moments, the hours, the days, the nights, the months, the seasons, and the years have their appointed function in the scheme of things. It is at the command of this Brahman that some rivers flow to the east from the snow-clad mountains, while others flow to the west" (S. 7. b). We shall not try to disentangle here the personal and impersonal aspects of the physico-theological proof, the aspect of design and the aspect of order. Suffice it to say that the physico-theological proof is present in the Upanishads, pointing out that the Absolute must be regarded as the ballast of the cosmos, preventing it from rocking to and fro at the slightest gust of chance.