A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s1.3

c8.s1.3

4. In a passage which occurs both in the Kaushitaki and the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishads, we are told how both the cosmological and physiological categories must be regarded as deficient, and how they must, therefore, necessarily pave the way for the psychological category. There is here a discussion as to how the proud Bālāki once went to Ajātaśatru, the king of Kāśī, and how he tried to impose upon him by saying that he would impart superior wisdom to him; how Ajātaśatru welcomed this great man who told him that he would impart superior knowledge; how the proud Bālāki began by saying that true wisdom consisted in regarding the sun as ultimate reality; how he went on to say that the ultimate reality was to be found, one after another, in such objects as the moon, the lightning, the thunder, the wind, the sky, the fire, the water, the mirror, the image, the echo, the sound, the body, the right eye and the left eye; how ultimately Bālāki’s mouth was gagged when he could proceed no further in his peculiar way of philosophising; how Ajātaśatru took Bālāki by the hand, went to a man who had fallen in deep sleep, and called upon him saying ‘ Thou great one, clad in white raiment, O king Soma’; how the man, who had fallen in deep sleep, still remained lying; how he rose at once when Ajātaśatru pushed him with his stick; and how, finally, Ajātaśatru told Bālāki that in the person who had gone to sleep, the sleeping consciousness may be regarded as ultimate reality (S. 3). In this passage we have evidently the deficiency of both the cosmological and physiological categories brought out in favour of the psychological category, namely, the deep-sleep consciousness. We shall see later how even this is an inferior answer to the problem that has been raised; and, therefore, we shall not stop at this place to discuss the final psychological answer of the Upanishadic philosophers on this head.