A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s3.1

c8.s3.1

12. Let us now proceed to see how the Upanishadic philosophers reached the idea of ultimate reality by the psychological method. In a conversation which took place between King Janaka and Yājñavalkya as reported in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, we find that Yājñavalkya asked Janaka as to what psychological doctrines he had heard about the nature of ultimate reality. Janaka was a very inquisitive and philosophically inclined king, and he had therefore known all the opinions on that head which had been imparted to him by different sages. He proceeded to tell Yājñavalkya the opinions of these various philosophers. "Jitvan Śailini told me," said king Janaka, "that speech was the ultimate reality." Yājñavalkya answered that this was merely a partial truth. Then king Janaka told him that Udaṅka Śaulbāyana had said to him that breath was the ultimate reality. This also, said Yājñavalkya, was only a partial truth. Varku Vārṣṇi had told him, said Janaka, that the eye was the final reality. This again, said Yājñavalkya, was only a partial truth. Then the king went on to say how Gardabhi-vipīta Bhāradvāja had told him that the ear was the final reality; how Satyakāma Jābāla had said that the mind was the final reality; how Vidagdha Śakalya had told him that the heart was the final reality;—all of which opinions, said Yājñavalkya, were only partial truths (S. 10. a). In this enumeration of the opinions of different Upanishadic philosophers as regards the various physiological or psychological categories as constituting the ultimate reality, and in Yājñavalkya’s rejection of each one of them in turn, there lies implicitly the conception that ultimate reality can be found only in the Self, and not in the accidental adjuncts with which the Self may come to be clothed. This same idea has been developed in the Kena Upanishad where we are told that “the Self must be regarded as the ear of ear, as the mind of mind, as the speech of speech, as the breath of breath, as the eye of eye. Those who know the Self thus are released from this world and become immortal.” “That which speech is unable to give out, but that which itself gives out speech, know that to be the ultimate reality, not that which people worship in vain. That which the mind is unable to think, but which thinks the mind, know that to be the ultimate reality; that which the eye is unable to see, but that which enables us to see the eye, know that to be the ultimate reality; that which the ear does not hear, but that which enables us to perceive the ear, that which breath is not able to breathe, but that by which breath itself is breathed, know that to be the final reality” (S. 10. b.). In this passage we are told that the Self must be regarded as the innermost existence, while all the physiological and psychological elements are only external vestures, which clothe reality but which do not constitute it.