A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c9.8

c9.8

12. The author of the Taittirīyopnishad goes even a step further, and tells us that probably there is no distinction of kind between physical good and spiritual good, and that we may thus regard the two as commensurable in terms of each other. In a famous passage he makes for us an analysis of the conception of bliss. Physical good to him is itself an aspect of " bliss," as spiritual good constitutes the acme of "bliss"; and according to that author, there is a scale of values connecting the so-called physical bliss on the one hand with the highest spiritual bliss on the other. What, according to him, is the unit of measurement ? We are told that the unit of measurement may be taken to be "the happiness of a young man of noble birth and of good learning, who is very swift and firm and strong, and to whom is granted the possession of the whole earth full of wealth. Of a hundred such blisses is made the bliss of the human genii ; of a hundred blisses of these genii is made the bliss of the divine genii ; of a hundred of these latter blisses is made the bliss of the fathers ; of a hundred blisses of the fathers is made the bliss of the gods who are born gods ; of a hundred of these is made the bliss of the gods who have become gods by their actions; of a hundred such blisses is made the bliss of the highest gods; of a hundred blisses of these gods is made the bliss of Indra; a hundred blisses of Indra constitute the bliss of Bṛhaspati; of a hundred such blisses is made the bliss of Prajāpati; and a hundred blisses of Prajāpati make the bliss of Brahman: and each time we are told that all the blisses, severally and progressively, belong to the Sage who is free from all desires" (S. 11). It is important to note that there is here no distinction of kind brought out between physical good on the one hand and spiritual bliss on the other, unless of course it were intended by the author that the physical good may be taken to be as good as naught before the highest bliss. That, however, does not seem to be the trend of argument by which the beatific calculus is arrived at after such labour by the author of the Taittirīyopanishad with the help of a physico-mythological scale of measurement. It is also equally important to remember that all these various blisses are said at all times to belong to the Sage who is free from all desires. If, in short, desirelessness is to constitute the highest bliss, there is no meaning in saying that the highest good could be measured in terms of the unit of physical good. In any case, it does not seem possible that spiritual good can be of the same kind as physical good: the two are probably entirely incommensurate, differing not in degree but in kind. The bliss of the Sage, who has realised Brahman, cannot be measured in terms of the physical happiness of any beings whatsoever, however highly placed or however divine they may be.