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CORNELL STUDIES
IN
PHILOSOPHY
No. 2
BRAHMAN: A
Study THE
IN
History of Indian Philosophy
BY
HERV...
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CORNELL STUDIES
IN
PHILOSOPHY
No. 2
BRAHMAN: A
Study THE
IN
History of Indian Philosophy
BY
HERVEY DeWITT GRISWOLD, FeU
Forman
and
Professor of Philosophy in the
Christian College, Lahore.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1900
M.A.
vy
PRESS OP
Thb New Era Printing Company Lancaster, Pa.
PREFACE.
TWO
countries share the honor of being the birthplaces of the
chief historic religions of the world, Palestine-Arabia
The one
India.
Islam
is
the ancestral
;
Judaism ism, as
is
home
of Judaism, Christianity, and
Brahmanism and Buddhism.
the other, of
the mother of both Christianity
Brahmanism
is
and
Genetically,
and Mohammedan-
Buddhism,
the mother of Buddhism.
and Mohammedanism belong to the class of instituted religions, in that they go back into great creative personwhereas Judaalities, after which they are respectively named Christianity,
;
ism and Brahmanism, the mother
religions of the world, are
properly characterized as spontaneous, since
they have their
The one
origin in the tribe rather than in the individual.
group
namely Judaism,
of religions,
grew up and made
conquests
earliest
its
in
allied
and Islam,
Christianity,
the region having the
The other group, represented by Mediterranean for its center. Brahmanism and Buddhism, appeared and spread in India-China and the neighboring
the second ancient center of the
regions,
The
world's civilization.
sacred language of Judaism
and
linguistically
racially the
is
Hebrew,
Hence both
and the sacred language of Brahmanism, Sanskrit.
western group springs from a Se-
while the eastern springs from an
Aryan
source.
mitic
source,
Thus
the history of religion has to do primarily with two geo-
graphical centers, Palestine and India
and Ar>'an In this
;
;
with two races, Semitic
and with two languages, Hebrew and Sanskrit.
monograph
I
purpose to make a special study of the
doctrine of Brahman, the central conception of Indian philosophy
and
religion.
Accordingly,
of philosophy and
in the
be genetic and comparative. tion of
Brahman
will
it
will
It will
in
the history
The method
will
be genetic, for the concep-
be traced through the Vedas, the Upani-
shads, the Vedanta-Sutras, and the It will
be a study both
history of religion.
Commentary of
(^ankaracarya.
be comparative, for the religious aspects of the doctrine of iii
PREFA CE.
iv
Brahman will constantly be illustrated by the parallel development in Judaism and Christianity while the philosophical aspects of the doctrine will, at least in their main features, be set side by side with the corresponding ideas in the ancient and modern phi;
losophy of the West.
The importance of
Brahman
of the conception of
Indian thought
indicated
is
by the
in
that
fact
the history
the
word
Brahman has supplied the name Brahmans (2) a department of ancient Sanskrit literature, the Bfdhmanas (3) the Ultimate Reality of the Vedanta, Brahma Trinity, Brahma (5) In(4) the first person of the later Hindu to (i) a class of priests, the
'
'
;
;
;
;
Buddhist disruption, Brahmanism, and
dian religion before the .(6)
the
modern
It will,
theistic
Brahma Samaj.
as the
of course, be possible to deal only with the main out-
lines of the doctrine of
says, to explain in
the doctrine of
the history of
As
movement known
de^tail
Brahman. the
For, as Professor Flint truly
how and why
of the development of
would be to write the longest chapter in
Brahman Hindu civilization.^
regards literature,
my
largest indebtedness
is
works of
to the
Professor Deussen, especially to his Allgemeine Geschichte dcr Philosophie, erster
Band, which deals with the philosophy of the
pre-Upanishad period, and to Prof.
Max
his
Sechzig Upanishads dcs Veda.
Mueller's Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, and Profes-
sor Thibaut's careful translation of the Vedanta-Sijtras (SBE. vols.
XXXIV
and
XXXVIII)
have also been of very great
Jacob's Co7icordance
to
pensable to every worker
in
Col.
The method that found in
the Upanishads
the
field
is,
service.
of course, indis-
of the Upanishads.
of transliteration used
essentially the
is
Professor Whitney's Sanskrit
Grammar.
same as I must
consistently.
plead guilty, however, of not always following
it
Words such as upanishad, rishi, piirnsha, come anglicized, and so I have not always
prakriti, etc.,
have be-
them
as upani-
sad,
rsi,
purusa and prakrti.
I
have written
written s in
the place of visarga.
Brahman (neuter as opmarked stages {a) well three by indicated posed to Brahman) is the initial or germinal stage represented by the Rig-Veda, the
The development
of the doctrine of
:
^
Anti- Theistic Theories,
p.
344.
PREFA CE.
V
Atharva-Veda and the early prose, excluding the Upanishads {b) the stage of creative thought represented by the Upanishads and
;
;
the stage of system building and exposition represented
{c)
by the Vedanta-Siatras,
aS
To
expounded by ^ankaracarya.
these a fourth stage might be added, namely, that of Indian scholasticism and theological subtlety, as illustrated treatises,
doctrinal
These
Paribhdsd.
by the
Vcddnta Sara and the
g., the
e.
later
Veddnta
marked, not indeed by
stages, I say, are well
external chronological data, which in India are almost entirely
by what has been happily called internal chronology, Thus even the lanthe chronology of language and thought. guage reveals three clearly marked stages of development, Vedic, lacking, but
Brahmanic, and
Classic.
The
absolute dates of the Rig- Veda, of
the Brdlunanas, and of the beginnings of Classic Sanskrit in the Sutra period, are very uncertain, and yet their respective places in the
and
development of Sanskrit
definite.
It is
are sufficiently clear
literature
to be noted that the three stages in the de-
velopment of the doctrine of Brahman, namely,
and systematic, correspond
in
initial,
creative,
general to the three periods in the
history of the language, Vedic, Brahmanic, and Classic.
only when we come to the Upanishads that Brahman
It is
Doubtless centuries of
uniformly means the Ultimate Reality.
language and thought
development elapsed before the word
idea which
brahman and the word came to be
was
traced down from their sources
gether
;
finally
Two
integrated.
'
brahman
opment and flow of meaning, the other the Sole Reality as ture.
Or, to state
ation of the
'
variously manifests
differently,
it
this
be
we have
'
with
its
devel-
consisting of the idea of itself in first
the early litera-
to trace the prepar-
This for the idea, and of the idea for the word. on the one hand, a study of the derivation and use of
word
will involve,
the word
it
to
they meet and flow to-
until
one represented by the word
associated with
streams, then, are
brahman, and, on the other, some account of the course '
of Vedic thought as
ception of things.
it
gradually
moved towards
a unitary con-
CONTENTS.
CHAITER Ill-
I.
Word Bkahmax
History of the
Pp. 1-20
A. Usage of Brahman. B.
Derivation of Brahman.
C. Connection of the various meanings of Braliman.
CHAPTER TuK Developmkm
H.
ok thk Doctrine of U.nity
the Pre-Upanishad
in
Pp. 21-42
Literature A. The Growth
and B.
of the Monistic Conception in the period of the Rig- Veda
in the region of the
Panjab.
The growth of the Monistic Conception Veda and in the region of Madhyadega.
CHAPTER The Doctrine of Brahman
in
in the
period of the Yajur-
HI.
the Upanishads
Pp. 43-70
A. Remarks on the Sources. B. Doctrine.
(
C. Consequences. J
I-
^I-
Religious. Ethical.
HI. Eschatological. IV. Philosophical.
CHAPTER liii:
Doctrine of Brahman
in
the Vedanta-Sutr.'VS as Expounded hy
(^"ankaracarya
Pp. 71-^9
A. The Theology of (^ankaracarya. B. ^ankaracarya and Ramilnujacarya.
C.
IV.
The Vedanta- Sutras. vii
OF ABBREVIATIONS.
LIST
Ait.
Ar
Aitareya Aranyaka.
Ait.
Br
Aitareya Brahmana.
Altind. Gram...Altindische
Apocal. loh
Grammatik
—Wackernagel,
1896.
Apocalypse of John.
Av
A vesta.
AV
Athan'a-Veda.
Brh Up
Brhadaranyaka Upanishad.
Buddha
Buddha:
His
Life,
His Doctrine,
His Order.
Oldenberg (Eng.
Trans, by Hoey, Lond., 1882).
Comp. Gram.... Comparative Grammar of Eng. Trans.
(
Br
(^"at.
the Indo-Germanic
Languages
— Brugmann.
)
(^atapatha
Brahmana.
(^vet.
Up Chand. Up
(^vetagvatara Upanishad.
Essays
Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus
Chandogya Upanishad.
— H.
T. Colc-
brooke (Leipzig, 1858).
Evang. loh
Gospel of John.
(leschichte
Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie.
IE
I
Kaush.
Up
ndo- European.
Kaushitaki Upanishad.
Kultur
Indiens Literatur and Kultur
Mac
Maccabees.
Up
Mait.
— Schroeder.
Maitrayana Upanishad.
Manuel
Manuel de
T OST O. T
New
Ps
Psalm.
N.
la
Langue de I'Avesta
— De Harlez (Paris 1882).
Testament.
Original Sanskrit Texts.
Old Testament.
KV
Rig-Veda. .'...The Roots,
Roots
guage
Verb-forms and primary derivatives of the Sanskrit Lan-
—Whitney.
SBE
Sacred Books of the East.
Six Systems.... The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy Taitt.
Up
Taitt.
Samh... Taittiriya Samhita.
Upanishads Vdj.
Sainh
Taittiriya
—Max Muller.
Upanishad.
Sechzig Upanishads des Veda. Vajasaneyi Samhita.
Veda— Oldenberg.
Veda
Die Religion des
Vedanta
Das System des Vedanta
LUMG
Zeitschrift der
—Deussen.
Deutschen Morgenliindischen Gesellschaft. viii
CHAPTER
I.
The History of the Word Brahman. The word 'brahman
'
is
the greatest
On
of Indian Philosophy.
word
in
the whole history
Indian thought.
hangs largely the development of The meanings assigned to it are numerous and
bewildering.
has
It
it
been explained and translated by such
various terms as worship, devotion, fervor, prayer, incantation,
sacred writ, priestly
sanctity,
holiness,
hymn, charm,
priesthood, spiritual exaltation,
Veda, Vedic formula, priestly order, holy work,
dignity,
inspiration,
Thus
reality, absolute.
it
force,
seems
spiritual
power,
ultimate
mean almost anything.
to
On
the principle that accuracy of thought depends upon the accurate understanding
ments of thought,
and use of the words which are the instruin other words that sound thinking presup-
poses sound philology,
we
are justified in
to determine the history of the
A.
We
word
'
taking
in order,
if
trouble
Usage of Brahman.
shall consider the actual usage of the
mology,
some
brdhnian'
possible, to be delivered
one-sided etymologizing.
word before
its
ety-
from the vice of a
First, then, the word brahman in According to Grassmann's Index Lexicon it octhe RV. about 240 times. A careful study of these pas'
'
the Rig-Veda. curs in
sages yields the following results: frequently stands side
by
side in the
or more names for hymn,
ably as a general synonym.
These means of strength
Brahman VI, 23,
I
c.
The word 'brahman' same pdda or foot with one (i)
g., stoma, uktlia, dJii, etc.,
presum-
E. g., II, 39, 8 {brdhma stomam), for you,
(and) praise-song
made
{stoma brahman nktha),
i.
O
heavenly horsemen,
the Gritsamadas, e.
The pressed out soma thou dost love, O Indra, Brahman (and) song of praise (and) hymn intoned.
i.
e.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
2
VI, 38,
{brdhma ca giras)
3
:
Brdluiian and psalms to Indra have been offered.
VI, 38, 4 {brdJinia gira
ca viamna).
iiktlid
and soma strengthen Indra, and hymns and wisdom.
As
sacrifice
So
also brahman, psalms
{brdhmdni nktha), VI, 47, 14 {giro girah), VI, 69, 7 {brahmdni brahmdni), VI, 69, 4 {brahmdni
Compare
also
80, 16
I,
.
.
.
.
.
liavani), etc,
.
The word brahman also not infrequently against some word for hymn in a different pada verse, doubtless in
synonymons parallelism
Hebrew and Anglo-Saxon .
.
,
brdhma arkdis With a high song of
.
Who
.
same the manner of
after
of the
E. g., VI, 38, 3-4 (dhiyd
poetry.
giras)
.
praise the ancient Indra
ages not, with holy
Brdliman and psalms
Oh may
stands over
'
'
(2)
hymns
to Indra
welcome
I
have been
;
offered.
the glorious song of praise refresh him.
VI, 69, 4 ijiavand niatindm parallel with brahmdni giras), Be pleased with every cry of sacred worship.
Hearken VII,
to
my
brahmdni and
my
praise-songs.^
61,6 {inanmani navdni parallel with brahma imdni), May these new songs be unto you for praise songs,
May VII, 22,
by me offered 61,2 {manmdni
please you.
these brahmdni
Compare 3
also VII,
{vdcam imdm
parallel with
parallel with brahmdni),
imd brahma), VII, 72,
3
{stomdsas parallel with brahmdni).
The word brdliman frequently stands in the last verse of hymn in such a way as clearly to refer to the preceding verses, E. ^., I, 61, 16, I, 62, 13, I, 80, 16, e., to the whole hymn. '
(3)
a i.
I,
117,25,1, 152,
'
7,
IV,
6, II,
VII, 22, 9, 5, X, 54, group IV, 16-17, 19-24, each VII, 28,
which contains the words (4) A limiting pronoun whether
it
*
IV, 16, 2i,V, 29, 15, V, 75, 19,
6,
X, 80,
hymn
Note that of the
7, etc.
ends
in
a kind of refrain
brdhma navy am,' a new brdhman.' sometimes added to brdhman,' '
'
is
stands in the last verse or not, in order apparently to
iCf. Ps. CXI,
I.
" Hear vay prayer, O Lord, And let my cry come unto Thee.
'
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. make
the reference to the
•Through brahman
this brdlunan,
';
'these
brahiiidni';
'
my
II,
Agni, be strengthened';
Compare imdm vdcam V, 54,
5,
(5)
our
VII, 70, 6
6,
II,
'
6 'our
34,
39,8 'these brdliman (and) stoma'; VI, 69, 4 '; VI, 69, 7 my brahmdni (and) cry.'
II,
The
31, 18
152, 7
I,
VII, 61,
3,
'my brahman';
7
18,
braJimdni (and) songs
IV, 57.
R £.,!,
expHcit.
165, 14, V, 73, 10, VII, 22,
I,
brahmdni';
hymn more
3
I,
'
'
this
word
VII, 22,
poets are said to
3,
'
I,
40, 6,
129,
I,
IX, 97, 13. fashioned {taks
h^LVO.
130, 6,
I,
i,
62, 13, V,
I,
73, 10, X, 80, 7) and generated {Jan II, 23, 2, VII, 22, 9, VII, 31, 11) the brdhmau, just as they are described as fashioning or generating a' dhl or stoma or nktlia or tv?^; (I, 109, i, V, 2, 1 1,
VII,
15, 4,
amples I,
31, II
I,
:
109,
62, 13
'
X, 23,
I,
Gotama has
The poets generated
stoma (song of praise) have
The word brdhjnan '
(6)
X,
6,
I,
39, 14,
130,
new brdhmanJ
fashioned a
'
a brdhinan.' I is
Ex-
6).
have fashioned a did (hymn of meditation)
'I
I '
VII, 26,
VII,
Cf.
i
5,
4
;
'
Cf.
VII.
A new
generated.'
joined with the verb gdyata
'
sing
'
4 and VIII, 32, 27 'Sing a god-given brahman.' In VI, 69, 4 and 7 the gods are entreated to hear the brahmdni. (7) The epithet new is often applied to brdhman just as in
in
I,
37,
'
'
VII, 15, 4, VIII, 23, 14 to stoma, in VII, 61, 6 to manman,dir\6. in II, 24,
I
to gir.
navy am
Thus
I,
62, 13, IV. 16, 21,
V,
29, 15, VI,
brdhma X, 89, 3. With the song of the new passages compare and other of these
VI, 50,
17, 13,
6,
VII, 61,
'
6,
*
'
XL, 3, XCVI, I, XCVIII, I, etc. (8) The adjective abraJiman (without
'
Pss.
a brdlunan^ occurs three
times: IV, 16, 9 abrahmd dasyns, 'the dasyn without a brdhLibations without a man VII, 26, i abrahmdnas sntdsas, X, 105, 8 'With a hymn brdhman do not exhilarate Indra '
'
;
'
{rca)
;
may we overcome the hymnless
{anrcaJi).
without a brdhman {abrahmd^ does not please thee pare abraJiman IV, 16, 9 with anrc X, 105, (9)
The
observes,^
A
is
well developed in the Rig-Veda.
1
Com-
well.'
8.
idea of the inspiration of the hymn-writers, as
'Sing a god-given {devattam) brdhman';
sacrifice
I,
Thus,
105,
Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, S. 242
Deussen
ff.
15
37, 4 Varuna
I, '
4^
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
4
causes brahmani
hymn
sacred
He
.
.
.
{inati)
;
4
Thou
'
hymn
of the splendid
{iiianotar^
reveals through our heart {lirda) the
II, 9,
'
(O Agni) the deviser
art
[imcas)
III,
;
'
5
34,
(Indra)
showed these hymns {dhiyas) to the singer'; IV, li, 3 'From thee, Agni, come the gifts of sacred song from thee hymns ;
and holy texts
{inanlsds)
with such *
brdliman as
-Si
is
Thou, Agni, wast the
(din)'
;
VII, 97,
'
;
VI,
;
i,
i
deviser of this sacred meditation
first
who
is
VIII, 42,
;
us, Indra,
'
'
'
'(Indra)
3
{dcvakrtasyd) brdliuian
hymn
V, 42, 4 Enrich god-granted (^e-z/^/wV^w)
{iiktha)
god-made
the king of the 3
O
'
Varuna, sharpen
this
(d/it)' IX, 95, 2 'The god (Soma) reveals the hidden names (attributes) of the gods X, 98, 7 Brihaspati brought him the word (vac).' Note also that in II, 23, i Brahmanaspati ;
'
'
is
called
'
;
the great king of the braJundni
generator of bralundni,' while in X, 61, 7
gods generated brdlunan.'
Observe the
'
it
and is
entire
in
2
v.
'The
written:
parallelism
regards inspiration which exists between brdliinan and
its
sumable) synonyms, mati, vacas,
vdc.
(10)
The
of din, mantra, arka,
is
'Quickened by the hymn {dInj'd
Cf.
covered the sun hidden by unholy darkness.'
Cf
I,
(Agni) upheld the heavens by means of true mantras.'
'(Brihaspati) priests
Cf V,
smote Vala through brahman.''
IX,
soma-drops
j'litds), th.&
V, 40, 6 'Atri with the fourth brdhman
are poured forth.'
'
(pre-
'Quickened by
brdhinan {bralima jYttas), be strong in body (O Indra).' 64, 16
as
represented as similar to that
E. g., VII, 19, ii
etc.
and
din, viainsd, nktlia
brahman
efficacy of
the
'
dis-
67,
3
II, 24, 3
31,
4 'The
magnifying Indra with hymns [arka) strengthened him for
Note also
slaying the serpent.'
III,
'The brdhman of VI, 75, 19 Brdhmaii 'Through your brdhman, 53,
Vi^vamitra protects the tribe of Bharata'
12
^
;
is
my
O
Vasishtha, Indra helped Sudas in the battle of the ten kings.'
protecting armour'
In X, 162, 1—2 the wish
brahman What, passages
brdhman
in
is
is
3
illness.
brdhman
in
these representative
the facts presented above
name
for
hymn, as iCf.
^
expressed that Agni be united with
the meaning of
From a
VII, 33,
is
order to expell
then, ?
;
I
it
is
it
is
evident that
used interchangeably for
Sam. VII, S-9.
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. mantra,
inanuian, inamsd,
tnati,
uktha, vac, etc.,
hymns.
When
hymn
made up
as
in its earliest
used
names
re, gir,
vacas,
to the
Vedic
the plural brd/nnaii seems to refer to a
in
This suggests that
of a collection of verses.
use brdhniaii
may have
referred to a single brief
A
group of such utterances
utterance of the priest in worship.
might be called
stoma, arka,
dJii,
of which are applied as
all
5
distributively
either
brdJiinan.
The
essentials of
brdhnian.
Both
alike
brahvidni or collectively
Vedic worship were
sacrifice
and
were means of quickening and strengthen-
Indeed, both were offerings, the one material con-
ing the gods.
sisting of soma,
ghee,
etc.,
No
prayer and praise.
the other spiritual, the sacrifice of
worship was complete»without brdJnnan,
Brdlunan
the sacred utterance.
may be
rendered 'prayer,' pro-
vided that the word prayer be taken in a purely formal sense.
ritualistic
and
not prayer in general, uttered or unuttered,
It is
"das
stated or occasional, but rather
Gebet " (Old-
rituell fixirte
enberg),^ " das ausgesprochene Gebet, sei es Preis,
Bitte" (Grassmann), or in general, as defined
Dank oder
by Roth
in
the St.
Petersburg Lexicon, "jede fromme Aeusserung beim Gottesdienst."
"the holy word"" (Bloomfield) which as used
It is
the ritual becomes about equal to " prayer."
concerned, brdlunan might be rendered by '
prayer
'
or,
;
gory of prayer, as
etc.,
is
might
all
far as '
as well as
"
stages of religion there
hymn and prayer. Both are not so much on inner content
hymn
is
no
is
by
brdJivian, viz,
actually the procedure of Bergaigne.^
meaning
in
usage
be brought under the cate-
Muir,'' as the result of his inductive
gives the alternative istic
hymn
on the other hand, the synonyms of
mantra, vac, stoma,
deed
'
So
In-
study of Vedic passages
or prayer."
In the ritual-
essential difference
between
chanted, and the emphasis rests as on exactitude of liturgical use.
Secondly, brdliman in the Atliarva- Veda and the Brdhmanas.
These together with the Yajur-Veda constitute the chief
literary
documents of the Brdhmana period. The texts quoted above under (lo) concerning the magical efficacy of brahman, indicate 1
P'eda,
*In a '
La
S.
letter
433.
from Rev. A.
II.
religion vedique, p. 277.
*OST., Vol.
I, p. 242.
Ewing, a pupil of Professor Bloomfield.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
6
RV.
the transition from the standpoint of the
to that of the
AV.,
means magic formula or charm. As in which brahman examples note the following texts as translated by Bloomfield From the wrath of the mighty do I, excelling in my incanI, lo, I, \Qd.d out this man'; I, 14, 4 'With the incanta{brahman), tation frequently
^
:
'
... do
tion {brahman) of Asita
cover up thy fortune';
I
I,
23,
4
my charm {brahman)' my charm {brdhthrough thee render do I 'Guiltless II, 10, man)'\ III, 6, 8 I drive them out with my mind, drive them out In with my thought, and also with my incantation {brahman).' '
The
...
leprosy
I
have destroyed with
I
'
harmony with is
the above texts
also called the
in order that the
the fact that the Atharva-Veda
is
Brahma-Veda,
from a schematic motive
either
Brahman-priests might have a Veda as well as
the other three classes of priests, or because
brahmdni, 6,
f
i.
£\,
for the latter view.
4 He by charm, brahman) renders the atmosphere e.
g., ^at. Br.^
evil spirits'; I, 7,
to
it
Veda of AV. XV, The same
the
found, though less often, in the other literature of the
is
period,
is
potent texts, spells, magical formulas.
might serve as a proof text
usage
it
8
i,
I,
'
i,
He
very prayer (or
this
'
2,
free
from danger and
thus makes over the sacrificer's cattle
by means of the brahman.' See also Vdj. destroy the enemies by means of brahman' explained by the commentator Mahidhara as
for protection
XI, 82 'I
Sainh.
(where brahman is the power of the majitra or charm).
above quoted passages that
It
is
evident from the
bibliolatry, or the superstitious use of
was common enough in the Vedic age. Another meaning of brahman, essentially the same as the two
sacred texts,
meanings already given,
is
sacred formula or text.
Thus
:
^at.
Let us try to overcome one another by speech, by Br. I, 5, 4, 6, sacred writ {vac brahman)'; II, i, 4, lO The brahman \s speech '
'
{vac)
';
I, 3,
yajus); IV,
1
,
5,
3, 2,
'
The brahman
is
the sacrificial formula
10 'This one he
maks VII,
means of the brdhman, \he yajiis the mantra'; IV, i, i, 4 'The brahman ';
1
i,
is
{brdhma
the sacrifice
by
5 'The brahman is the Gdyatn'; Taitt.
i,
SBE., Vol. XLII.
"rca( ca saniani ca yajittisi ca hrahma 3
for
fit
'
As
translated by Eggeling
ca.
(SBE. Vols. XII,
XXVI, XLI, XLIII
and XLIV).
THE HISTOR Y OF THE WORD BRAHMAN.
The Gandharvas were speaking the brdhman, gods were chanting it.' So sacred is the brahman that it con-
Savih. VI,
the
7
'
very speech of heaven.
stitutes the
Thus
6
6,
I,
we have found
far
'brahman.'
In
or Bmhma?ia,
all
Veda
Thus of brahman that
the form and the function
it is
—the
emphasis
in different texts rests
the connotation of brahman.
.in
form well wrought
like a chariot
and refresh the gods
tion to strengthen
brahman
in
Sainhitd
The emphasis,
holy word.'
in general 'the
it is
word
for the
the passages considered, whether
however, at different times and ent elements
one meaning
really only
upon
differ-
in the
Rig-
receive the
and the func-
in the Atliarva- Veda,
;
while in the Brdhmanas,
it is
the power and potency of
it is
the element of sacredness due to the divine origin, antiquity,
efficacy,
;
and religious use of brahman.
In
fact,
we have here
moments in the Indian doctrine of Holy Scripture. we have considered the form and potency and
three
Hitherto
sacredness of brahman, the holy word, viewed as something con-
hymn and
sisting of
But
'
the holy
word
sacred text, and so external and objective.
may be
'
taken
in a
more
internal arid sub-
jective sense, as the truth, the inner content, the sacred doctrine,
the
wisdom and theology,
resenting the
"theoretical
of the external word.
Thus, as rep-
side" (Roth) of religion, brahman
stands over against tapas 'austerity,' the practical side; just as in
the N. T. faith (which includes knowledge) stands over against
works. live
E. g.,
AV.
by brdhutan and brdhman,
tapas,
science'
(/.
E. g., VI, science
';
e.,
'
The
i,
i
'Truth greatness
support the earth'; Cat. Br.
.
II,
i,
.
.
4,
In the ^at. Br. brah-
the truth {satyani)'
in
1,1,8' He II, 6, 4,
2-7
encompassed them.' 4, 3
VIII, 10, 25 'The seven Rishis
some passages by trayi vidyd, 'the triple the combined doctrine of Rik, Sama and Yajus).
defined
is
is
3,
tapas'; XII,
sacrifice,
10 'The brdhman
man
VI, 133,
created
of
all
the brdhman, the triple
With the brdhman, the triple science they For the meaning of triple science cf. I. i, '
'
triple science is
three Vedas); IX,
first
'
3, 3,
sacrifice
'
(the great doctrine of the
14 'The Stoma, and the Yajus, and the
Rik, and the Saman, and the Brihat and the Rathantara verses and meters of
all
the Vedas)
—
this,
doubtless
is
(/.
c, the
the triple
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
8
science'; X, 4,
21
2,
'He
.
.
the triple science, for therein
stomas, of
We
all vital airs,
and of
must now return
beheld the
all
existing things in
all
body of
all
meters, of
all
the gods.'
Rig-Veda
the
to
From brahman (nom.
view.
.
is
for a fresh point of
neut. brdhma,
'
hymn
or prayer
'
)
brahman (nom. masc. brahmd, the man of the brahma, the hymnist or 'prayer'). The brahma, as Muir^ points out, was at first a poet or sage (= rishi, vipra, kavi, cf. there
RV.,
derived
is
80,
I,
lastly a
class of
then a minister of public worship
i),
particular
in general,
and
As
the
kind of priest with special duties.
Bralnndnas or Brahman-priests formed
adherents thereto began to be designated in the later
Rik by the names brahma-putra
verses of the
gradually,
itself
hymns and
(II, 43, 2, later
addition,
Grassmann) and especially bralnnand^ both meaning
'son
a
of
Brahman -priest.
'
"
When
the
between
distinction
Brahman and Kshatriya had been completely fixed, then as were often designated by the abstract terms Bralima (Sacerdotium, Geistlichkeit, Priesthood) and Ksatram (Nobility). Thus in the White Yajiir- Veda, the Atharva- Veda and the Brahiuanas the two designations often stand side by side {Brahma ca Ksatram ca). E.g., Vdj. Saikh., VI, 3, VII, 21, classes they
XX, II.
2,
So
I,
XXX, 5 AV., II, 15, 4, XV, 10, 3 gat. Br., Ill, 5, 'The Brahman and the Kshatra, these two vital forces.^ This meaning 2, I, 7, IV, 2, 2, 13, IX, 4, I, 7-1 1, etc.
25,
;
;
of brahman, n^-vaeXy priesthood, seems to have been derived from
both brahman and brahman.
There remains to be investigated only one more meaning of brahman, but
it
is
the greatest of
all,
namely Brahman as the
concept of the greatest energy, the highest istent.
In the later
manaspati
(
hymns
= Brihaspati)
'
of the
reality,
the Lord of prayer.
a personification of the mighty power which the
brahman or
'
the self-ex-
Rig-Veda we meet with Brah-
holy word,' and manifests
'
This
lies at
itself in
is
clearly
the heart of the wonder-
iQST., Vol. I, p. 243, ^Compare the O. T. name of a member of the class of 7iebhiim 'prophets,' namely den-7iai>/ii son of a prophet' (Amos, VII, 14). '
"Cf. Plato's description of separate priestly
445, Jowett's trans.
and warrior
castes,
Timaeus, pp. 444,
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. of the sacred formulas.
ful effects
be noted that the ap-
It is to
pearance of Brahmanaspati coincides
9
general with the
in
already studied the doctrine of brahman external
and
rise
of
We have
the doctrine of the magical efficacy of the sacred texts.
objective as
hymn, formula, and sacred text in general, and also the doctrine of brahman internal and subjective as the sacred truth, wisdom, and theology
of the holy word.
Brdlunanaspdti, the apotheosis of
the/^w^rof the holy word, introduces us
to a third line of develop-
Very often in the BrdJimanas is Brihaspati identified with Brahman, ^., ^at. Br., Ill, i, 4, 15 BrdJima vai Brhaspati.^ So also III, 3, I, 2, III, 7, 3, 13, III, 9, I, 11-14, V, I, I, II, V, I, 4, 14, V, 3, 5, •]-%, IX, 2, 3, 3, etc. Compare also Ait. ment.
'
6'.
Br.,
19,
I,
nificant.
mana
I,
It
Taitt.
Sainh.,
Ill, i,
i,
All this
etc.
4,
that for the theologians
indicates
period a deeper meaning
sig-
is
of the
Brdli-
word Brahman than had hitherto been found, to wit, the same meaning as had been expressed in the ancient hymns by Brihaspati, '
was discovered
in
the
'
the pozuer of the holy word.
the personification of sufficient
for
our purpose to
illustrate
It will
be
deeper meaning of
this
Brahman by suitable quotations from the literature of the period. Thus Taitt. Savih., VII, 3, 1,4 Limited are the Rik-verses, '
:
limited
are the Sama-verses, limited are the Yajus-verses, but
there
no end to that which
is
'The Brahman moves
is
Brdlinian'
^at. Br., Ill,
;
3, 4,
17
'The Brdlunanisthe world-order {rtam)'; VI, i, i, 10 The Brahman is the first born {prathaviajani) of this All' VIII, 2, i, 5 'The Brahman is the highest of gods' VIII, 4, i, 3 'Heaven and earth are upheld by the Brdhnian' X, 3, 5, 10, This is the Greatest Brahman {j'yesthain Brahman), for than this there is no thing greater '; X, 3, 5, 1 This Brahman has nothing before it and nothing after it,' X, 4, 1,9 'I praise what hath been and what will be, the Great BraJnnan {inaJiad Brdhina), the one the gods onward'; IV,
i,
4, 10
'
;
;
*
;
1
'
;
Aksara, the manifold Brahman, the one Aksara'
X, 6, him meditate on the Tnie Brahman {satyam Brdhma).
4,
10
man
is
'
The Brahman the
is
S&\{-eyiis\.en\.
the truth (satyam)'
;
;
X,
6,
{siuayajnbhn); reverence be to
5,
3,
i
'
Let
Cf. II, i,
9
'
Brah-
Brahman
Note also the following passages from the Atharva-Veda
:
X,
!
7,
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
lO
24 The gods, the knowers of Brahman, meditate on the Highest Brahman' {^jycstham Brahma, cf. Cat. Br., X, 3, 5, 10) X, 8, I Reverence be only to that Highest Brahman X, 7, 17* The *
;
'
*
;
men who know Thus Brahman
the
Brahman know
not merely
is
the Highest {Paramesthiri)
(i) the external /(Staw of the
word, and (2) the meaning of the sacred word, but
.'
sacred
also (3)
it is
the pozvcr which resides in the heart of the sacred word, and so in the heart of
all
things.
Derivation
B.
The word
'
brahman
Indo-European
'
is
made up
The nomina
agcntis.
tween the meaning of the thing and the infinitives [e.
g.,
da-mane
=
common
of braJi- plus the
This suffix forms no}nina
suffix -man.
and more rarely nomitia
Brahman.
of
ob-fxtvai)
actionis
actionis,
vary be-
When
action.
used as
they indicate the action
;
when not so used, the thing. As examples cited by Brugmann^ we have man-man thought,' vds-man covering,' dlid-7nan 'dwelling,' dd-man 'gift,' bJiii-man 'earth,' hJidr-man 'support.' '
'
Or, to take a Latin example, flu-men that the meaning It is
in all
these cases
thought, raiment, house,
gift,
is
'
to be noted
It is
river.'
concrete and not abstract.
earth, support,
and
river, that
the words mean, rather than thinking, dressing, dwelling, giving, being, supporting, and flowing.
man and They With
Brahman has two
bralimdn, which differ both in
are used respectively as
noun of
forms, brah-
gender and
action
in
accent.
and noun of agent.
we may compare dhdr-man (n) support,' and dharmd)i (m) 'supporter'; also dd-man (n) 'gift,' and dd-man (m) giver.' We know that in the case of dharman and ddman the But brahman has exactly the same forroots are dhar- and da-. these
'
'
We must therefore conclude that brahin every respect. ' manner represents a true root form. Professor Hopkins with some hesitation connects Brahman with "fla(g)men," and sees in it "an indication of the primitive fire-cult in antithesis There are two difficulties here. First the to the soma-cult." mation
in like
phonetic difficulty of connecting brah- with 1
Comp. Gra?n., Vol.
^Religions of India,
II, pp. p.
168.
flag.
365-375.
The cognate
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN.
II
verbs Gr. ipUyco, Lat. flagro, Skt. bhrdj, and Germ, blecken, all seem to presuppose, the IE. bhlcg, while brh and barz go back
Again,
to bhrgh.
this
hypothesis has no support, so far as
I
can
brahman or of its cognates. Another equation suggested by Dr. Haug^ in 868, and lately championed by Wackernagel ^ is that Brahman = Baresman, the bunch of If this be correct, then the sacred twigs used in the Zend ritual. root represented by brali- is bar]L-{brli) = Zend barz, from which
see, in the actual usage of
1
baresman
(=
bares
man)
-f
is
Before this can be ac-
derived.
Oldcepted, the change from bark- to brah- must be explained. " veware ^ doubts such a change and remarks Baresman enberg :
disch
*barhman
;
But Wackernagel
mit brahman hat es schwerlich etwas zu thun." *
shows pretty
clearly that ra or ra
stands in the place of ar or ar not only before s also before h -f consonant, as in
There
brahman {barh
drJi).
Zend
barz, for, as Jackson" says, "
Av.
becoming
before
We may
take
it
m
Av.
as
s
sometimes
as regards root
is
to determine the original
IE. bhrgh
is
postulated as the original
There are many derivatives
barz.
= brhant)
barezista
'
'
'
(Skt. barhistha).
mountain,' Brigit
'
suffix,
meaning of the of Skt. brh and
Zend,
c.
g.,
barezant
(?);
'
and
in
We
have also
in
the exalted' (Skt. brhatt,
Armen. /wy height '; Germ. Bag and Burg);
barezaiti); in
'strong'
in
and
'high,' barez, bercz 'high,' barehnis barezd 'height,'
very high
bri Gen. breg
'city' (cf
brahman
as fairly well settled, then, that
The next problem Zend
from
and he cites as examples maesinana 'with baresman' {barz = barcsmana and
same word etymologically, both the Zend baresman.
root brh.
results
;"
the
is
(^
is
{iniz = mili)
'with urine' barh).
s
and drahydnt
brh)
no doubt of the derivation of baresman from
{dark
z
+
sometimes
consonant, but
in
Gothic bailrgs
in
Latin
/;'/;>
Sclavonic bruzu 'quick'
(?).
O,
Ir,
Zend
'fortress,'
{iox forgtus)
Leaving out
and bruzu as doubtful, we see that all the other cognates seem to have the meaning 'high,' being used primarily with
fortis
1
Ueber die tirspriingliche Bedeiitung des Wortes Brahman.
^Altind. Gram., 1S96, S. 213. 3
Veda, S. 342, note
2.
^
Altind. Grata., S. 212,
^
Avesta
Grammar,
fg.
1892,
p. S^-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
12 a spatial brh-
is
As Grassmann
RV. side
by
gabliira
synonym.
word brhat very
points out, the
From
tion of the participle brhat)
only two
is
the causative
fundamental
The
to
'
still
we must
meaning
more
and
extend,'
is
the
mean-
Let us
test
has
It
strengthen.'
regard the meaning
fact that the '
'
more concrete and funda-
strengthen
'
from
easily be derived
'
The most impres-
'
extend
meaning
extend
'
'
Ir.
'
extend That, as
secondary.
'
favored not only by the sense of the Zend, O.
by the
is
root brh (with the excep-
between these two meanings, the meaning cognates, but also
(only
be extended
form without prepositions.
meanings,
mental underlying both,
is
'
used only transitively with preposi-
Unless there be some meaning as primary, and the
prthii
a general
great
'
and Gothic cognates.
Ir.,
this conjecture as far as possible.
in
{iirii,
as
extension upward, and this
is
ing found in the Zend, O.
and
'
depth or height.
in length, breadth,
form of extension
was
of IE. blirgli
in
often stands
the usage of br/iaf then the conjecture
meaning
plausible that the
whether
rsva 'high') evidently
'deep,'
very seldom goes with inahdt, main
It
three times).
tions
Skt. derivative from
which occurs about 270 times
brJiat,
side with certain adjectives denoting extension
'broad,'
sive
The most important
reference.
the participial form
is
primary
and Gothic
strengthen
than vice versa.
'
can
'
The
connection between extending the hand and helping or strength-
ening another
is
by
well illustrated
extension (of the hand).
the Arabic
If in three
passages
npa or sani means apparently to press around some one), the sense of
'
this
meaning can be
extend,' the transition in
madad help,' lit. of the RV. brli -f-
(as the
'
arm upon or
easily derived
from
meaning being helped by
the intensive form of the verb in two of the three cases. the meaning of
brli
was
'
to be extended
the usao-e of barJind and barhdnd India, in '
which the meaning
is
brli in
in
almost
'
is
the if
That
further supported
modern
dialects
by of
not quite exclusively
extend.'
We are now prepared to consider the cognate words Baresman and Brahman. We have seen that the root underlying both words means nia)i
'
to be extended,'
forms nouns of action.
'
to
We
be high,' and that the suffix
should expect then that both
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. baresman and brahman,
if
used abstractly as
1
infinitives,
would
have some such meaning as extending, exalting, presenting, fering
;
or, if
not so used, then
How
sented, offered.'
with
thing extended,
The word baresman
?
Harlez^
it is
mazdeen
it
occurs
'
'
almost exclusively to the Yasna or Avesta, where
lifted up,
of-
pre-
does the actual usage of baresman agree
hypothetical sense
this
'
portion
sacrificial
As
or sixty times.
fifty
confined
is
defined
of the
by De
a " faisceau de branches de tamarisque que le pretre
doit tenir a la main, leve vers le ciel,
Thus baresman
tion des prieres."
as a
pendant
la recita-
thing extended,
'
lifted
up,
Mazdean priest. There is abundant evidence in the text of the Yasna that the uplifted Baresman in the hand of the priest was regarded as an emblem of adoration, prayer, and praise. Thus the following I desire to appassages may be cited, as translated by Mills." proach the stars, moon and sun with the Baresniaii plants and presented,'
is
the sacred bundle of twigs in the hands of the
'
my praise'
with
(Yasna,
11,
ii);
'We
Baresman, and the timely prayer
present this plant of the blessings
for
(XXIV, 3) (XXIV,
'
'This plant of the Baresman (and) the timely prayer' 8)
' ;
We
present
.
prayer for blessings sages the
lifting
.
'
.
this
branch
(Visparad, XI,
the Baresman, and the
for
According
2).
to these pas-
up or presentation of the Baresman accompanied
the recitation of the prayers and
hymns
That the Bar-
of praise.
esman or bunch of sacred twigs was an emblem of worship and adoration is supported by the similar use of palm branches among
Two
the Hebrews. I
passages
may
be
saw and behold, a great multitude
throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in their hands
;
vation unto our
Lamb"
"After these things
cited. .
white robes
and they cry with a great
God which
sitteth
standing before the
.
.
in
and palms
voice, saying, Salva-
on the throne, and unto the
The
(Apocal. loh., VII, 9-10).
scene
is
laid
in the
heavenly temple, where a great multitude of the redeemed as white-robed priests serve in their
God day and
night
(v.
hands and words of adoration on their
not palms of victory but palms of adoration. presented they are emblematic of worship ^Manuel,
p. 389.
15) with
palms
lips.
These are
As
held up or
just like
2SBE., Vol. XXXI,
Baresman,
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
14
Again ,
.
Evang. loh., XII, 12-13 we read
in
took the branches of the palm
.
meet him, and cried
name
the
of the Lord."
emblems of
the hand as
in
have also palm branches borne
in
and
salutation
In fact the uplifted
praise.
are mostly variations of one fundamental attitude.
expressed
the
in
Adoration
Hebrew and
Luke, XVIII,
13), or of the
Christian Scriptures
XXIV,
or of the voice (Isa.
8),
24), or of cf.
I
palm branches borne
Mac. XIII.,
What
then
and Brahman
up
LXIII, V,
13,
hand (Apocal.
Tim.
i
4,
uplift-
CXXIII, II,
Acts. IV,
VII, 9
loh.,
;
51).
But
'
in
meaning between Baresman
the Zend ritual
in
'
lifted up,
the thing lifted up,
Baresman or bunch of sacred twigs, loh., VIII, 9, was an
presented, offered,' was the
emblem
by the
(Ps.,
Both mean apparently 'thing extended,
?
like the
(Ps.
14, 2 Chron.,
in the
the connection
is
presented, offered.
which
hands
lifts
religious salutation.
is
ing of the person (Luke, XVIII, 11), or of the eyes I,
In saluting
hand, or presents arms, or
erect, or raises the
the voice in a ringing cheer. It is
They
Consider the forms of modern salute.
and adoration.
one stands
to
he that cometh
is
been one of the chief ways of expressing saluta-
attitude has ever tion
We
great multitude
and went forth
trees,
Hosanna: Blessed
out,
"A
:
palm branches of Apocal.
of worship, as
it
were a kind of
While
visible adoration.
on the other hand in the Vedic ritual the thing lifted up, presented, offered,' was Brahman, the 'hymn or prayer' of adoration, which like the lifting up of the voice in Isa. XXIV, 14, was '
emblem
also an
As
there
is
no
of worship, as
it
were a kind of audible adoration.
essential difference
and a spoken and audible
betweeen an acted and
salute, so
there
is
visible,
none, as regards
worship
original purpose,
between Baresjnan acted and
through the
up of the sacred branches, and Brahman spoken
lifting
and audible worship through the
lifting
visible
up of one's voice
in
hymn
and prayer.
For
all this
rum means, sative
it
there
like brh
means
'
to
the voice as raised
Mrim
is
a striking analogy in Hebrew.
and
lift
in
are represented
barz,
up,'
'
to be high.'
The verb
In the Hiphil or cau-
both of an offering as presented, and of
prayer and adoration.
by the two
These two uses of
derivatives tcriundli
and rbmdm.
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. The former means the ritual, and lifting
offering as somefliing lifted
rendered
'
heave
up or presented
The
offering.'^
of the voice in adoration, an offering of
up
and
lips,'
is
rendered in the Revised Version
is
1
'
in
means a
latter-
the fruit of the
'
high
praise,'
and
by Canon Cheyne, lofty hymn.'^ Terumah, heave offering is romdm, lofty hymn,' the analogue the analogue of Baresman '
'
'
'
;
of Brahman.
There prayer
no
is
and
'
'
XXIV,
Isa.
Jer. VII,
up the voice
in
up a prayer.' Both idioms occur, the first Acts IV, 24 and the second in Isa. XXXVII,
in
essential difference
between
'
lifting
lifting
14,
word
In fact the
16.
double meaning
'
voice
and
'
z'dc (Lat.
hymn
'
vox) in the
RV. has
4,
the
In actual usage
or prayer.'
brahman is a synonym of vac. Both derivation and Vedic usage would be expressed if we should render 'lofty hymn.' Before the separation of the Persian and Indian branches of the
Aryan a
Baresman and Brahman were one word and so had That meaning has already been referred to meaning.
people,
common
from the point of view of etymology as 'thing extended,
get
'
religions offering
'
in
Baresman-Brahman
of
in
meanings of Baresman,
Brahman,
'
lifted
Combining etymology with usage, we general as the most probable meaning
up, presented, offered.'
'
the offering of
The
the prehistoric period.
diverse
the offering of sacred branches,' and
hymn and
differentiations of the original
may
prayer,'
meaning of
'
be regarded as
religious offering
'
in
Another hypothesis is possible, to wit that the offering of sacred branches accompanied by hymn and prayer, as described in the Avesta, was the original meaning of BaresmanBrahman, and that while Baresman has maintained its meaning general.
:
unchanged, Brahman has undergone a transference of meaning, the custom of offering sacred branches having dropped out of
use
among
the Indians, and so
to the remaining element
hymn and
prayer.
1
Cf.
3
Ex.
first
Brahman being
applied exclusively
the ritual, namely the offering of
hypothesis seems to
me
to be the
Centuries intervened between the prehistoric period
safer one.
2Pss.
The
in
XXIX,
LXVI,
17,
27,
'The
CXLIX,
thigh of the heave offering 6.
.
.
.
which
Text unfortunately not absolutely
The Book of Psalms, N. Y., 1895.
is
sure.
heaved up.'
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1
when Baresman and Brahman were one word with one meanins" and the period of rehgious practice reflected
and Persian sources.
'
offering
fice (cf.
'
many
of
in the earhest
Indian
quite possible that in the prehistoric
Baresman-Brahman may have
period or
It is
things,
e.
referred to the
'
hfting
'
the parts of the animal sacri-
g.,
Heb. terijmah), sacred branches, sacred formulae of
and prayer,
up
hymn
etc.
The dominant
explanation of the word
Professor Roth (St. Petersburg Lexicon) originally " die als
Drang und
'
brahman
'
who makes
that of
is
to
it
mean
des Gemiiths auftretende
Fiille
und den Gottern zustrebende Andacht." He is followed by who says that brahman is " from the root bark exert, strain, extend,' and denotes simply 'worship' as the offering which the elevated affections and strained desires of the devout Whitney,^
'
bring to the gods" iginal
and also by Deussen,^ who defines the or-
;
meaning of brahman
as " der
zum
emporstrebende Wille des Menschen." planation,
brahman
not
is
much
so
more dence
some
primitive idea. is in
favor of the
The
extent.
seems to
It
as
tlie
me
logical, objective.
It
question
only
is
which
is
in-
the
that the weight of the evi-
more concrete notion
is
ex-
uplifted soid^ the ex-
In the Vedic period religion was
primitive.
this
the priestly wor-
Both ideas undoubtedly
altation of the spirit in worship.
volve each other to
According to
iipliftcd voice of
t/ie
hymn
shiper in prayer and
Heiligen, Gottlichen
when we reach
as beine the ritualistic,
more
cosmo-
the period of the
Upanishads that religion becomes psychological and introspective, in a
word, subjective.
tions
In the course of the Upanishad specula-
Brahman undoubtedly came
to
mean something not
alto-
gether different from the " Wille " of Schopenhauer. that this
was the
original
The
violent anacronism.
duced against
this
theory
which the word brahman '
meaning
"
But to hold meaning of brahman seems to me a
following considerations (i)
:
'
2
3
Out of 240 or more passages in RV. Grassmann finds the " in only
five.
Or. &= Ling. Stud., 1S73, p. 2S, note.
Vedanfa,
Cf
,
Ps.
be ad-
occurs in the
Erhebung des Gemiithes 1
may
S. 1 28.
XXV,
I.
But
in
these
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN.
1
passages also brahman can be interpreted without violence as 'hymn or prayer.' The phrase braJunand vandamdna imdm
dhiyam
(III,
only here) alone gives any support to the But it may be rendered through a hymn
18, 3
view of Grassmann. {brahman) uttering
'
this meditation
as well as by through inward devotion {brahman) uttering this hymn.' (2) To assic^n to brahman as its fundamental meaning the exaltation of the spirit '
'
'
in
worship'
illustrates the
with the interpretation of the light of "
modern
psychological danger, in connection ancient texts, of reading them in
all
For, as Professor
ideas.
Max
Mueller says,^
Though
the idea of prayer as swelling or exalted thought may be true with us, there is little, if any, trace of such thoughts in
the Veda."
(3) The interpretation of Sdyana the great orthodox commentator on the Rig- Veda (d. 1387 A. D.) is worth noticing. He halts between the meanings hymn {mantra, stotra) and of'
fering {yajTia, ajina).
But
if
'
our interpretation
correct,
is
brahman
RV. is nothing else than just a hymn lifted up, presented, offered to God in worship. According to this, Sdyana is not so
in the
very
far
wrong
To go back sible, as
after
all.
to the original
already hinted, that
meaning of brh {bhrgh), it is poswas more concrete than either
it
'extend' or 'strengthen.'
The meaning 'grow' would fit in That which grows extends itself and becomes strong.
very well.
To make
to
grow
is
to
'
make
big and large.'
'
But
if
'
grow
'
was the period,
original meaning of brh, it was dropped at a very remote and only the derived meanings extend and strengthen '
retamed.
So
far as I
am
aware, brh
is
'
never used
'
*
in
the sense of
grow' or 'to make to grow' (of something organic). Still the meaning 'to grow' is assumed by the Dhatupath {irddhau) and accepted by Haug, Max Mueller, et al. There is no objection either
'
to
to the hypothesis that the prehistoric
meaning of brh was to be remembered that this meaning was early dropped, and so cannot be supported by actual usage in the historic period. For ^^r^, Jackson ^ gives the meanings grow,' provided that
1
2 ^
'
it
Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, Whitney, Roots, 18S5. Avesta Gram.,
p. 51.
p. 70.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1
'grow
up,
be high,
mean high '
'
or
Baresman, which,
The Zend
great.'
height
'
derivatives all apparently
alone, with the possible exception of
'
meaning bunch of
as
of an original meaning
to
'
grow
may
twigs,
up,' therefore
contain a hint
growth.
Connection of the various meanings of Brdliman.
C.
Having
finished the discussion of the derivation
and usage of
brahman, we are prepared to consider the problem of the tion of
its
These
various meanings.
unifica-
given by Roth
are, as
(i)
:
pious utterance in divine worship, (2) holy formula, (3) holy
word,
holy wisdom,
(4)
(5)
holy
life
(the Brahmanical chastity),
(6) the Absolute, (7) holy order (the Brahmanical conininnit}'). Of these meanings nos. (5) and (7) must be eliminated as of com-
The meaning
plex derivation.
'
chastity
'
(no. 5)
clearly de-
is
rived mediately through the idea of bj^ahmacarya, the
brahmacarin or theological student, of
And
required.
strict
of the
was
chastity
the meaning 'holy order' or 'priesthood,' as
already pointed out,
man and brahman.
is
to
be derived from the joint idea of brah-
Perhaps, too, brahman came to be used in the
sense of priesthood '
Brahma
whom
life
ca Ksatram
as the correlative of Ksatra
'
ca),
i.
nobility
'
(cf.
through the working of the prin-
e.,
There remain, then,
ciple of analogy.
'
meanings of brah-
five
man to be unified. We begin with the Vedic meaning as hymn or prayer.' How brahman came to have this meaning '
We
has been sufficiently indicated. that
brahman had
only afterwards sacred word.
'hymn
first
are not justified in assuming
the meaning of
'
word
'
in
general,
which
received the specialized sense of religious or
Historically,
There
or prayer.'
we have no
is
to begin with the
meaning
proof of any meaning
direct
'hymn or prayer,' gradually with the creation of a sacred literature came to have the larger meaning of holy word in general. This process may be more
primitive in Sanskrit.
from the parallel process
Here the most
toroth or
some matter
But since the
or worship.
such
the
in
primitive unit of revelation
deliverance of the priest on life
as
'
'
illustrated
Brahman,
'
laws,'
the
word
first
is
Old Testament. the tordh or oral
pretaining to religious
canon was a collection
Tordli
came
to have
a
or
more
THE HISTORY OF THE WORD BRAHMAN. comprehensive sense as the Tbrdh or
'
Law
the meaning of Tordh was so enlarged that
Old Testament
The
in its antithesis to the
use of the word
Rig-Veda, or
(i) the
whole
'
Veda
'
known
Finally
covered the whole
it
Evang.
(cf.
analogous.
is
(2) all three
religious literature
New
(of Moses).
'
1
loh.,
I,
may mean
It
17).
either
four) Vedas, or (3) the
(or
Revelation in
as Qruti or
its
antithesis to Smriti or Tradition. It
has already been pointed out that the
ings of
brahman may be reduced
namely
(i)
Brahman,
Xht. objective
word
as sacred
:
hymn, sacred
(2) Brahman, the subjective wisdom and theology, the content and meaning objective word and (3) Brahman tlie hnmanent Word, ;
as sacred
of the
;
the energy which manifests itself in both sacred order,
and indeed
ings of
in all
Brahman
ism and so but
remaining mean-
and naturally to three
formula, and sacred text in general
word
five
easily
There
unified.
is
the various
fairly well
common
represented
For consider
we have
In the O. T. (
:
i
The
)
Torotli or de-
liverances of the priests concerning matters of worship.
when
finally collected
meanorgan-
indeed a development of meaning,
in a sense, inevitable.
the parallel development in the West. the three stages
way
hymn and sacred
are articulated together in one
both natural, and,
it is
In this
things.
formed the objective word.
(2)
These-
The Dcb-
message of Jahweh through the prophet, in which there was a larger emphasis on the inner content or doctrine of the word and (3) the Hochmah Wisdom, of Jahweh, har-jalrweh, or
;
which
in Prov.
VIII,
is
especially in Stoicism,
word,'
hypostasized.
we have
In Greek philosophy, too,
{i) loyo::
evoiddszo-, 'the internal
Aoyo- ~po
'
'
in
the heart of
religion
These two streams, namely Hebrew
things.
and Greek philosophy,
Testament
word
all
:
find their synthesis
in
the
New
and so we have there also a threefold doctrine of the
and objective word (2) the meaning and content of the word as truth' (Evang. loh., XVII, 17), 'spirit and life' (Id. VI, 6^)) and (3) the Adyo-: as as
:
(i)
Scripture, the written
;
inner
'
the Divine, Heavenly and Creative
words used by Oldenberg
in
Word.
May we
another connection that
not say in
this dialec-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
20
movement in Hebrew, Indian, Greek, and Christian thought "has something of the calm inevitable necessity of a natural
tic
process ?"^
no wonder that some scholars have sought to provide a meaning word as the original meaning of brahman
It is
basis for the
by
'
'
trying
to
connect brh with vrdh
verbuvi, Wort, word,
may
'to
perhaps be
from which
grow,'
The attempt
derived.
There seems to be no can hardly be pronounced successful. and 7rdh ; and bebhrgh between connection possible phonetic verbum,
sides even the connection of
Moreover, the attempt ing
*
word
prayer
it
'
in
'
its
is
etc.,
unnecessary.
As
own way.
a
with vrdli
disputed.^
is
Brahman gets the meanname for Vedic hymn or '
the course of the growth of the
came gradually in Holy Scripture,
Indian doctrine of
to
mean
'
the holy word.'
The threefold development of meaning, as explained above, is Any one not at all dependent on the question of derivation. of the
synonymous terms
for
'hymn'
or 'prayer,' as c.g.,stotra
or nianisd, might have had the same development, if stotdras or manisinas had acquired the supreme position which the Brahmanacquired.
priests
I
here submit a (tentative) synopsis of the
word brahman. Its derivatives, Brahman, meanings of Brdlmianaspdti, and brahmacarya, must be introduced in order to make the synopsis complete. the
Brahman Brahmanaspati
Brahman (Priest)
111
I
Word
objective
Word (
II subjective
III Y
Word Immanent (Absolute)
Theology
I
I
Hymn
2 3 Spell Text
Brahniacarya(
Studentship) I.
1
Buddha,
2£.
g.,
Gr. iipu
Priesthood.
2.
Chastity.
p. 29.
by Meyer {Griech. Gram., 1896,
VYtp
'to say'
/.
e.,
ver-bum.
S. 231,
320),
who
connects verbum with
CHAPTER
II.
The Development of the Doctrine of Unity
in
the Pre-
Upanishad Literature, A. Uie growth of the
niojiistic
and
conception in the period of the Rig- Veda
in the region of the Panjdb.
Deussen remarks that "the people
is
and oldest philosophy of a
first
to be found in their religion."
This
^
preeminently-
is
true of the religion of the Rig-Veda, because of the speculative
element which was present from the very beginning.
hymns in its
most
The sun
striking manifestations.
on the hearth,
fire
The
oldest
reveal a naive childlike conception of nature as displayed in the
heavens, the
once beneficent and destructive, the storm-
at
winds, the thunder-bolt, the blushing dawn, the all-embracing
heaven
—these were
the things which called into activity the re-
and speculative tendencies of the Vedic Aryans.
ligious
the case of
fire
{agni).
biography of Agni,^
in
by which agni
becomes
'
fire
'
with Agni tery of genius.
would
at
We
have, then, personification,
'
god.'
Or, to put
it
'
fire
another way, Agni, the mys-
in
seemed to demand for its explanation an agent or Hence behind agni-phenomenal was postulated, as zve
fire,
say, agni-noumenal, the genius of to divine honors.
anthropomorphically. first
manifest
'
and apotheosis as processes connecting agni
and elevated the
is
Agni god.' The principle work together with the primi-
finally
tendency to personification.
tive
idealization
Take
Mueller has written the
which the theogonic process
seems to have been
of causality
Max
Professor
philosophy.'
Thus
fire,
who was
In the search after causes
ideahzed
was conceived
natural law '
the gods were
^
A gradual change or movement Since the gods were
'
is
discernible in Vedic thought.
an intellectual creation
'
Gesc/iichte, S. 77.
*
Max
^
Physical Religion, pp. 144-176.
*
Deussen,
'
^
of the
Mueller, Six Systems, op. cil.,S.
79.
Aryan
p. 48.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
22
Hence
mind, the same power which made could also unmake. successive deities rise above the horizon as
were, have their
it
Thus,
period of ascendancy and then decline.
in the
Rig-Veda Dyaus and Varuna are vanishing gods.
age of the Indra, the
warrior god, holds the supreme place in the Vedic pantheon, the
number of hymns being
greatest
Indra
doubted and
finally
is
like Zeus,
Some
the father of gods and men.'
'
is just menYagur-Veda he
Prajapati
ridiculed.^
tioned in the Rig- Veda, but in the period of the is,
But even
written in his honor.
of the later
Thus
Vedic gods are mere products of speculative abstraction. Brdhmaiiaspdti
brahman tion,
is
hymn
'
simply the hypostasis of the power of the
or prayer
'
;
Prajapati, of the
and Tapas of the power of
austerity.'
movement discernible whole, a movement towards
Further, the is,
on the
was involved
a tendency
Oldenberg says
:
in
power of genera-
the conception of deity
in
Such
a doctrine of unity.
the Vedic conception of nature.
" Fiir den vedischen Glauben
ist
die
As
ganze den
Menschen umgebende Welt beseelt."^ This being so, then sooner or later speculative thought was bound to grasp the one underWe may compare early Greek lying 'self or 'soul' of things. philosophy, in which a hylozoistic conception of nature soon
reached
logical conclusion in the
its
Again, the use of dcva,
'
monism
epithet of the gods, seems to carry with
that
all
At any and
the gods participate in one rate there
fusion, all of
of the Eleatic school.
the bright heavenly one,' as a general it
the suggestion at least
common
nature or essence.
evidence of a tendency toward classification
is
which points
in the direction of unity.
Thus,
according to their spheres of activity, the gods receive a threefold classification as
gods of the
earth.
gods of the sky, gods of the mid-air, and
The number
of the gods was apparently con-
structed on the basis of this threefold division, since they
all
represent multiples of three, as three or thirty-three or thirty-
Further, on the basis of unity of function
three million.
have the conception of 'dual gods,'
Soma, Agni-Soma, Indra-Agni, iCf. 2
RV,
II, 12, 5,
Veda, S. 39.
e.
etc.,
VIII, loo,
g.,
we
Indra-Varuna, Indra-
according to which two 3,
X, 119,
etc.
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. gods are combined
23
the dual and then viewed as a unity.
in
Sometimes, too, the functions of
more or
less identical,
'all-gods,'
which name
ceived as overlapping and
the name Vi^ve Devas,
the gods are apparently con-
all
and so there
is
easily inter-
is
changeable with any abstract designation of the divine totality. All of this betrays the first crude beginnings of a systematizing
and unifying
another parallel but perfectly distinct tendency, This term deMueller has aptly called Hcnotheism.
tism and fusion,
Max
which
Closely related to the tendency to syncre-
spirit. is
scribes the impulse of the
from
whichever deva
As Eggeling says "It under which the human mind in
deity.
:
ance to
its
withdraw
to
to exalt for the time
other devas and
all
ate object of adoration,
Vedic poet
this
is
may
many
of
its
outpourings the
Henotheism may be regarded as
^
a kind of dim recognition of an underlying unity.
says
"
:
Es
all die
zu der
verschiedenen Gottergestalten im Grunde
gar nicht von einander unterschieden sind, dass
doch nur Einer
As Schroeder
die uns zuletzt hinfiihrt
eine Tendenz,
ist
Erkenntniss dass
supreme
be, into a
immcdiateiiess of impulse
infancy strives to give utter-
its
emotions that imparts to
ring of monotheistic fervor."
it
his attention
being the immedi-
sind, dass aus
dem Einen
sie
sie alle
im Grunde
sich entfaltet,
alle
^
eine Tendenz zum Glauben an das "iv y.ai zav, zum Paiitheis?m(s." For we must bear in mind that the Vedic gods are rarely if ever thought of quite apart from the natural forces and phenomena of
which they are
in
most cases mere
personifications.
As such
they might easily be thought of as only various manifestations of the
One
in the
And
Reality, the
hymn
so
164, 46)
in all things.
is
one the sages call diversely
it
Agni, Yama, Matari^van.
may
example,
for
be conceived, as
One
is
ive
IX
S. 76.
g.,
;
say, not simply as a
Reality, but rather as the
Ency. Brit.,
^Kitltw,
e.
approached by the devout
would
under a special manifestation. ^
So,
:
They name
manifestation of the itself
(I,
That which
when Agni,
singer, he
mystery that dwells
of Dirghatamas
Ed., Art. Brahmanism.
One
Reality
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
24
To as
illustrate this
it is
conception of the underlying unity of things,
set forth in the
Rig- Veda,
have selected
I
for special treat-
ment the seven hymns which from this point of view seem to me most important. These are hymns 72, 81, 90, 121, 125, 129 and
1
Of these
90 of the tenth book.
trical
The aim
translations.
and meter of the
The order
The
Hymn
the following met-
I offer
simply to reproduce the thought I,
is
make no
of course,
after
of Creation, X, I2g.
there a sea, a deep abyss of waters
?
Then was nor death nor anything immortal,
No
night was there, nor of the day appearance.
Breathed breathless then in self-existence That One,
Other than 3.
it,
of any kind, there was not.
Darkness there was
Was
all this
world
and by the darkness covered
;
at first, a
wat'ry chaos
;
A
germ lay hidden in its' secret casing. Which by the might of heat was born as That One. 4.
From whom in the beginning love developed, Which is the primal germ of conscious spirit The bond of being in non-being seeking Poets with insight in the heart discovered.
5.
Across
all
What was
things their measuring-line extended.
above, and what was found beneath
Seed-bearers were there and developed forces
Beneath, self-power 6.
;
above,
its
But who knows, who is able to declare Whence sprang originally this creation
Who
then can
How
this creation
Whether
know from whence came
it ? ;
revelation. it,
?
Afterwards came the gods into existence
7.
claim to
Deussen.
Then was there neither being nor non-being, Nor airy sphere nor heaven overarching What covered all ? and where ? in whose protection ?
Was 2
and
original,
literary excellence.
1.
is
it
had
;
its
being
into existence.
as uncreated or created
;
He who in highest heaven looks out upon it. He knows forsooth, or does not even he know ?
?
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. Hynvi
TJic
1.
Hiranyagarbha, X, 121.
In the beginning rose Hira7iyagarbha,
Born
He,
as the single lord of every creature
too,
He who Revered
;
was that stablished earth and heaven,
it
What god 2.
to
shall
we adore with
sacrifices ?
gives breath and strength, and whose instruction
by the gods and
is
all
the creatures
Whose shadow immortality and death is, What god shall we adore with sacrifices ? 3.
He who
in majesty
O'er
all
things breathing and o'er
Who
rules two-footed
What god 4.
shall
the one
is
monarch all
and four-footed
we adore with
things dying, creatures,
sacrifices ?
He by whose might exist these snowy mountains, The ocean and the stream of which they fable Whose all-embracing arms are the world-regions, What god shall we adore with sacrifices ? ;
5.
He
whom sky is firm and earth is steady. whom sun's light and heaven's arch are stablished;
through
Through
Who
fixed the airy sphere twixt earth
What god 6.
He
shall
whom
to
we adore with
and heaven,
sacrifices ?
look the rival hosts in battle.
Sustained by his support and anxious-hearted
O'er
whom
What god 7.
When Came
first
shall
we adore with
the mighty
sacrifices ?
all -pervading
waters
germ-containing, agni-generating,
Thence rose he who is of the gods the one What god shall we adore with sacrifices ? 8.
E'en he who
Which
Who
in his
life,
—
might surveyed the waters.
force contain
and
sacrifice
engender
;
o'er the gods rules as the one supreme god,
What god 9.
;
he as the sun new risen shines forth,
shall
we adore with
sacrifices ?
May he not harm us, he, earth's generator. He who with order fixed begat the heaven. And gendered, too, the bright and mighty waters, What god
shall
we adore with
sacrifices ?
25
A STUDY OF THE INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
26 lo.
Who
holds in his
is no other, embrace the whole creation
May
that be ours
which we desire when
Prajapati, than thee there
Worship
The
to thee,
Hymn 1.
may we
to
off'
;
ring
be lords of riches.
Tapas and Sanivatsara, X, 190.
From Tapas, the all-glowing heat. Were generated law and truth From it was generated night. ;
2.
And
from
And
from the ocean's swelling tide
too, the swelling sea.
it,
Begotten was the circling year
Which
And 3.
ruleth all that
Which, In order
move
fair
the sun and
He who He
Hymn
to
has entered,
the wise sacrificer
all
earth,
light of sun.
Vi^vakannan, X,
off'
<Si.
ring, into all things,
and our
through the prayer of
Through
;
moon,
and the
The heavens The atmosphere and
As
the eye
as creator, stablished well
also
Tlic
;
ordereth the day and night.
father
men
;
desiring riches,
the lower world diffused his being.
But what served as a standing place
.
.
.
What as a firm-set basis and in what way. From which earth-generating Vigvakarman With might o'erarched
On On
the heavens, seeing all things?
mouth on
all
sides are his eyes, his
all
sides are his arms, his feet
on
all sides.
all sides.
one god he with mighty arms and pinions Forges together heaven and earth, creating.
The
AVhat was the forest, what indeed was that
tree.
which the gods have hewn out earth and heaven
From Ye sages
He
wise, search out in spirit this whereon
took his stand, when he established
all
things firm.
?
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. 5.
What
are the highest mansions
And these
That teach thy friends Strong one, in 6.
and the lowest,
O Vifvakarman, And, O thou self-existent.
here in the midst,
off'
Strengthened by
!
ring offer up thine
O
sacrifice,
own
self.
Vi^vakarman,
Do thou thyself offer up earth and heaven And though on all sides men in error wander. May he be our rich lord of sacrifices. ;
7.
Him
now, who quick as thought is, let us summon, Lord of speech Vi^vakarman, for our succour.
May
Who
he delight himself in blesseth all
Hymn
The 1.
The
We
all
our service.
and doeth good to
to
all
men.
Brdhmanaspdti, X, 72.
genesis of the bright gods will declare with Avonder deep,
Uttered in hymns for him
who
shall
In coming generations hear. 2.
Brahmanaspati
like a
smith
Together forged whatever
When
gods existed not as
is
Then being from non-being 3.
4.
;
yet. rose.
In times when gods existed not. Then being from non-being rose. The spaces of the world were born, From her they call Uttanapad.
The
earth was from Uttanapad
Born, and the spaces from the earth
From
Again from Daksha 5.
Born
;
Aditi arose Daksha,
first
of
all is
Who, Daksha,
Aditi.
Aditi,
thine
own daughter
is
;
After her were the gods produced.
The 6.
blessed
When
and immortal ones.
ye stood in the swelling flood.
Ye gods, who well established are Then as from dancers from you whirled Upward in mighty clouds the dust. ;
27
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
28
When
7.
ye like mighty athletes caused
The worlds, ye gods, to emanate. Then lifted ye the sun on high, That in the ocean hidden
lay.
Eight valiant sons had Aditi,
8.
Who
from her body were produced. With seven she went among the gods, While she the egg-born cast away.
With seven sons went Aditi
9.
Up
to the ancient race divine
The egg-born she surrendered The sway of birth and now of
The 1.
Hymn
to
Vac,
;
to
death.
X, 125.
wander with the Rudras and the Vasus With the Adityas and the Vigve Devas 'Tis I that cherish Varuna and Mitra, Indra and Agni and the heavenly horsemen.
I
;
2.
The soma-plant streaming with Tvashtar and Pushan 'Tis
3.
I
am
offers zealously the pressed out
of those that merit worship.
first
I
may
enter
all
things.
Through me it is that mankind breathe and See what is visible and hear what's spoken. In
me
unconsciously they have their being
Hear one and 5.
soma.
have the gods in every place established.
That omnipresent 4.
Whoever
all,
speaks,
my word 'tis I
that
Whom
I
am
delight in, powerful I
Make him
a
;
the speaker,
and make him.
mortals.
Brahman, or a sage or Rishi.
too
am
he that bends the
That
his
keen shaft
I
eat food,
deserveth credence.
Uttering things pleasing both to gods
6.
I,
the queen, the gatherer of riches,
The knowing,
Me
juice support
support and Bhaga.
that give wealth to the sacrificer,
I
Who
I
'Tis I that stir
men
may
bow
for
Rudra,
smite the Brahman-hater.
with the joy of battle.
Both earth and heaven
I fill
with mine
own
essence.-
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. 7.
In highest heaven bore
Yet
is
From
And 8.
my
with
the heaven -father,
I
birthplace in the ocean-waters
am
thence divided
my
29
;
into all things,
I
height reach up to yonder heaven.
wind resemble as it blows hence Thus do I reach and comprehend what e'er is Beyond sky yonder and beyond this earth here So great have I become through mine own greatness.
*Tis I that
;
;
The 1.
Hymn
A
thousand heads has Purusha
A
thousand eyes, a thousand
The
earth surrounding
He reached 2.
Purusha, X, 90.
to
on
beyond ten
All this vast world
is
feet
all sides,
fingers' length.
Purusha,
Both what has been, and what
He
ruleth
Through the 3.
As
who
all
still
Three-fourths
Purusha,
is
his greatness
He
other fourth developed here all
;
is.
not.
Viraj,
from Viraj too Purusha.
As soon
He
that
by food and what does
lives
From Purusha was born
And
Purusha was born,
as
reached beyond earth everywhere.
With Purusha as off' ring when The gods prepared a sacrifice. Spring was the
Summer 7.
;
immortal in the heaven.
spread himself o'er
What
6.
th'
is
this world.
is all
Three-fourths ascended up on high,
The
5.
;
;
One-fourth of him
4.
be
all-potent sacrifice.
great as this
Yet greater
will
deathless are
sacrificial grease,
the fire-wood.
The gods
as off' ring
Autumn
on the straw
Sprinkled the first-born Purusha
With him
The
the gods
Rishis
drink.
made
;
sacrifice.
and the Sadhayas.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
30
8.
From him Dripped
whole burnt offering
as
off the sacrificial fat
Therefrom were made fowls of the animals both wild and tame.
air,
And 9.
From him
whole burnt offering
as
Sama-hymns The poems, too, were born of him. Of him the sacrificial songs. Rik-verses rose and
10.
;
Horses sprang from him and all beasts Which have oh both jaws cutting teeth Of him the cattle Avere produced, Of him were born both goats and sheep. ;
1 1
When
they dismembered Purusha,
In what ways was he then transformed
What
did his
And what 12.
S
mouth and arms become and
his thighs
his
two
?
?
feet ?
His mouth became the Bnihmana, his two arms the Ksatriya ;
And
His thighs became the Vaigya-class, his two feet the Q'tdra came.
From 13.
The moon was gendered from
his mind, from his eye the sun was born ; Indra and Agni from his mouth.
And And 14.
from
Born of
his breath the
his navel
The sky was from
15.
wind was born.
was the his
air
head brought
Earth from his
feet,
The
so the worlds were
quarters
Seven
;
and from
forth,
his ear
made.
sticks confined the altar-fire.
Thrice seven sticks as
fuel served
;
The gods prepared the sacrifice. And bound as victim Purusha.
16.
With sacrifice- the gods made sacrifices, These sacred usages were thus primeval
The gods, the mighty ones, attained to heaven, Which they of old inhabit as the Sadhyas.
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION.
contents of these hymns, so far as they are of philosophic
The import,
may
be summarized as follows
I
the origin of things (X,
(X, 129, i)?
was made (X,
God who
the
29, 6)
What
?
existed in the beginning
What was the material out of which the world What was the standing-place of creation 81, 4)?
Was
(X, 81, 2)?
1
What was
Questions emerged.
born as 'the child of wonder.'
is
:
Philosophy with the Vedic Aryans as with the Greeks was
)
(
3
Who
the world created or not (X, 129, 7)?
worthy of
is
sacrifice
When
(X, 129, 2-9)?
questions were asked, there was no separation between
these
philosophy, the search for natural causes, and theology, the doc-
gods as
trine of the gods, for the
deified natural forces fell within
Thus the Vedic
the sphere of nature.
thinkers were concerned
gods (devdndin jdnain, X, 72, i) at once after the manner of the Theogony of Hesiod, and with the origin with the origin of the
manner of the early
of things {jdtavidyd, X, 71, ii) after the
In other words, the philosophy of the Rig- Veda
Ionic School.
was a cosmology described
The
partly philosophical.
may
Philosophy '
love
in
the
and
the
in
'
vrJtsa
be noticed
tree
The
The
in passing. 1
29, 4)
place of Kdvia
reminds us of ip(07
The use
120) of Hesiod.
(v.
of z'ana 'forest'
with reference to matter as the building material
'
of the universe (X, 81, 4) u?:rj.
terms partly mythological and
Creation-hymn (X,
Theogony '
in
following points of contact with Greek
is
exactly the same as that of the Greek
conception, too, of the original element as water (vid.
7-9; 190, 2; 129, I, 3) reminds one of the theoiy of Thales and also of the similar view of the HeX, 125, 7; 72, 6-7 brews.^
name
Aditi, for
the
'
121,
;
the
free,'
is
from as to be,
non-being as there said to be
'
is
is
[jltj
ov
the is
on the other.
no absolute
infinite,'
as a
not unlike the
interesting parallel,
asat,
how-
on the one hand, and
The
neuter participle
etymologically the same as
is
Vedic hymns, there
is
The most
between the Indian sat and
the Greek to 6v and rb sat,
the boundless,'
primeval matter (X, 72, 4-5)
dnecpov of Anaximander. ever,
'
antithesis
In these
oV.
between being and
with the Eleatics and with Plato
;
for
being
born of non-being (X, 72, 2-3) and the bond or root
»Cf.
Amos VII,
4,
Ex.
XX,
4,
Gen.
I, 2, Ps.
XXIV,
2.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
32 of being
The theory
discovered in non-being (X, 129,4).
is
impHed is not unlike the dynamic view of Aristotle, according to which non-being or matter is the promise and potentiality of being or form/ ^ was conceived in three ways as (2) The origin of the world a process of architecture, as a process of generation, and as a proc:
These
dismemberment.
ess of sacrificial
especially the
second and
same hymn.
The
are
third,
different conceptions,
often
combined
notion of the world-process
the
in
a process
as
of building, underlies the names Tvashtar, 'the carpenter god,'
Viqvakarman, ordainer,'
'
the all-worker,' and Dhatar and Vidhatar, It also
the creator.'
'
from what material
house to be
built
underlies the question (X, 81, 4)
{vaiia, vrksa, olrj) the
world conceived as a
Closely connected with this
was hewn.
forges or welds together heaven and earth (X,
we have
81,
the germs of the
'
3
the
is
who
conception of the world as the work of a creative smith
In these representations
the
'
72,
;
design
2).
argu-
'
is
But the dominant conception of the Thus whatever is as a process of generation.
X,
72, 3)
is
born, including heaven and earth (X, 121, 9),
sun and
moon
(X, 90, 13), the four Vedas (X, 90,
ment
in its crudest form.
world-process {sat,
i,
original matter conceived as the infinite (X, 72, 4, Aditi
=
truth (X, 190, 5),
i),
190, i and as the primeval watery chaos (X, 121, 9 as development empirical itself in its nay, the One Reality
(XTzzipov)
90,
5),
;
Tad ekam
'
that
one
121,
i),
germ' (X, Daksha,
2),
(X, 125,
7),
'
'
(X,
90,
Hiranyagarbha
ment
is
PiirusJia,
found especially
the golden
'
'
(X, 72, 4), Vac, 'the creative
'the cosmic
man' (X,
90,
in
two hymns.
In the
sacrificial priest (hotar, v,
world continually
up earth and heaven
Such points of contact are not evidences of borrowing.
category of 2
offers
i)
'
developmental coincidences.'
Cf. Wallis,
Cosmology of the Rig- Veda,
p. 89.
who
190,
word
5).
first,
The
namely,
nature,
in creating
(v, 6),
'
dismember-
X, 81, Vigvakarman, the apotheosis of the energy of represented as a
;
Sanivatsara 'the creative year' (X,
creative force
and
3),
third conception of creation as a process of sacrificial
1
law and
9),
10), the gods (X, 72,
the animals (X, 90,
/.
e.,
They belong
his
is
the
own
rather to the
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. body
more
still
is
clearly in
'
from which
(personified forces of nature),
ment
all
fervour' (X, 129, 3;
und Opfer,
190,
haben
Vorbild
ihr
'
heat,'
'
austerity,'
dem
in
Verhalten
Gottes
wood
;
they begat children
And
An
creative
built
houses of
and
sacrificial
original primciple self-existent,
From
Ekam,
this original principle
of matter ^ conceived as aditi viraj,
'
ess, the first principle itself
'
unitary and all-com-
'that one,' X, 129, 2;
'
or as salilam, dpas,
as the third step in the proc-
underwent an empirical development
and was born of the matter which had been produced by This explains the paradoxical statements
And And
The
1
is'
(X, 72, 4-5).
again,
moments
source of this conception
Geschichte, S.
own daughter
Viraj,
from Viraj too Purusha' (X, 90, 5).
there were three
was gradually imputed *
thine
From Purusha was born
*
^
itself.
:
From Aditi arose Daksha Again from Daksha Aditi, Born first of all is Aditi, Who, Daksha,
Thus
force,'
was produced the chaos
the infinite
Then
the primeval waters.'^
'
in
dismemberment.
Purusha, 'the cosmic man,' X, 90, and Daksha, 'creative 4).
der
bei
and they dismembered animals
prehensive was postulated (Tad
X, 72,
the
so they conceived creation after the analogy of
architecture, generation (3)
is
All three views of the creative process were
^
The Vedic Aryans
;
'
Bethatigungen menschlicher
suggested by experience.
sacrifice.
dismember-
As Deussen remarks: "Tapas
i).
diese beiden hochsten
Weltschopfung."
sacrificial
Closely related to this
things derive their being.^
view of creation as the result of Tapas
Kraft,
ex-
is
X, 90, where Purusha, the cosmic represented as dismembered and offered up by the devas
pressed man,'
This conception
of things.
as the totality
(v, 5)
33
is
in
the drama of creation
clearly to be found in the creative efficacy
:
{a)
which
to the sacrifice.
36.
3Cf. Hesiod Theogony, v, 115. *
Compare the
hammayim.
three parallel terms in Gen. I, 2, viz., tbhii
wa
bhohii,
tehom and
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
34
the Original Being (transcendent),
the world of chaotic, indis-
{b)
crete matter, the primeval abyss, and
the Original Being
{c)
(phenomenal) as the First-born and Ruler of briefly at the place
Let us glance
(4)
They
remain to the devas.
all things.^
and functions which now
are not banished, neither do they
They are simply brought into a One Reality as effects of the One
lose their personification entirely. relation of subordination to the
Cause (X, 129,6; 125, 1-2; 90, 13), as individual forces of the one all-Comprehensive Force (X, 125, 3 90, 6-7 72, 6), as sharers in the One Life (X, 121, 7), and as obedient subjects (X, 121, 2, ;
;
8
and ministers (X, 72, 7 81, 4) of the One Lord. In capacity as subjects and ministers of a Supreme Lord the
90, 2)
;
their
;
devas are not unlike the malachim
'
angels
'
of the Old Testa-
ment.^ (5)
Thus
is
is
toward
monoThe One Re£ka Deva the
described sometimes in the terms of
theism and sometimes ality
hymns
the tendency of the later Vedic
unity, but this unity
when conceived
in the
terms of monism.
monotheistically
called
is
'
Eka Pati the One Lord (X, 121, One King' (X, 121, 3). These epithets have a Semitic ring. They remind us of the Hebrew Psalms, in which God, Lord, and King are frequent names of Deity. The One God (X, 8 1 i) and Eka Rdjd
121,8),
'
,
3
;
'
'
'the
characters essential to a consistent
monotheism are the
personality, the sovereignty, the transcendence
(=
The
righteousness) of God.
first
hymn
to
and the holiness
three seem to be found in the
and the fourth, pos-
Hiranyagarbha-Prajdpati\iymvL (X, I2i); sibly in the monistic
unity, the
Purusha (X,
90), according to
which
only one-fourth of Purusha was converted into phenomenal existence,
while the other three-fourths
remained, as originally,
For the idea of the holiness of God we have to go back to the august and commanding figure of Varuna (cf. V, 85), "the King of all" (v. i), who awakens "immortal
in his
in
the heaven"
(v. 3).
worshippers the consciousness of sin
holds moral order {rtani) and punishes
have
in the
its
(vv.
7-8)
breach.
Rig-Veda the scattered germs of an
iVid. Deussen, Op. 2Cf. Ps. CIV, 4
:
cit.,
;
who
up-
Thus we mono-
ethical
S. 57.
'Who maketh
his angels winds, his ministers a flaming
fire.'
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION.
35
ways such a monotheism might have been resingle Aryan tribe or community through the teach-
In two
theism.
A
ahzed.
Hebrew
ing of Rishis, having the ethical earnestness of
prophets,
might have maintained and developed the ethical conception of Varuna, and so outstripped
Hence
all
the rest in zeal for righteousness.
might have arisen a rivalry between Varuna and
there
the Devas, just as between
Jahweh and the Baalim, with
victory for Varuna.
we know from Hebrew history, mode of genesis for an ethical sys-
would have been a
How
tem.
the Rig- Veda
This, as
practical
was from accomplishment
far this
final
the period of
in
manifest from the words of Deussen, himself an
is
ardent admirer of things Indian, to the effect that the ethical ele-
which the
worth of a religion
ment,
in
Veda
surprisingly into the shade.^
real
Prajapati, the lord of all creatures) in
answer to the question
new god
Or, again, a
(like
might have been discovered
What God
'
the Rig-
lies, falls in
shall
we adore with
sacri-
and then conceived as 'the One God above the gods,' the
fice ?'
older devas or gods being degraded to the position of
ing angels.'
Such
disclosed
the
in
a
movement towards monotheism
Prajapati-hymn.
minister-
is
the
represents
It
'
actually
highest
reach of the Vedic striving towards monotheism.
But the dominant trend of Vedic thought was towards a
Even where,
monistic conception of things.
hymn, One God
is
lutely certain that
mentioned as above
'
as in the Prajapati-
we
gods,
are not abso-
anything more than a nominal monotheism.
it is
The Eka Deva may be only nature like the
all
Dcus
'
a theological
name
for the totality of
According
of Spinoza.
to the monistic
conception of things the one reality was viewed most consistently as neuter 2).
But
and impersonal. Tad Ekam, ro it
also bore other names,
ev,
'
that one' (X, 129,
which are
less
impersonal,
such as PimisJia (X, 90). (6) It is to be noted finally that Bralimanaspati, the apotheosis of the
power
of the
brahman
'
hymn
or prayer,' and
Vac, the
apotheosis of speech as incarnate in the Vedic words, are both
made
to
refer
to
the
ultimate reality.
greatness (X, 125) quite in the 1
manner
Op. at., S. 82.
Vac in
declares her
own
which Sophia {Hoch-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
36
mdh, Prov. VIII) declares Purusha, just as
is
an anticipation of the
Hochnidh
Logos of the
the Divine
'
New
Brahmanaspati and
Vac, like
hers.
Brahman, the One Reality,
later
Wisdom
'
is
an anticipation of the
Testament.
B.
The grozvth of the monistic conception
Veda and
in the region of
Each of
Brdhmana
when used
Samhitd
{a) the
:
or collection of
and
{c)
'
wider sense, has
in the
hymns,
or collection of
priestly discourses,'
hymns
the practical use of the sacrifices,
Madhyadega.
the four Vedas,
three portions
period of the Yajur-
in the
{B)
the
which explain
connection with the various
in
the Stitra, a brief and systematic exposition of
Brdhmana after the manner of a modern cateBrdhmana as a rule contains three subdiBrdhmana in the narrow sense, consisting largely
the content of the
Further, each
chism. visions
:
{a) the
of ceremonial prescriptions, {b) the
the end of a
and
the
{c)
Brdhmana,
in
Upanisad or
Aranyaka or
which the '
'
iorest-treatise
'
at
sacrificial cult is spiritualized,
mystic doctrine
'
at the
end of the
These divisions may be illustrated from the famous Brdhmana, which contains fourteen books, of which thirteen make up the Brdhmana in the narrow sense, and
Aranyaka. CatapatJia
the
first
the fourteenth the Aranyaka, while the last six chapters of the
book compose the Upanisad known as the BrhaddrThere is another analysis of the contents of a Brdhmana, as given by Madhusudana Safasvati, the author of
fourteenth
anyaka Upanisad.
the Prasthdna-Bheda,^ into vidhi, exegetical,
sition,'
Vcddnta
'
*
mythological,
prescription,' artJiavdda
dogmatical,
phy the
and
expolastly
the end of the Veda,' both as conclusion of the Veda,
since the Upanisads represent the final stages of
and as
etc.,
'
aiin of the
The
of the Vedas.^
Brdhmana
period)
I
period of the
literature,
Vid. Deussen, Geschichte, S. 47-50.
2
With the ambiguity
of the
word Vedanta we may compare
Metaphysics [ja
both in order and in theme.
Yajnr- Ju'da (also called
understand to include whatever literature
'
in the use of the
Vedic
Veda, since the Upanisads contain the philoso-
/nera
ra (pvaiKa
)
the similar ambiguity
of Aristotle, as following the Physics
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. between the Rig-Veda Samliitd and the Upanisads,
falls
Z7
e.,
{.
the
Yajur- Veda Sainhiid, the Atharva- Veda SainJutd and the Brdh-
vianas in the narrow sense. First to be noticed
is
hymns
the cleft between the period of the
of the Rig- Veda, and the time of the composition of the oldest
When
BrdJnnanas.
we
in India,
see the
B. C.) tending
hymns
their
fighting their battles,
their flocks,
is
the
period of obscurity,
shifts
of the second period, which is
and singing
from the Panjab to the Madhyade<;a,
The
the region of the upper Ganges and Jamna.
Veda,
time
The great monument Rig- Veda Samhitd. Then there follows a of migration and conflict. The centre of
and thought
life
first
in the land of the five rivers.
of this period
Aryan
the curtain of history rises for the
Aryans (probably in the second millennium,
I
Yajiir-
monument
have called the period of the
the Brdlimana literature.
lections of the
great
Yajiir-
In this period the hymn-col-
Veda and Atharva- Veda were made and
probably the canon of the Rig- Veda Samhitd was not closed be-
The Bi'dhnianas as a literature may be briefly They represent the earliest Indo-European prose.
fore this time.
characterized.
They
As
pre -suppose the Vedic hymns.
ritualistic
theological
and philosophical appendices to the Vedic hymns they bear a relation to
ture to the
them
similar to that borne
The Brdhnianas are, as hymns and the Upanisads.
Old Testament.
bridge between the Vedic
them symbolism gone mad. thing
else.
symbolism.
They
Everything
ideas
were, a
We see in
the fact that ritualism thrives on
illustrate
too
it
litera-
equated with every-
is
Deussen warns us against taking
philosophical Still
by the Talmudical
their (apparently)
The warning
seriously.^
is
needed.
the wild and incoherent identifications of the Brdhnianas
indicate, at least, the trend
and general direction of Indian specu-
lation.
Let us
now
address ourselves to the philosophy of the period,
Brdhniana Oldenberg says, " In none of the Vedic texts can we trace
especially as revealed in the pages of the (^atapatJia for, as
the genesis of the conception of the unity in first
dim indications of
this 1
thought
Op.
cit.,
until
S. 174.
it
all
that
is,
from the
attains a steady bril-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
38
which next to the hymns of
clearly as in that work,
liancy, as
the Rig- Veda, deserves to be regarded as the most significant in the whole range of Vedic literature, the
dred paths.' " first,
how
to see
Brdhnmna
of the Inin-
are important for our purpose,
Here two things
^
'
far the philosophical ideas
already discovered in
the Ri^-- Veda Saviliitd suffer modification or development, and secondly, to summarize the steps of
Brahman
as the
Prajapati,
who
Samlutd
One
just
the genesis of the
emerges above the horizon
power
zenith of his
in the
is
in
meaning
Reality.
in
the Ri^- Veda
in
once the mania for identification which characterizes
illustrate at
God
the Brdhinanas, and the nature of Prajapati " the great
{inahdn Deva, Cat following
VI,
Br.,
thing
(I,
gods
(I, 7, 4,
5,
3,
mind (IV, I,
soma 5),
i),
i,
(I,
speech
10),
i,
(II,
i,
22), truth (IV, 2,
god (VI,
i, i,
3,
i,
42),
detect a certain
is
And
2),
RV., X, 90,
15),
name
18),
3,
and mother
i,
3,
1
1),
(Id.), 2, 2,
the whole
4, i, 12).
I
think
identification.
for the totality of things
may
be identified
manner of Purusha (RV.,
the
RV., such as
in the
yediV {Sanivatsara,
121), Hiranyagarblia
karman (RV., X, earth,'
(II, 3,
Hiranyagarbha {Yl,
so Prajapati
God
speech {vac, RV., X, 125), the Great
*
de-
or with various individual things of fundamental cos-
mic import already mentioned
RV., X,
is
12), every-
and becoming, the apotheosis
'everything' in general after the
X, 90,
submit the
brahman of the
madness of
in this
clearly a mythological
viewed as the One Reality. with
26), father
3, 16),
Prajapati, as the lord of generation
"
26), the self [dtman) {IV
and Vigvakarman (IX,
method
2, 5,
Agni
4, 13),
i,
5,
(I,
27), the
the worlds and the quarters (VI,
brdlimaniyW,
of nature,
year
17), the
5, 2,
I
Prajapati
Br.
(^at.
{I'dc, I, 6, 3,
21), the earth
the great
Ka (Id.),
16) of this period,
3,
heaven and earth (V,
(Id.),
we can
i,
of identifications from the
list
clared to be the sacrifice
6,
To
the Brdhinanas.
father
81).
Other
and mother,'
acter as the substance
and
/v^:
cf
(cf the
2);
of
such as 'heaven and
simply indicate Prajapati's char-
and support of
all
things.
tion of Prajapati with Atiiian (^at. Br., IV, 6, 1
190,
Eka Deva
(RV., X, 121), and Vigva-
identifications
etc.,
sacrifice (cf,
RV., X,
Buddha,
p. 25.
i,
The i)
identifica-
and with the
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. whole Brahman (VII,
39
i, 42) is indicative of the growing inbecame the BraJimaii-Atuian doctrine of what the Upanisads. The cosmic character of Prajapati must not be
fluence of
3,
finally
He
overlooked.
especially identified with the year (Samvat-
is
sara), the ever-recurring cycle of the birth
For a
and decay of nature.
on the part of a Christian poet, com-
similar representation
pare the lines in Thomson's
Hymn
to the Seasons
:
" These as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God the rolling year Is full of Thee." ;
As
Creative Year Father
the
Prajapati
through much production and so
renewed through
therefore has to be
Agni, the returning
(especially
through the renewed Prajapati
at
is
II,
I,
5,
I
;
Tapas
spring.^
('
Prajapati
I,
3,
offer
Hence
He own
*
^at. Br., II,
creative fervour
himself
is
forces)
and
things, devas
He
the original principle.
His primal impulse
I.
austerity,'
(through the devas his all
is
this) in the beginning,
all
VI,
the creative means.
he produces
and heat of Spring)
once the father and the son of Agni, the father
alone was here (or ;
He
which the gods
sacrifice
of the forces of. nature.
activity
and the son of the devas.
I
fire
his strength
loses
relaxed (in winter).
is
and
')
once
at
is
2, 4,
desire of offsacrifice are
sacrificial
sacrificial victim.
priest
Thus
and asuras (the bright and dark
Brahman, Ksatra and Vig, yea all living creaboth the " defined and the undefined, the limited
forces of nature).
He
tures.
is
and the unlimited."
From
all this
beyond the
What we
it
is
clear that there
find
H
irany agarbha,
is
fall
identification with
attributes of all of
Nor
is
Vedic hymns.
The Vedic
Vigvakarman, Vac, Samvatsara, Pnrusa, are far
behind
him.
Prajapati
in his,
and
Prajapati
is
They, so to speak, lose their being
ing.
no great advance as yet
simply a change of emphasis.
mentioned, but they
through
is
incipient philosophical doctrine of the
them and so appears
in
find
all
importance. it
again only
enriched with the
as the one
supreme be-
the doctrine of the gods essentially different from iCf.
RV., X, 129,
4.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
40
what we have found
As
hymns
in the philosophical
of the Rig-Veda.
regards their cosmic character, the devas are viewed as the senses of the all-embracing world-man (^at. Br.,
members and Ill, 2, 2, 13
V,
inapati,
VII,
;
I,
9),
3, 3,
Varuna, as the lord of law
2, 7). still
is
adultery sins against Varuna " noose."
The mysticism
holy
the
(II,
2,
5,
20) and
of the Brdlnnanas
into his
falls
justified
is
oft-repeated declaration that " the gods love the mystic."
"two
are
"The
kinds of gods," divine and human.
sooth are the gods
;
4, 4).
by the There
gods, for-
and the learned Brahmans versed
human gods " (IV, 3, doctrine of sacrifice, we notice that The sacrificial a human character. lore are the
[dJiar-
Whoso commits
god.
in
sacred
Coming now
to the
has at once a cosmic and
it
activity of the priests finds
antitype and justification in the sacrificial activity of the gods.
its
As
in the philosophical
world-process
is
hymns
of the Rig-Veda, so here also the
viewed as an eternal
all-embracing reality (Prajapati, X,
and fice
Brahman, XIII,
later '
7,
i,
i,
III, 5, 3,
because of the
sacrifice.
position and authority through sacrifice.
are delivered from "Varuna's noose."
"the most excellent work" devotion"
"the
i,
a thing in
(III, 5, 3, 12),
(III, I, 3, 25),
(I, 7,
The gods obtained their Through it, too, men Hence the sacrifice is
5),
its
becoming
Gods, men, and
"the great
inspirer of
real nature "invisible"
{dtman) of the gods" (VIII, 6,
self
i,
10).
doctrine of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice reached
climax
i,
Yajna 'sacri-
the victim.
i) is
manner of the doctrine of Heraclitus.
pitris, all exist
A
Purusha,
a kind of apotheosis of the eternal process of
is
after the
The
of which the one
sacrifice,
2, 2,
its
in the Bt'dlwianas,
word or two may be added with
in this period, of
a primeval matter.
reference to the doctrine, It
does not
tially
from that which we have already found
Thus
in the
Taitt.
SaiiiJi.
that " water forsooth
was here
i,
there
watery chaos, from which ^
Salilam,
cf.
RV., X,
1
29, 3.
is
i,
5,
i)
we
read
(or all this) in the beginning, a
chaotic mass," ^ and that "Prajapati as wind
In ^at. Br., XI, 1,6,
essen-
the Rig-Veda.
in
(V, 6, 4, 2 and VII,
differ
^
moved upon
it."
also a mention of the primeval
Prajapati 2
is
yayn,
said cf.
to have sprung,
rilah,
Gen.
I, 2.
THE GROWTH OF THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION. Deussen japati
In VI,
I,
I
we have
and phenomenal existence.
relative
a further description of the primeval matter
words
as non-being* in the
here (or
an attempt to dethrone Pra-
sees in this last passage
by allowing him only a
4
" In the
:
beginning non-being was
all this)."
So much then with
reference to the philosophico-religious
ideas of the Brdhmaiias in their relation to the kindred ideas of
the Vedic hymns.
now
only remains
It
summarize
to
briefly
Brahman as the One Vedic hymns to the genesis of
the steps in the genesis of the meaning of
The
Reality. this
meaning
power and in
contribution of the
consists {a) in the development of the notion of the
Brahman
efficacy of
'
the
and
sacrificial formula,'
the apotheosis of this notion under the
name
{U)
of BrdJinianaspdti.
In the period of the Brdlnnanas, Brahman, as already pointed out, has the
meanings
:
Word
[a)
objective, as
hymn, formula,
text, {b) word subjective, as sacred wisdom and theology and (c) word immanent, as both the power which energizes in the world
and the world as the manifestation of such power.
meaning of Brahman came
Brahman
naturally, since
tha place of Purusha and Prajapati and so
fell
The
third
finally
took
heir to their con-
notation.
The
from meanings
transition
(«)
and
(b) to
meaning
(c)
may
be illustrated by means of several passages from the CatapatJia Brdhviana. ing
first
In VI,
of
all
i,
i,
8-10
Prajapati
represented as creat-
isj
Brahman, the Triple Science
c, the three
(/.
Rik, Santa and Yajns, viewed as one doctrine).
Next from Vac (= Brah-
foundation for further creative activity.
man, Veda) as a standing place he created the waters, finally
From
Vedas
This became a
into
which
along with the Triple Science he entered as the world-egg. this
Brahman was produced
again
born of this
all.
This
is
tlianiam pjirastdt,
first-
but a development of ideas already found in
the Rig-Veda, especially X, in the oft repeated
empirically as the
1
'The Brahman
which Brahman
is
born day by day
in the east.
A
29.
words of VII,
4,
i,
first
similar conception 14,
is
found
Brahvia jajndnain pra-
born
in front,'
according to
described under the figure of the sun, which
^
Asat,
Thus cf.
far Prajapati
RV., X,
129, I, 4.
is
and Brahman have
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
42
stood more or as dependent
less
on a
upon
But
Prajapati.
growth of Brahman
into the
is
'The Brahman
the highest of
4,
earth are upheld
5,
10 'This
is
nothing before
sooth was
this
the
3,
world
after
conception of
9 XIII, position of the Upanishads. Self-Existent (X, 6,
exaltation
embracing '
brahman
ceived
reality
5,
of
;
Brahman
suggests
7,
and
Piirusa, Vac, Prajapati,
Skambha
'support,'
different times,
Prdna
as
Svayamblm, the
one immanent and
why
not
why
having once re-
c.
g., in the
'spirit,' etc.
word
Rig-Veda
Atharva-Veda Ktlla
Time,'
'
These have emerged
but have always been superseded,
remained secondary.
the
There have
retained.
reality,
all-
after
the question,
in the
'
where we reach the
i),
i,
as the
been other names for the ultimate
i
3,
Brahman has Brahman for-
These passages bring us
the meaning has always been
it,
2, 3,
Brahman
received this meaning, but
'
— 'This
XI,
';
in the beginning.'
finally to the highest
The
it
is
indicated
by the Brahman'; X,
Brahman'
greatest
and nothing
it
by
supreme principle
gods'
i,
(^at.
This gradual
increases.
such texts as VIII,
— 'Heaven and
described
the later books of the
in
and Brahman
Prajapati decreases
Br.
Brahman has even been
level.
at
or at least
Brahman, however, has endured as the Why ? It seems to me
supreme name of the Ultimate Reality. that there
man
'
is
is
no other answer except
also the
name
of the
that the
this
collective
word
'
Brah-
Brahman community,
and so Brahman, as the name of the Ultimate Reality, had the The word Brahman, like powerful support of the priesthood.
Brahman, Brdhiiia-Veda and Brahmana, circle
fell
within that potent
of words and ideas on which hang in large measure the
civilization
and thought of
India.
CHAPTER
III.
The Doctrine of Brahman
the Upanishads,
in
A. Remarks on the Sources.
The word sense of
'
'
Jipanisad' requires explanation.
mystic import,'
For example,
doctrine.'
port of the
fire -altar
word ars,
e.
'
Jipanisad,' g.,
secret name,'
(Jat Br.,
doubtless
The
ference of opinion.
'
is
X,
'
in
the
'The mystic im-
i,^
Thus
speech.'
used
hidden sense,' 'secret
i,
5,
It is
far there is
no
dif-
meaning from the Most modern schol-
derivation of the actual
however,
is
not so clear.
Roth,^ Weber,^ Mueller,* explain
'
Jipanisad' as
mean-
ing originally the sitting at the feet of a teacher [upa-ni-sad') But, as Professor
therefore 'session,' 'seance,' 'Sitzung.'
Max
Mueller says,^ no passage has yet been found in which the word ^
upanisad'
is
used
the sense of 'session' or in the sense of
in
Oldenberg ^
pupils approaching and listening to their teacher.
synomyn of iipdsand Verehrung,' comparing upa-ds with npa-nisad. The reasoning is suggestive but not conclusive. The earliest as well as most important passage bearing takes iipanisad as a
'
on the meaning of npanisad
is
Cat. Br., IX, 4, 3,
3.
'
He
thus
makes the common people below subject {jtpanisddui) to the On the basis of this passage Hopkins" suggests that the original reference of the word ^npanisad' was to "subsidiary nobility.'
works of the
Brdhmanasy
ritualistic
another, which seems to
me
This conjecture suggests
to be better supported
by actual
usage, namely, that npanisad had the meaning of secondary sense, as opposed to primary sense.
It is
true that the crucial passage
meaning of upanisad,
for the original
as cited above, does not
'
As
^
Skt.
^
Indische Literatiirgesch., Berlin, 1S76, S. 30.
*
translated
by Eggeling.
Worterbuch,
St.
Petersburg.
Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy,
^SBE., Vol.
6ZDMG.,
I,
pp. Ixxx-lxxxi.
1896, Bd. 50, S. 457
ft".
''Religions 0/ India, pp. 217, 218.
p. 23.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
44
The meaning
in itself decide the question.
of upanisddin
suggests for the word
sidiary,' 'subject,' 'secondary,'
'
'
sub-
iipanisad'
a reference either to the attitude of pupils sitting at the feet of a
works subsidiary and supplementary to other works, or again to meanings subsidary and secondary to
teacher, or to
literary
The
other meanings.
passages
earliest
namely,
formula (X,
and
'
mary and
is
in
occurs,
'
word
is
unusual interpre-
refers to
The
yajiis or sacrifi-
and the year
its
own
iipanisad,
i.
'esoteric
e.,
This seems to be the most primitive
But an
upanisad.'
interpretation,
iipanisad
'
3, 5, 12), the fire-altar (X, 5, i, i)
meaning' or 'mystery.'^
meaning of
Thus
Upanishads.
ritualistic details.
23) had each of them
2, 2,
third alone
end of the (^dndilya and Ydjhavalkya portions
at the
tations of sacrificial
(XII,
earliest
which the word
in
respectively of the ^at, Br., the
cial
The
relatively late.
is
supported by actual usage in the the
by any
reference cannot be supported
first
quotations, and the second
esoteric meaning,
an allegorical
and secondary to the priwould therefore take the original mean-
distinctly subsidiary
natural sense.
I
ing of upanisad to be neither
'
session,'
nor
subsidiary works of
'
the ritualistic BrdJunanas,' but rather the secondary and allegorical as
opposed
ing found
we
in
primary and natural sense.
to the
It is
word because put there by speculative
a
take upanisad to be
'
supplementaiy sense
o{ 7ipdkhvdnam, 'supplementary
tale,'
'
a mean-
insight.
If
analogy
after the
then npajiisad vaight be ex-
plained etymologically as the mystic sense which resides in [)n-
sad) a word
in addition
to [upa) the
Such a
primary sense.
meaning, although secondary as opposed to the natural sense,
by no means secondary passage
in
namely,
in the
which, so
read that the
'
as regards importance.
know, the word
far as I
iipanisad
Cdndilya portion of the ^at. Br. (X, mystic import
important thing
in
is
the essence of this
a sacrificial formula
mystical sense, not the primary sense.
with the
'
maxim
of the
is
is
In the earliest '
3, 5,
Yaj'us,'
occurs, 12),
we
e.,
the
i.
the allegorical and
All this
Brdlunana period that
'
is
in
harmony
the gods love the
mysterious.'
But allegory and mysticism are not confined '
Cf.
Apocal. loh.,
I, 20,
to the
'the mystery of the seven stars.'
Upani-
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. common
shads, but are
the term
Brdhmanas
to the
tipanisad' restricted in
'
its
Why
also.
appHcation
what are properly the Upanishad-portions of the too the word
'
upanisad
'
then
is
For one thing
?
a comparatively late word, appearing for the
it is
45
time
first
in
Then,
Br.
(^at.
seems to have been from the very be-
ginning confined to mystical speculations of a definite kind,
namely those pertaining
to the investigation of
the earliest mention oi upanisad the same context where greatest
'
{f^ai. Br.,
Brahman
is
X,
3,
And
greater.'
in
Kena Up. 32 we have
'
there
mysticism.
ficial
for theological as
The Indian
not be so far
wrong
as the
1)
nothing
Thus upanisad opposed to
sacri-
interpretation of upanisad as the
knowledge of Brahman
destruction of ignorance through the
may
1
is
the expression Bralimi
Upanisad 'the mystic doctrine of Brahman.'
came to be the standing term
12) occurs in
5,
described (vv. 10,
(knowledge or reality), than which
'
Thus
Brahman.
after all.
Allegory has ever furnished an apparently easy way of uniting heterogeneous worlds of thought.
means times
Philo Judzeus used
harmonizing Mosaism and Platonism
of
and
;
as a
it
in recent
has been employed by Pandit Dayananda Saraswati,
it
founder of the Arya Samaj, as a means of discovering in the
Vedas the science of the present day. What then more natural men who had been born and bred in the atmosphere of
than that
Indian ritual should seek to transcend the standpoint of ritualism
by
trying to discover a deeper meaning in the ritual itself
In
other words, the mystics of the Brdliniana period, like the author
saw in the sacrificial ritualism a system of types and symbols, by means of which as a ladder they sought to climb up into the sphere of eternal realities.
of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
The usage development.
word iipanisad has undergone a means first of all secret name, secret
of the It
secret doctrine, rahasyani, ixoav^ptov, in
and
in this
sense
the oldest parts of the oldest Upanishads (Brih.,
Chand., Ill,
I,
I, I,
i,
I,
10,
I,
13, 4,
III, 2, 5,
Kaush., It
i).
containing the doctrine of
Chand.,
I,
13, 4, III, 11,
certain
'
'
II,
I,
3,
i.
found
II,
i,
Ait.
20,
Ar.,
means, secondly, verse or section
Brahman
2-3)
i,
Taitt.,
is
sense,
;
(Taitt., II, 9,
i.
III, 10, 6,
and, thirdly, a collection of
such
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
46
doctrines in the form of a dogmatic text -book belonging to a particular school or sect.
The number Weber's
contains
list^
may
may
two
classes
:
be mentioned.
{a)
be
Three
different periods of time.
to
into
Professor
large.
by ^ankaracar}^a, the
on the basis of their use fall
is
of these, however,
Upanishads
classifying the
commentator, they
Some
235.
They belong
duplicates.
ways of
of such dogmatic text-books
First,
great Vedantic
orthodox or
classical
Upanishads, which furnish the proof texts for Vedantism, and sectarian Upanishads, of Avhich
Upanishads are eleven or twelve
classical
Max
been translated by Professor
basis of the different Vedic schools,
the Upanishads of the
first
in
Mueller.^
we may
{!))
The
only a few are quoted.
number, and have Secondly, on the
distinguish between
num-
three Vedas, which are eleven in
ber and almost entirely orthodox, and the Upanishads of the
Atharva-Veda, which, with a few exceptions, are erodox, and relatively
late.
opment of thought
the different Upanishads,
I
make
think,
ishads,
five
the following classifications
number, namely,
in
Kansitaki and
Aitareya,
place, both in age
age
is
in
cumulative.
manas, and
and
importance.
in
their style
is
are
:
we may
integral
rightly,
First, tentative
Brhaddranyaka,
Taittiriya}
They
sectarian, het-
Thirdly, on the basis of the devel-
Upan-
Oidndogya,
These occupy the
The argument
first
for their
parts of the great Brdli-
the 'old Brdlnnana prose style.
They
present numerous illustrations of the allegorical interpretation of the
ritual.
Each Upanishad
primary sense of the word. tentative
truth " truth."
and
and
inquisitive.
their
is
a collection of upanishads in the
Their method
is not dogmatic, but Their authors appear as " seekers after
thoughts have rightly been styled " guesses at
The dialogue and the
parable are frequently employed
as literary forms.
Of these
five
Upanishads the largest and also the most impor-
tant are the Brliaddvanyaka in
his
great
and the Clidndogya.
^ankaracarya,
work on the Vedanta-Sutras makes about 2000 ^
Liter aturgeschichte, S. 171, note.
2
SEE., Vols.
I,
XV.
"Cf. Deussen, Sechzig Upanishads, S. 264.
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. Of
quotations from the Upanishads.
47
these fully two-thirds are
from the Chdndogya and the Brliaddranyaka} The second class may be denominated the dogmatic Upanishads and includes in general the rest of the pure Vedanta Upanishads, especially Isd,
Katha, Mundaka, Qvetdgvatara, and the poetic sections of Ketia,
Brliaddranyaka (IV,
thought erence
is
in
4,
8-21) and Malidndrdyana}
more mature and a
nosegays of
positive,
and
Here the
by
set forth
is
pref-
The poetic sections are in general poetical Vedantic sayings bound together without much redress.
ideas are in general in
Although the
Innovations appear.
gard to inner connection.
harmony
anishads, yet here and there
with those of the
may be
five oldest
Up-
detected the germs of other
types of doctrine, especially of the Sdinkhya and Yoga and of
The second
the great sectarian systems. clearly
more developed than the
velopment than the Upanishads of the second the third class, which
may
is
later in point of de-
Still
first.
Upanishads
class of
class are those of
Upan-
well be called the sectarian
ishads, since they are simply the dogmatic text-books of a trans-
Of the
formed and sectarian Brahmanism. ishads,
Deussen has translated no
less
than forty
volume, Scclizig Upanishads dcs Veda. rian
Upanishads
since
it
third class of
these
secta-
might well be reckoned the BJiagavadgitd,
has a distinctly sectarian character and
Upanishad.
masterly
in his
Among
Upan-
To sum
up, then, the
is
also called an
Upanishads really
fall
two great groups, which may be roughly described as group of Upanishads of the
first
nishads used by Cankaracarya
three
=
(<^)
Vedas
=
tentative
the classic
and
(^)
into
(i) the
Upa-
dogmatic
Upanishads, and (2) the group of Atharva-Veda Upanishads, which are in general sectarian, heterodox and late. The first great group represents the creative period of Indian philosophy,
which may with some degree of confidence be assigned to the
The second great group belongs in the Hindu Revival, and so falls someperiod covered by the last two thousand years.
period 800-300 B. C.
main to the
literature of the
where within the 1
Vid. Deussen,
2
After Deussen.
1900, p. 226.
Vedanta, S. 32 Cf. also
ff.
for statistics.
A. A. Macdonell,
A
History of Sanskrit Literature,
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
48
B. Doctrine.
We
notice a gradual change in the point of view from which
the doctrine of unity
is
Thus, as already indicated, the
treated.
standpoint of the pre-Upanishad literature characterized as cosmological
The unity described is The world is conceived
may
general be
in
—the standpoint of common
sense.
a concrete and all-comprehensive unity.
man
as a colossal
(Purusha, RV., X, 90).
This symbol suggests an organic view of the universe as a sys-
tem of
interrelated forces
development.
and processes, the home of
All this of course
and poetic form.
expressed
is
in a
and
life
very naive
In the Upanishads, on the other hand, there
world of experience
no longer regarded as the
is
thing-in-itself.
Speculative thought probes beneath the surface of things in
quest for
even 125)
in the is
its
This attitude was not without anticipations
reality.
Vedic hymns.
in
to
Vdc (X.
of an immanent Word, something
a force which dwells and oper-
like the Stoic Ibyoc, a7:ef)ixazr/.6^,
and
hymn
Especially in the
there the conception
ates in all things,
is
The
an attempt to transcend the common-sense point of view.
which unconsciously
men have
all
their
being.
The This
is
great
theme of the Upanishads
beautifully expressed
BrJiaddraJiyaka UpaiiisJiad, * '
I,
in 3,
quest for reality.
the
is
three Yaj us -verses quoted in
27
:
Lead me from the unreal to the real Lead me from darkness to light Lead me from death to immortality " !
^
!
Different degrees of reality are recognized.
Chand. Up.,
i,
I,
2
"
:
essence of the earth
is
The
essence of
all
Thus, we read
beings
is
in
the earth, the
water, the essence of water the plants, the
essence of plants man, the essence of
man
speech, the essence of
speech the Rig-Veda, the essence of the Rig- Veda the Sama-
Veda, the essence of the Sama-Veda the Udgitha." 1
my
In the matter of quotations from the Upanishads obligation to different scholars.
lation
(SBE., Vols.
sen's renderings.
I
I
difficult accurately to
it is
commonly follow
and XV), but not infrequently
I also
make independent
I
This
Prof.
modify
Max it
translations at times.
re-
express
Mueller's trans-
by Professor Deus-
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS.
49
gressus from earth, the coarsest essence of things, back step step to the Udgitha, the
as represented
by
supreme formula of the Sama
ritual,
by-
and,
introductory syllable Oin, the symbol of the
its
ultimate reality, illustrates at once a peculiarity of the style of
the older Upanishads and the mystical interpretation of the ritual
Another instance of such a regressus
which characterizes them. from the conditioned
to the unconditioned
where the world of experience
Ill, 6,
warp and woof"
like
in the
is
found
is
worlds of the sky, the worlds of the sky
Prajapati, until finally
Devas, of Indra, of
stars, of the
"the worlds of Brahman" are reached,
beyond which inquiry cannot be made. Brh.,
Chdnd.,
I, 3,
among
of a controversy
the worlds of
in
so on successively through the worlds
of the sun, of the moon, of the
II, 14,
woven
worlds of water, the worlds of water
in the
the Gandharvas, and
ages i^Kaus.,
Brh. Up.,
in
represented as "
Again,
I, 2,
V,
in several pass-
there
i)
is
mention
the different prdnas (breaths, senses,
The controversy is mouth {inukliya prdna, dsanya prdna), because breathing endures when all the powers) as to which
vital
always settled
the greatest.
is
in favor of
the breath in the
'
'
other life-powers (hearing, seeing, etc.) are quiescent in sleep or
But although the prdnas or
destroyed.
certain reality (and
yet there
rest),
are
*
real
I,
or
it is '
vital
mouth
their correlatives
but the
Atman
6, 3),
real.'
'
activities
more than all the The prdnas name and form
*
'
(ego or self) which underlies
may be
instance of the search for reality all,
given,
namely the famous Kogavidyd
in Taitt. Up., II.
'
'
^
the most impressive of
doctrine of involucra
have a
real than these.
and also
'the real of the
is
One more and
the breath in the
something more
{satyani)
'
{Brh. Up.,
them
is
'
It
begins with a
statement of the order of creation, here a progressus from the
Thus "from
Atman.
from wind plants,
fire,
from
that Self sprang ether, from ether wind, fire
water, from water earth, from earth
from plants food, from food seed, from seed man."
ing such a genesis,
man must
ultimately from the Atman.^' ^
2
Satyasya satyam Brh. Up., II, Cf.
Luke
III, 36
"Which was
I,
He
be very complex.
What
part of
him
is
is
Havderived
identical with
20.
the son of
Adam, which was
the son of God.'
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
50 his source
What
?
man made '
we would
be stripped off
So with
eliminated.
(manomaya), and the
is
found
'
the vital self
may be
and worship
real self,
{vi-
may be
and so
man and in
nature
the self consisting of bliss {Anandaviayd), the inmost
This reality of
self of all.
as
the
of thought and will
self consisting
not represent the
'
man's nature
is it
(^prdnamaya), for this too
Finally, the core of reality both in
off.
in
Nor
self consisting of cognition
They do
jndnamayci).
'
say, for this aspect of
life
the
not
It is
{annarasamayd), the
an outer husk.
like
consisting of breath or
stripped
food
out of the essence of
physical man, as
may
the real man, the real self ?
is
realities
defined psychologically
is
mind of the mind, the speech of
the ear of the ear, the
speech, the breath of breath and the eye of the eye' (Keiia., 2,
Brh., IV, 4,
IV, is
18),
4,
1
8),
yea as 'the light of lights' {Brh., IV,
compared with which the
From
only secondary.
when thought
these different instances,
we
backivard toward the
one only without a second
'
'^
fire
see that is
either
from
whom
cosmological, the search for reality
is
3, 6,
moon and
light of sun,
I,
the whole world-process begins, or iipivard to the world of Brah-
man which comprehends all logical,
it is
real
and the unreal.
Still
we
'
is
as yet
Realty presents
being
point
'
and
it
the
non-being
'
Ego
itself as
is
psycho-
As
or Self.
distinction
between the
a thing of degrees.
the use of the old Vedic
in
harmony with the means the Rig-Veda the In
non-being.'
presents itself to the ordinary un-
the world of experience as
derstanding, asat
'
of view, sat in
world of natural objects as
*
when thought
no sharp
growing difference
notice a
cosmological
but
;
movement imvard toward
a
already remarked, there
sat and asat,
worlds
we would say
;
while
refers to that primitive undifferentiated condition
of things which the early philosophers of both Greece and India
postulated as the antecedent of the present ordered world. point of view
is still
maintained
world distinguished by asat
germ
'
non-being.'
But
'
in
Taitt., II,
name and form in Taitt., II, 6,
'
is
7,
where
said to be
sat,
This the
born of
there emerges the
first
of the distinction between the world as empirically real but
transcendentally unreal, and ^Chand. Up., VI,
Brahman
2, i cf.
Gen.,
as empirically unreal but I, I,
John,
I, I.
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. transcendentally
Thus the cosmological Brahman
real.
ordered world of experience isaf),
ground of all
reality
is
make
to
reality
and (empirically)
The next step Brahman is trans-
unreal.
and
done
this is
passage which well
in a
deserves to be called the monistic Confession of the beginning there was only Being
second' (Chand. Up., VI,
by a polemic
Ill,
How,'
'
that which
Etad vai and Oin
is
19,
i
This
?'
Tat tvamasi,
'
'
That
That
totality
is
reality in
man,
/.
^
how we
time regarding the
This
self, is divine.
is
man
in
his
is
not essen-
man is made in the that man (Adam gen-
As
can believe
finite
Schurman says
President
spirit,
God
in
as far as
It is
so because
it is
essential
its
its
an ego."^
or identity with the divine nature,
it
may
"
:
I
am
without at the same
concerned, as identical, within the limits of infinite spirit.
identifica-
can only mean that the core of
It
or from the N. T. doctrine
son of God.^
unable to see
in,
supreme
In the light of what has gone before,
inmost
his
:
from the O. T. doctrine, that
tially different
image of God
.,
be born of
is
{Katji. Up., 12 times),
is that,'
art thou,' so reads the
equated with God.
eric) is the
could that which
the standpoint of the later formulas
mean, as sometimes interpreted, that
cannot
II, 7,
is real.'
tion of the Upanishads. this
is
'
'This (as described)
tad,
! tat sat,
'In
naturally accompanied
is
entertained in Taitt.,
still
:
'In the beginning there was non-be-
:
said Uddalaka,
not
namely
faith,
to ov) one only ivitJwiit a
{sat,
This
i).
2,
against the position
and Chand., ing.'
;
unknown
characterized as transcendent, undefined,
is
{sat),
(satjaiii)
as the empirically
explicit the doctrine that the true
cendentally real
as the
described as the sphere of being
Brahman
while, on the other hand,
absolute, unconscious,
is
consciousness, and
relation,
definition,
5
ground
is
range, with the
This participation
be noted
in passing,
the philosophical basis of the doctrine of immortality, whether
Indian,
Hebrew, or Greek.
The
great identification,
'
of another equation, namely.
man
is
Brahman' {Brh.
iGen., *
2
I, 27.
"The hope of a
That
art thou,'
Brahman
Up., II,
5,
Luke, III, 36.
future life Jesus grounds
Stevens, The Theology of the
=
19).
New
stated in the form
Atman,
e.
g:,
'This At-
The pre-Upanishad ^
Belief in God, ^.
upon man's
Testament, p. 99.
is
de-
22-].
essential kinship to
God"
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
52
velopment of Brahman has ah'eady been pointed
word
the
first,
as
embodied
the emphasis be objectively
out.
means,
It
hymn, formula, and text, whether upon the word as something spoken
in
or remembered, or subjectively upon the content and meaning of
But
the word. I,
the famous cosmological passage (^at. Br., VI,
in
Brahman 'the
i)
threefold science
Veda and Yajur-Veda) and
as
first
born Logos
i.
is
'(/.
regarded as the
'
Logos
c, the
poured
itself forth
born of Prajapati,
Hence Brahman
were the creative programme.
it
Rig-Veda, Sama-
r.,
first
and
whole
filled this
as the
Avorld,'
and became incarnate as the
objectified itself
So we have Brahman the World standing over
world of nature.
Brahman
Word as its manifestation, in Plato's language 'the sensible God' as 'the image of the intellectual.' But in the Upanishads, Brahman Word is not only objectified and found in nature {c. g., All this is Brahman Chand. Up., Ill, against
the
'
'
'
14, i),
but
is
also
as
it
'
were
and found
'subjectified'
the
in
human heart. The doctrine of Brahman in the heart appears in many passages, c. g., This is my Atman (self or ego) within the heart, this is Brahman (Chand. Up., Ill, 14, 4); Consciousness (prajfia) is Brahman (Ait. Up., I, 3, 2); The heart is the highest Brahman {Brh. Up., IV, i, 7). Or again take the second member of the equation, namely, Atman. Its derivation is disputed. Still the usage is clear enough. The word has the '
'
'
'
'
'
following meanings as correctly given
own body body
in opposition to the
in opposition to
body, and
:"
(i)
one's
outer world, (2) the trunk of the
the limbs, (3) the soul in opposition to the
(4) the essential in opposition to the non-essential.
All of these meanings
The
by Deussen
logical order
may
be illustrated from the Upanishads.
would seem
to be
:
[a)
bodily
self, [b)
mental
Thus Atman is the self in the widest sense. The formula, 'Brahman is Atman,' would mean, then, that the objective reality (Brahman) is the same as the subjective reality (Atman). As we have it in the splendid passage (Chand. self, (c)
universal self
'
'That light which shines above
Up., Ill, 13, 7)
:
higher than
all,
higher than everything, in the highest world, be-
yond which
there are no other worlds, that
is
within man.' 1
This identification
TimcBus, p. 515, Jowett's trans.
is
is
the
this
same
heaven,
light
which
rendered possible, as 2
Geschichte, S. 286.
al-
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS.
53
ready pointed out, by converting Brahman the makrokosjiios into
more
a viikrokosmos, and so conceiving
it
properly as the knowing subject.
This manipulation of the old
Brahman which we must
cosmological
as consciousness or
involves a peculiar psychological treat-
briefly glance. ment at The psychology of the Upanishads is thoroughly idealistic. Thus in the dialogue between Ajataqatru King of Kagi and Gargya' Balaki {BrJi. Up., II, i, 17-20), we are told that when a person goes to sleep, then the knowing subject [injndnaniaya
pitrusd)
person
When
asleep the
dream, and so create for himself the worlds of dream-
which he may figure
may
his sleep
When
of reality.
as a great king or a great
be dreamless,
tween subject and object
all
the heart, having absorbed
is in
the knowledge of the senses.
all
may
land, in
Or
the ether which
in
lies
within itself
in
which case
blotted out.
is
TJiis is the
he awakes, then from the knowing
senses, all worlds, all gods, all beings,
i.
e.,
Brahman.
difference be-
all
all
very image self
the
emerge
phenom-
ena of actual or of possible existence, even as a spider from thread, or as sparks from
taught '
:
The
(i)
the world
is
Two
fire.
essential ideality of all conscious experience,
my
idea,'
and
(2)
no
way Brahman,
this
e.,
i.
the objective world,
'life is
is
a dream.'
gods,
all
all
" no object without a subject,"
is
worlds,
all
breaths,
all souls,
may
Thus
all
things
become one
{prajhdtniaii Kaush., Ill, 3-4).
In a sense, then,
there
still
things
all
On
if
quest for absolute unity. reality
death. 1
With
(^Br/i.
Up., II, 5>
become one
in the conscious-self,
but
This must
absolute reality was also the
For the Indian
sages, such absolute unity
were symbolized by the states of dreamless sleep and
Here there the
the
beings,
^
The quest for
possible.
all
the self as consciousness
remains the dualism of subject and object.
be resolved
and
in
In
be said to be con-
tained in the self as spokes in the axle of a wheel 15).
e.^
reduced to a mere
world of ideas created by the human consciousness. principle that there
/.
between
essential difference
the dream-state and the waking-state,
its
doctrines are here clearly
Atman
is
no duality of subject and
as the
ground of the unity of
all
Kant's doctrine of the synthetic unity of apperception.
object.
Knowledge
knowledge Deussen compares
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
54 there
indeed
is,
because he
knower
the
know
to
but " there
;
is
not know, yet he the soul
is its
is
own
tween subject and
then no second, nothing else
"when
sphere
its
object, because the soul
one
free
is
from
Here
no distinction be-
is
like
is
an ocean single
Like the one reahty of Chand. Up., VI,
Brahman.
desire, free
from
2,
one without a second, be-
is
This
in
(in that condition) he does
object, or, better, there
the soul as the witnessing self
cause
30).
3,
seems to be implied
knowing, though he does not know."
and all-embracing.
is
the very nature of
it is
sort of transcendent consciousness
the paradoxical statement that
1,
inseparable from the knower,"
is
from him that he could know," {Brk. Up., IV,
different
Some
"knowing
for
;
imperishable, and because
is
which
one's true form, in
is
evil, free
from
This
fear.
is
the
highest goal, the highest world, the highest bliss {Brh. Up., IV, 3,
21-32).
It
we know
may
was
it)
be noted in passing that consciousness (as
to the
Indian thinker, as time and space to
Being was one.
Schopenhauer, the principle of individuation.
Non-being took the form of multiplicity. Up., VI,
I,
2,
2,
being was
And
Chand.
just as in
postulated and then non-being
first
attacked, so unity was postulated in the early prose Upanishads,
while multiplicity was attacked in the later poetic sections, especially in Brh. Up., IV, 4, 19
and Kath.
Up., IV, 10, 11.
We come now to the nature and attributes of Brahman. Up.,
28''
Ill, 9,
knowledge and Taitt.
And
bliss."
in the
Up. the nature of Brahman
anandam
'
bliss
'
instead of
anantam
We
the change are obvious.
'
is
positive. 2, 4,
Thus
IV,
But
He
is
The
Thought, and
4,
22,
IV,
far
the characterization
passages of the
in four
5,
from everything which *
infinite.'
is
reasons for
Brli.
Up.
Bliss."
Brah-
One only withBrahman is
further described as ekarn eva advitiyam, "
out a second."
jndnam
read with Deussen
I
have here clearly the germ of the
later {oxvcL\A^.sac-cid-dnanda, " Being,
man
is
famous Anandavalli of the described as satyain
is
" Reality, Thought, and Bliss."
dnandam,
In Brh,
we read vijndnam dnandam Brahma " Brahman
of
(Ill, 9, 26,
15) the absolute separation of
changeable and knowable
is
IV,
Brahman
emphasized.
incomprehensible, for he cannot be comprehended, he
imperishable, for he cannot perish
;
he
is
is
unattached, for nothing
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. attaches itself to him.'
the
great
sage,
negatively as neti
quantity,
case
'
In a word, according to the doctrine of
Ydjhavalkya,
the Self can only be described
" no, no."
neti,
mathematical
like a
55
infinite
This
which
is
may mean
that the Self,
too great for any assignable
any assignable attribute, in which would mean no, no,' in the sense of inadequate, That is, all determination is limitation.' Possibly
also too great for
is
neti neti'
inadequate.'
'
'
'
Spinoza's distinction between definition
by essence may help
us here.
by genus and
then Brahman
If so,
definition
defined
is
when he (or it) is described as Reality, Thought, and Bliss. However this may be, it is true that in many passages of the Upanishads the same attributes, both positive and negative, are applied to Brahman as are applied to God in the Bible. Thus he is self-existent, unborn, eternal, ancient, through
his
essence,
unchanging, great, omnipresent, luminous, (cf Ka[h. Up., II, 18, 22,
Mund.
on the whole the emphasis the
'
moral
tive rather
'
attributes,
rests
Up.,
I,
on the
i, '
pure, bodiless, etc.
6, 7, II, 2,
natural
i-i
But
i).
rather than on
'
and these are put by preference
in
a nega-
than in a positive form.
How can Brahman be known ? The attriBrahman have been described. How were these determined ? The Indian thinker, like Spinoza, began with the problem of the world as a whole. The cosmological Brahman as the world of extension in its totality, was proved by the good old way of common-sense through external intuition. In other words, it was simply assumed. In like manner the psychological BrahThe
question arises,
butes of
man
as consciousness (Ait. Up.,
was proved by
I,
internal intuition.
something more fundamental
still,
3, 2,)
or the world oi thought,
But beneath consciousness was the root of both the inner and
the outer world, the unity of subject and object. the ground of knowing and of being.
It is called
It *
the
is
at
life
once
of
life,
the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind
'
Whoso knows this knows Brahman. But For 'how,' asked Ydjhavalkya in the very spirit of Berkeley and Kant, should one know him through whom one knows all this ? How, O beloved, should one know the {Brli. Up., it
is
IV,
4, 18).
unknowable.
'
KnowerT
{Brh. Up., II, 4, 13).
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
56
Here the way of
whether external or
intuition,
internal, avails
But we can detect the method of the discovery of
nothing.
these high doctrines.
method
Socratic
It
'
especially,
theologians
1 1,
The
i).
is
our
Brliad-
of philosophical dialogues.
is full
same
essentially the
is
five
the
It is
held a discussion as to what
'
Brahman (Chand. Up., V,
is
dranyaka Upanishad,
The method
Thus
of question and answer.
once came together and Self and what
the dialectic of reason.
is
by which Socrates
as that
Good and Spinoza the notion of Dcus or Substantia. After we have been taken behind the scenes, as it were, and have heard with our own ears thinkers elaborates the notion of the
Ydjnavalkya and Ajdtagatm, as they argue on these high
like
themes, silence opponents, and establish
Brahman,
it is
somewhat incongruous
(especially in the Brh. Up.) long
Brahman
the doctrine of
Upanishads,
Upanishads
of teachers through
whom
is
the point of view of the dogmatic
is
a tendency to frown
which there
in
true doctrine of
supposed to have been handed down
is
This
in regular tradition.
lists
the
to find in the
upon inde-
pendent argumentation, and to make everythingof the instruction
That doctrine
is not to be obtained by by another, then it is easy to understand.' Unless it be taught by another, there is no way to it That is, the doctrine of Brahman is (Kath. Up., I, 2, 8-9).
of the capable teacher.
'
argument, but when
declared
it is
'
'
something to be passively received and believed. noted that only
would the word '
in '
It
may be
the secondary and dogmatic stage of doctrine
upanishad
'
appropriately have the meaning of
a sitting at the feet of a teacher,' and therefore passive accep-
tance of his teaching.
The
back even to Brahman the
work of self
lists
of teachers in the Brh. Up.
the guru or teacher was so all-important,
was considered as the
first
of
all
in
is
emphasized.
the Psalms
'
Teach me,
the
O God
Thus Brahman. The
of the period.
So
gurus.
or post-exile stage of O. T. religion
teacher
go
when the Brahman him-
In a period
self-existent.
to
in
the second
doctrine of '
is
God
as
a frequent thought
sum
up,
there
are
two forms of first or lower form is knowable through sense perception and consciousness. We may compare it with the nattira natiirata of Spinoza viewed as an
virtually
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. aggregate of
beyond
finite
form of Brahman
it
points to something
The second
As
a postulate of reason.
is
it
or higher
identical
with
can never become an object of knowledge,
and so must ever remain
in its
unity,
thought, and bliss
here
may be
that
conditioned
unconditioned.^
is
the knowing subject,
it
As
modes.
which
itself
57
inmost nature a mystery.
may
be predicated of
we must add
adequate, inadequate.'
the qualification
Being,
But even
it.
ncti, neti,
in-
'
however mysterious its nature may be, its existence can be known. Such an immanent reality, as the ground of all knowing and being, is suggested by consciousness but, more than this, it is proved by the speculative insight of the Still,
;
And
ancient seers.
such
knowmg
although Brahman, the
so,
sub-
unknowable, yet the doctrine of Brahman
may
be handed down from teacher to teacher and received on
feith
ject, as
by the
is
believing pupil.
We
have already discussed the doctrine of identity in the Upanishads. It is emphasized in a goodly number of passages, '
That
which
light
which shines above
within
is
Atman.'
'
That
this
man' (Chand. art thou.'
heaven
...
Up., Ill, 13,
Whatever
is
is
the same light
'Brahman
7).
real in
man
is
or in nature
identical with Brahman and there is no difference. Deep sleep and death are the image of reality. In them the finite consciousis
ness as the principle of individuation has no sphere.
forms of cognition which
Brahman
is
described as
'
make
In
them the
for multiplicity are transcended.
thought.'
Regard thought
instead of quantitatively, or in Kantian
qualitatively
language eliminate the
pure forms of intuition space and time, or blot out the
finite
sciousness while
;
thought
is
this
is
itself as bliss.
It is
alas
!
from
this
con-
and
lo
!
high standpoint that
described as reality, unity, thought, and
according to the highest
eternally true.
But
regarding thought as persistent
seen to be one and indivisible, the sole reality, and
conscious of
Brahman
still
It is
teaching
bliss.
All
of the Upanishads
is
true for every man, yea for every creature.
most creatures are
like
people
who
'
walk again and
again over a gold treasure that has been hidden in the earth' iCf. C/iaiui. 6>., Ill, 13, 8.
2Cf. parable of the
Hidden Treasure, Matt. XIII,
44.
-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
58
(Chand. Up., VIII,
Brahma-world
(in
They go day
2).
3,
deep
day
after
it.
The
their
eyes.
and yet do not discover
sleep),
Brahman remains hidden from
soul's
identity with
This
the discovery of discoveries, the supreme discovery.
is
the eternal
saying
Brahman himself made
Aham
Bralinia asini
I
*
this
discovery
am Brahman
in
Even
the beginning,
{Brh. Up.,
'
the
into
I,
4, 10).
So Brahman became what he is through knowledge. He knew In like manner himself as Brahman and so became Brahman. whosoever awakes to the same consciousness, whether deva or The way of deliverance rishi or man, he too becomes Brahman. He who knows Brahman attains the is the way of knowledge. *
highest
God
!
Up.,
(Taitt.
'
conceived
And
in both, albeit
'
'
!
I
am
a child of
of one's true
of
the consciousness which so speaks
with far-reaching differences, as the
result of a divine discovery, an
awakening
to reality, a realization
self.
"
The
Brahman
So speaks the profoundest rehgious consciousness
'
both India and Palestine. is
'I am'
II, i).
C.
Consequences of the Doctrine.
older Upanishads are integral parts of the
Aranyakas or
These represent the speculations of men who, or, in retired from business,' in secular phraseology, had The withdrawn from the world.' religious phraseology, had 'forest treatises.'
.'
'
doctrine of the four dgranias or stages of
four castes, was of gradual growth.
Up.,
II, 23,
Aryans
:
i)
life,
like that of the
early notice (Chand.
mentions only three generic duties of the Vedic
{a) that of sacrifice,
austerity {tapas),
and
(r)
the house of a teacher.
types of religious
life,
study and almsgiving,
the Brahmasamstha,
'
he
{b)
that of
that of the Braliviacdrin or student in
These are brought forward as different find their reward in the worlds
which
Contrasted with these, however,
of the blessed.
immortality.
An
who
is
stands fast in Brahman,'
the state of
who
obtains
This passage clearly dates from a time when the
between four dgranias had not yet crystallized. In fact we have here perhaps the germ of such a fourfold division, for the three functions mentioned correspond to those of
later distinction
the grihastha, vdjtaprastha and brahmacdrin respectively, while
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. the Brahmasamstha as occupying the point,
would seem
acquired during
is
a man's
the
of
anticipation
the
from active
retire
and
;
Knowl-
come marriage and
after that
age comes on
finally as old
hand over
life,
san-
later
twenty or thirty years of
first
(Chand. Up., VI, 1,2);
life
the duties of a householder
men
or Upanishad stand-
Three of the four stages are entirely natural.
nydsin}
edge
an
be
to
new
59
their business to their chil-
For
dren, and devote their last days to religious contemplation.
as Plato says,^ " the time
they must lightens
raise the
all
(/.
c, 50 years) has
now
eye of the soul to the universal light which
To drop
things and behold the absolute good."
cares of a householder
most of one's time
which
arrived at
would
in the cool
in
and
the
mean
naturally to spend
leafy forest
on the outskirts of
India
the village, or to wander in oriental simplicity from settlement to
settlement of the
same Aryan brotherhood, having one's few
wants supplied by the hospitality of one's clan-people.
was no more begging than
it is
for the occidental to
where he knows that he
will
be asked to
munity the
would
often
'
superannuated,'
and
com-
warriors,
men
as they
draw near
to the
end
For them philosophy was in a very Such discussions, however, were not confined Women take part in them by asking questions {e. g., Nor were BrJi. Up., II, 4, and Gargi, Ibid., Ill, 6 and 8). real sense
life.^
visiting
In each
dine.
priests
go
This
meet one another and talk over the themes which
are naturally interesting to old
of
especially
'
a medi-
'
tation of death.'
to men. Maitreyi,
they confined to the
circle
of the aged.
Just as Socrates in his
search for truth delighted in catechizing
young men
{c.
g.,
Charmides), so the thinkers of ancient India were fond of asking
young men how much they knew (Chand. Up., V,
cially
if
3),
espe-
they had just returned from the house of the preceptor,
well read and conceited (Chand. Up., VI, their sons the doctrine of
i, 2,
Brahman (Chand.
Fathers teach
3).
Up., VI).
It is re-
markable what a prominent part the Kshatriyas played in these Not only were there philosophical tournaments at discussions. iVid. Deussen in loco. [Upanishads, S. 96 '^Republic, Bk. VII, p. 244, Jowett's trans.
3Cf. Chand. Up.,l,d,,V, 11.
ff.
).
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
6o
the courts of kings,
Videhas [Brh.
e.
Up., Ill,
court of Janaka king of the
g., at the
infrequently philosophers,
but the kings themselves were not
i),
i,
Ajatagatru {Brh. Up., VI,
g.,
e.
Agvapati Kaikeya (Chand. Up., V,
Thus
4-5).
r,
i
i)
and
the ideal of
Plato was realized that kings should be philosophers and philoso-
There were not only Brahman sages, but Kshatriya and the latter are often represented as better ac-
phers kings. sages also
;
Brahman than
quainted with the doctrine of
Pravahana
Jaivali
Kaikeya (V,
(Chand. Up., It
11).
8,
I,
looks as
the former.
V,
2,
5)
3,
represented by the earliest Upanishads had derived originally from the Kshatriya thinkers. interesting
remember
to
From
Brahman was no
doctrine of
its
impulse
In this connection
Buddha and Krishna
that both
represented as royal sages.
movement
the philosophic
if
E. g.,
and Agvapati
all
this
is
it
it
is
are
clear that the
of a philosophic
secret doctrine
Upanishad would suggest,
coterie, as the current explanation of
but was communicated to anyone. Brahman or Kshatriya, old or
young, man or woman, who was worthy to receive regards
its
origin,
from active
life
it
must be
referred decidedly to the class of
men who had
vanaprasthas or
and so had
stance, so far as
I
either partially or
know, of two young men or two
woman
takes part
Brahman sage
in
then, in Ancient India
In
'forest-dwellers.'
tionary.
It
directions.
Whenever
or a Kshatriya sage.
came from the
many
was
no
women
in-
dis-
young man or a is
invariably
Advanced thought,' vanaprasthas or
radical
had important consequences,
It
The
it
is
and revolu-
involved reconstruction and readjustment in several
religion of the '
'
circle of the
respects
Self
(^Br/i.
Up., II,
(I, 4,
8).
5,
This
is
Upanishads
'Let
ethical,
a
is
the religion of the
Atman
or
all
beings, the king of all beings,'
man
ivorship the Self alone as dear'
the lord of
15). is
religious,
There must now be considered.
Rcligio7is.
/.
The
a
a dialogue, the other speaker
eschatological, and philosophical.
Self
wholly retired
There
leisure for thought.
cussing the doctrine of Brahman.
either a
But as
it.
perhaps the nearest approach
Upanishads to the doctrine of love to God as
in
the early
set forth in the
com-
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. mand, " Thou
and dearer than son or wealth or anything Self and
own
is
soul.
dear, that
The
Lord thy God."
shall love the
6 Self
because
else,
is
nearer
it is
the
manifested to the consciousness of every one as his
A wife is not As Ydjnavalkya beautifully says you may love the wife but that you may love the Self, '
:
;
therefore a wife
is
dear' {Brh. Up.,
II, 4,
This
5).
is
not to be
regarded as the statement of an extreme egoism, but rather as
something involved
Vedas
ligion of the
the great doctrine of identity.
in
to be described as objective
is
spiritual.
It
a religion not of the object but of the subject.
is
God is sought not beyond human heart. The identity est Self
the stars, but in the depths of the of the individual self and of the
Being able to say
recognized.
is
If the reritualistic,
must be described as subjective and
of the Upanishads
that
and
I
'
am
High-
Brahman,' one
becomes Brahman.
He who
the Self within himself
Beholds
as
God
Lord of the
He
immediately,
and the
future
from that time
is
past,
not afraid.
{Brh. up., IV,
The worship But
it
of the Self looks at
would hardly be
trine of the Spirit of
fair
first
to call
God, the Holy
sight like self-worship.
The
that.
it
4, 15).
Christian doc-
dwelling in the heart
Spirit, as
of the devout believer and so creating a mystic union between the
human and
the doctrine
in
the Divine,
is
This
question.
perhaps the best analogue of is
Religion began with him
Apostle.
the standpoint of Paul the
when
was revealed
Christ
in
him.^
In the early Upanishads ship of the object or
Devas.
phenomenon
we
The is
notice a polemic against the wor-
objections are
an
and inadequately expresses the nature seen.
.
.
.
As
breathing he
metaphysical.
effect of the Self
is
and so only
thereof.
'
Self
is
un-
called breath, as speaking speech,
as seeing eye, as hearing ear, as thinking thought.
but names of his works.
The
Each
partially
Whoso ^Gal.,
All these are
worships one or other of these I,
16.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
62 is
not wise
for the Self
;
is
only partially identical with any one of
Let one worship the Self alone
them.
come one
'
{Brh. Up.,
Self and his works
is
I,
4, 7).
is
to
Up.,
ship
is
is
all
antithesis
these be-
between the
and
object.
deity, thinking that the deity
To be
not wise.'
able to say,
'
am
I
is
one
Brahman,'
become the self of all things, yea even of the Devas {Brh. I, 4, 10). The same sharp polemic against the popular woris expressed in Kena I, 5 :
Unthinkable by thought is that Through which they say that thought Brahman know that alone to be, Not that which people here adore. It
him
for in
also the antithesis between subject
'He who worships another and he another,
;
But the
is
thought
worthy of notice that both the sages of India and the
prophets of Israel attacked the popular worship of their times.
The former assailed
Amos
it
on metaphysical grounds
the latter
;
{c.
g.,
and Hosea) on moral grounds.
There was
finally a
compromise between the
religion
of the
Atman and the religion of the Devas. The religion of the Devas flourished among the people at large, while the religion of the Atman prevailed among the Vanaprasthas and such as came under their influence. The Atman was a 'jealous god,' and tolerated
the
no second.
Atman was
Allah was
for
For the thinkers of India an
Mohammed
religiously.
up the Vedic Devas and so became
beyond the reach of mortal ken. unknowable.
'associate' of
as obnoxious metaphysically as an associate of
As we have
By whom By whom
it
'all
paradoxically in 'tis
knows it those that know,
thought, he
then retired
It
all.'
The one
not thought, by him 'tis
The Atman swallowed in
reality
Kena
was made
II, 3
:
thought not.
Unknowable for Well known by those who do not know
!
This sounds somewhat like the N. T. paradox of the things hidden
from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. early Upanishad doctrine of the unknowableness of the
Here the knowing
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. subject
is
pushed
to
63
such an extreme as seriously to encroach upon
the doctrine of deHverance through the knowledge of Brahman.
unknowable Brahman comes to be repremore by symbols. The syllable Om, the everlasting yea and amen (Chand. Up., I, i, 8), is a favorite emblem of Brahman. So are jyotis 'light' {^Bvli. Up., IV, 4, 16), and But even more /;w/^z 'breath,' 'spirit' (Chand. Up., IV, 10, 5).^ symbols employed.And in the late dogmatic and concrete are sectarian Upanishads a whole host of deities, e.g., Brahma, VisJuiu,
The
result
that the
is
sented more and
'
'
Ndrdyana,
(^iva,
etc.,
Brahman.
tions of
appear as representatives or personifica-
Thus
the Vedic deities are
first
banished and
then either they or their equivalents are recalled to act as intermediaries between scious
self.
'
Unknown (Brahman) and
the Great
'
the con-
So there was a compromise between philosophy and
popular religion
in
the period of the later Upanishads, just as
was between prophecy and popular Hebrews of the post-exile period.
there
religion
among
the
//. Ethical.
The
ethical
system of the Upanishads
And
is
involved
in
the doctrine
we have in the Upanishads the identity of philosophy and religion, we may call the ethics found there both philosophical and religious. As philosophical, it is a deduction from the nature of Brahman as religious, a program for the attainment of Brahman. Brahman or the Self is the home of of Brahman.
since
;
reality,
thought, and
and change.
It
is
bliss.
It
is
far
beyond hunger,
removed from
age, and death (^Brh. Up., Ill,
5,
VIII,
Whatever
7,
i).
It is
sorrcnvfnl {Brh.
immortal.
Up.,
Ill, 7,
is
We
23).
birthplace of Indian pessimism.
It
i).
sinless
is
of
it
either in the Vcdas or in the
'Compare 'God ''E. g.,
1,4.
is
light' (I
Indra in Ait. Up.,
John
I, 3,
I,
is
There
'God
the in-
referred to
Why is
Brdhmanas.
5) and
it
stand here at the very
It is often
earlier in India ?
(Chand. Up.,
separate from
fluence of climatic and other natural conditions.
pessimism not appear
multiplicity
sorrow, delusion, old
thirst,
is spririt
It
'
then did
no clear trace
seems to
John IV,
14 [Deussen's numbering], Kaush., Ill,
me
24. I,
Taitt.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
64
that Oldenberg
^
is
harmony with the sources when he
entirely in
Indian pessimism
assigns
to
origin.
There
is
a
a
dam (Chand.
Up., VIII,
tween the noumenal world which
and
deathless,
is
4,
i)
and the phenomenal world which
this side is ipso facto to
Brahman
is
be
in the state of
sorrowful.
separating be-
timeless, changeless, sinless,
It is
is
home of To be on
the
and death.
unreality, multiplicity, decay, sin, sorrow,
other than
and metaphysical
speculative
sorrow, for everything
not that this world
the worst possible world, but that the world of
Brahman
is
is
so
much better. As Oldenberg says,^ " The glorification of the Atman becomes involuntarily an ever increasingly bitter criticism Weighed
of this world."
against the changeless bliss
Atman, the
best that this changing world can afford
defective.
A
of the
must appear
kind of pessimism has ever marked the attitude of
We
the choicest spirits toward the actual world.
Hebrew
writings of the
detect
it
in
the
prophets, and also in the words of Jesus
Christ and His Apostles, not to mention Plato and the moderns,
The pessimism
Schopenhauer and Carlyle. is
speculative and
that of the
is
of the Indian sages
the consequence of their theory of being
Hebrew prophets
;
consequence of their
ethical, the
is
theory of duty.
The
logical result of the
renunciation.
The motive
be the knowledge of the
condemnation of the world was
its
of such renunciation was declared to
Knowing
Self.
this Self,
Brahmans
give up the desire of children, wealth, and the world, and wander
about as beggars
(^Brli.
Up., Ill,
But renunciation
5, i).
to be genuine involves the destruction
in
order
of desire, or rather the
destruction of desires through the realization of one supreme desire.
So we read of him who is without desire, free from desire, whose desire is realized, whose desire is the Self {BifJi. Up., IV, 4, 6). Such an one bears the name akdmayavidna, he who does not '
desire.'
When
all
desires have
Which make
their
been removed,
home
in
human
hearts,
Mortal immortal then becomes,
Brahman e'en
here
is
then attained. (^B^Iu
'^Buddha,
p. 42,
ff.
2
Op.
cit.,
up., IV, 4, 7.)
p. 42.
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS.
man would come after me, let What doth it profit a man if he gain whole world and lose his own soul."
Likewise said Christ
him deny the
65
himself.
" If any
:
.
,
.
^
Not only
is
the world with
'
its
affections
and
nounced, but tmion with Brahman the Self
lusts
to
is
to be re-
'
be realized.
The name for such union \ssdyiijyazxi<\ perhaps also yoga. The word 'yoga' occurs only once in the older Upanishads (Taitt., II, 4,
i),
and there
in the
'
But
devotion.'
be about equivalent to
course of time to
Two
sense of
'
means of
union.'
In the later Upanishads, however, yoga, as
means connected
actually used, refers to a very special kind of
As
with the control of the breath. {sdyiijyd) with deity, 5,
in
such means have already been considered, namely knowledge
and renunciation.
I,
came
it
From
23.
such control
a
is first
way
of realizing union
mentioned
in BrJi. Up.,
the control of the breath and senses resulted
oftentimes the induction of a state of trance or unconsciousness.
As we
have
it
in the earliest
account of the developed Yoga
:
exists no form of Brahman, Not with the eye can anyone behold him But only through the spirit's high equipment, Whoso thus knows him, he becomes immortal.
For outer sense
When the five senses quiet are, And with them also human thought When functions intellect no more, This
is
known
;
as the highest state.
(^Kath. Up., VI, 9, 10.)
The
origin of this
method of union
is
Brahman, as the synthesis of subject and bolized
by the
And
and death.
be regarded as ness, too,
and of
state of
then,
object,
to detect.
was best sym-
unconsciousness as seen
in
deep sleep
Brahman had come more and more to The finite conscioustheoretically unknowable. as at
once the principle of individuation
In order to transcend these one must transcend
Only thus would renunciation be complete. more natural than to seek to be conformed to the
consciousness.
What,
difficult
besides
was regarded
desire.
not
1
Matt.
XVI,
24-26.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
66
image of Brahman by the way of mysticism and trance through an artificial induction of tlie unconscious or perhaps of the state
siiperconscioiis
All this reminds one of Neo-platonism.
?
Ethics, then, in the Upanishads belongs to the soteriology of the
Atman. In been distinguished, namely religion of the
moments have
this soteriology three /^;z<3'ze'/^(/^i'
through speculative
insight,
renunciation and mysticism. III. Eschatological.
The
doctrine of transmigration
Upanishads.
It is
only with the belief
abode of Yama. '
unknown in
It is
appears explicitly in the
first
Rig-Veda, where we meet
in the
a continued existence after death
true that the \\ox6. punarmrtyu
in
the
Wiedertod,'
'
second death,' occurs
in
the BrdJimanas as well as in Brli. Up.,
but there
is
clearly
I,
2, 7, etc.,^
The
thinks that
it
no reference to transmigration.
metempsychosis
of Indian
origin
was borrowed from the
Gough^
uncertain.
is
aborigines, because
been shown to be a wide-spread belief among semi-savage and, moreover, was
unknown
But another hypothesis something
in the
has
the pre-Upanishad literature.
in
May
possible.
is
it
tribes,
there not have been
Upanishad speculations of such a character as
to give rise to the doctrine
The
?
doctrine
was
clearly lifted into
prominence by the vdnaprasthas, who would hardly have picked
up and cherished a non-Aryan superstition unless their own It seems to me that system of thought came to demand it. the advanced thought of the Upanishads called naturally for some revision of old eschatological conceptions.
not
leave a
man
Ydjnavalkya.
'
death
after
Name and work '
'
sition is still further
What
is it
that does
'
he
replied,
/.
e.,
the
knowing
For a man becomes good by good
subject and his character.
work and bad by bad work
'
asked the son of Ritablidga of
?'
'
'
{Brh. Up., Ill,
developed
in
after all multiplicity of sensation
This po-
2, I2, 13).
IV, 4, 2-6, where
we read
that
has ceased at the death of a man,
then his knoivledge {vidyd consciousness of duty) and his work (karman), yea his whole previous experience {ptirvaprajnd), lay 1
'
He
overcomes the second death,'
cf.
Apocal. loh.
^Philosophy of the Upanishads, pp. 24, 25.
II,
ii.
DOCTRINE OF THE UPAAISHADS.
6/
hold of him and lead him to another form of existence, whether it
be that of the
Brahman
where operates
spirits'
is ethical.
the law of recompense.
is
he also
shall
Vedic teaching
The
reap.'
without regard to character, but
'
Whatsoever a man
future world of the old
no longer conceived as
is
Thus the motive The law which every-
or of other beings.
which governs these speculations soweth that
Gandharvas or of the Devas or
fathers, or of the
of Prajapati or of
is
the place of departed
'
broken up into
'
spheres
of recompense,' in which there are different degrees of dignity
and blessedness corresponding to
'
the deeds done in the body.*
The future state was not regarded Each one there had his own riipa or as
a
'
done with those who were not worthy of enter-
to be
ing that world?
punishment.
it
'
Brahman himself them down-
with the very world of
at the top
What more
{BraliDialokd). until
had not yet been invented as a place of be remembered that the spheres of recom-
Hell
'
Let
pense began
ward
Yama had come the blessed. What
regarded as exclusively the world of
to be
was
natural than to extend
they include the worlds of men, animals, plants, and
According to
inorganic nature?
this view, the doctrine of trans-
migration in India began through the extension of the of recompense,' so as to cover
me
This seems to there
state.
form,' perhaps conceived
But the world of
body.'^
spiritual
disembodied
a
as *
would be a
beings,
all
all
forms,
a very plausible hypothesis.
'
spheres bodies.
all
Accordingly
future form and condition appropriate for every
The sage might take the form of a Deva, while the man whose conduct had been evil would be born as a dog or a
creature.
*
hog
or a Oianddla' (Chand. Up., V, lo,
transmigration
conceived as a minister of justice, which assigns
is
to every creature
and destiny desire f as his
work
Up.,
^
4,
Kratu
cf.
appropriate
his desire, so
the
= both
;
'
'
whose body
conatus
intellect
'
is is
his
:
*
Man
is
'
of man's nature
altogether
made of
his insight so
is
his destiny
human
Chand. Up., and the will to
is spirit,'
will.
is
f as
work so
true for
of Spinoza
and
The law
lot.
his insight
is
and as
All this
5).
pranatarira
^Kdma, »
is
its
expressed as follows
[kaniiaii)
IV, Q.{.
is
7).
Here, as in Plato,
'
experience and
Ill, 14, 2. live
is
{Brh.
'
of Schopenhauer.
68
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
•
In Kantian language the law of
thought, but for them alone.
karman
a principle regulative
is
tive of reality.
ness which
is
of experience, but not constitu-
For as soon as the standpoint of human consciousmarked by desire and ignorance is transcended, then
both merit and demerit vanish into thin air. This, it seems to It furme, was the earliest form of the post-Vedic eschatology. nished a favorite field for speculation, so that very soon numerous
As pointed proceed by way of the
modifications were introduced into the older doctrine.
out by Deussen,^ these modifications
combination and recombination of the fundamental eschatological conceptions under the domination of different motives, ethical, ritualistic
As might be
and cosmological.
expected, their details
cannot always be harmonized. a well-known fact that in the later Vedantism philosophy often conceived negatively as a means of deliverance from the It is
is
round of transmigration.
It
cannot be too
much emphasized
For the thinkers of the that in the beginning earliest Upanishads, the investigation of Brahman, the one reality, was something positive. Their impulse to philosophy was not was not
it
so.
derived from belief in transmigration, but rather the doctrine of transmigration itself seems to have been, if not the product of the doctrine of Brahman, at least an ethical postulate of the
same
course of thought which led to the developed doctrine of Brahman. For it expressed the conviction of an indissoluble wedlock
between character and destiny.
IV. Philosophical.
The
doctrine of
Maya
is
the logical result of the doctrine of
like the substantia of Spinoza,
Brahman.
Brahman,
indivisible
so the speculative reason of India declared.
;
is
one and
But
for
There is thus a dualism beis real.' unity the other mulaffirms one The sense. and tween reason first that multiplicity very It has been evident from the tiplicity. must go to the wall. The temper of the Vedanta thinkers has sense multiplicity exists and
;
ever been rationalistic. 1
upanishads,
S.
139
ff.
DOCTRINE OF THE UPANISHADS. For a long time the unreconciled. implicit.
It
is
From the very first, may be stated almost
Being
school.
many.
is
non-being
:
human
final
side unarticulated
re-
and
however, the explanation was the terms of the Eleatic
in
Being
not.
is
It
one
is
is
non-being
:
unreal.
It
is
an
Maya
it is
'
Such was
illusion.'
explanation.
The word
many
by
consciousness, not something con-
In a word,
stitutive of reality.
side
not.
is
Therefore multiplicity
accident pertaining to
the
between unity and plurality
antithesis
The two stood
mained unresolved.
69
times
'
ma
from
indyd,'
to measure,
Rig-Veda
in the
wonderful, supernatural or creative power. 'supernatural arts 14, etc.
Maya
in Brh. Up., II,
He
In the plural
it
means
or 'devices,' as in RV., VI, 47, 18, VIII, 14,
'
does not occur 5,
make, occurs
effect,
the sense of pozver, especially
in
19
found
(
=
his
the oldest Upanishads except
in
RV., VI, 47,
Thus
18).
:
form in every form incarnate,
him for human vision Through magic wanders multiform wise Indra, Yoked are his horses by the tens and hundreds. This
is
the form of
;
This passage seems to furnish the starting point for the later Indra becomes multiform through his stipernaUiral
use of indyd. arts.
Multiplicity
here be rendered by (J vet.
made
is '
magic just as well '
Up., occurs the
cosmic sense
the effect of maya, and
passage
first
From whom come hymns, as
as
by 'power.'
which maya
is
In the
used
in
a
:
Future and past, yea
He
in
maya may
all
works, vows, and sacrifices,
the Veda-teachings,
Magician (mayin)
all this
In which the soul through mdyd
Maya know prakriti ( And as Eiichanter the With
that
Pervaded In this sense the
Upanishads and
in
which of is
=
is
entangled.
nature) to be.
Great
'
God
;
his parts consists.
the entire world.
word
/
world created,
mdyd
'
is
the Bhagavadgita.
(IV,
9,
10.)
often used in the sectarian
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
70
We have, then,
in
the Upanishads three
moments
in the devel-
between the one and the many
opment of the
relation
thesis, unity is
(Chand. Up., VI,
2,
i), (2)
(i) the
:
the antithesis, plural-
IV, 10, 11), and (3) the synthesis, plurality the illusive play of unity, the magic of Brahman the great ma-
ity is not {Kath. Up., is
gician (^vet. Up., IV, 9, 10).
Brahman appeared
As
in the early
while as the source of
all
the source of
Upanishads
all
sound doctrine
as the Gi'eat Teacher;
(apparent) multiplicity he appears in the
Upanishads as the Great Magician.
late
Concerning the antiquity of the doctrine of maya, Colebrooke^ " I take it to be no tenet of the original Vedantin philososays :
phy
;"
while on the contrary
Gough ^
claims " that
maya
is
part
and parcel of the primitive Indian cosmological conception, as
Which
exhibited in the Upanishads themselves."
me
seems to
that each
is
right in the sense that the doctrine of
stated in the older Upanishads
;
sense that the doctrine in question
Brahman, the great theme of 1
2 3
all
maya Gough is
right
It
?
is
not found explicitly
while is
is
Colebrooke
both right and wrong.
is
right in the
involved in the doctrine of
the Upanishads.^
Essays, p. 242.
Upanishads, p.
There
is
theologically
xi.
an interesting N. T. is
the conception of
these were left by the
N. T.
parallel.
God
The
net result of the
the Father, Christ,
New
and the Holy
Testament
Spirit.
But
writers standing over against one another, philosoph-
and unexplained. The Greek theologians took up the problem and by the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine is and is not a doctrine of the New Testament in the same sense in which maya both is and is not a doctrine of Neither is found explicitly in the documents in question, but on the the Upanishads.
ically unrelated
answered
it
other hand each seems to be implied.
CHAPTER
IV.
The Doctrine of Brahman
in the Vedanta-SOtras Expounded by Qankaracarya.
The period
of the classical Upanishads
of Indian philosophy.
It
was the
as
creative period
was naturally followed by an age of
The
exposition and system-building.
earliest
systematic state-
ment of the doctrine of the Upanishads is found in the VedantaBut these without a commentary are unintelligible. Sutras. This want is supplied by the famous Bhdsya of ^ankaracarya, Here the earliest extant commentary on the Vedanta-Sijtras. then cite
we must take up
We
the thread of our investigation.
shall
from the excellent translation of Professor Thibaut.
Indian philosophy began with the problem of the universe as
Purusha (RV., X, 90, 2), Prajapati (^at. Br., V, i, i, 4), and Brahman (Chand. Up., Ill, 14, i), representing respectively the Vedic, the Brahmanic and the Upanishad speculation, a whole.
them identified with the totality of nature {idam But this was little more than to fix the problem. It
are each of sarvain).
remained to reduce the chaos of existence to an ordered system
through the insight of reason.
As
already pointed put, the
There
nishads recognize different degrees of reality.
is,
Upa-
however,
a tendency to employ the principle of dichotomy, to bring things
under the head of either of two mutually exclusive categories. Not to mention the Vedic sat being and asat non-being which only gradually came to be used
we have
in
'
'
*
'
in
sharp antithesis to each other,
the early Upanishads
Brahman
as
the totality of
Brahman with a form and Brahman formless, Brahman mortal and Brahman immortal, Brahman phenomenal and Brahman noumenal {Brh. Up., II, 3, i), Brahman defined and Brahman undefined. Brahman conditioned and Brahman unconditioned (Taitt. Up., II, 6), Brahman as time and Brahman as In like manner Spinoza began the timeless (Mait. Up., VI, 15).
things divided into
with the conception of nature
in its
totality
and concreteness
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
72
(Tractatns Brevis, I, 2), but soon distinguished between NatiLva Naturans (= Deus, Substantia, Natura/^r excellence) "^nd natiira natiirata, the' world of finite modes. We may also cite the
noumenon and phenomenon, and
Kantian distinction between
Schopenhauer between
that of
how
indicated
in the
many
Unity
not,
(2) Plurality
of unity.
idea.
We
have already-
Upanishads the development of the relation
between the one and the is,
and
will
is
passed through three stages
and
(3) Plurality
is
:
(i)
the illusive play
Brahman
In the place of the early distinction between
noumenal and Brahman phenomenal, we have finally the distinction between Brahman and maya, in which maya takes the place >
Brahman and
of the phenomenal
opposed
to
Being or Brahman.
regarded as non-being as
is
This
is
the standpoint of Can-
karacarya.
A.
The Theology of (^ankardcdrya.
In the introduction to his great
«
^ankara makes a sharp
''
ality
between subject and
distinction
The one
ego and non-ego.
work on the Vedanta-Siatras,
is
the
home
the other, of the non-intelligent and the unreal.
;
experience {vyavalidra)
is
object,
of intelligence and re-
Ordinary
the result of superimposing the non-
ego upon the Ego, the unreal upon the Real. says,
'
Thus, as ^ankara on the Self are superimposed particular conditions such as
stage of
caste,
/These
Self
On them
is
are based
ground of
are the
is
outward circumstances, and so
particular conditions are called upddJiis or
juncts.'
They
age,
life,
fictitiously
all
'
on.'
limiting ad-
the practical distinctions of
life.
By them the unity of the Remove them, and lo the residue
multiplicity.
broken up.
pure thought untainted by the antithesis of subject and object,
or by the distinction of 'this
ydsd) since
is
said to
it is
be
'
'
and
'
a natural procedure
involved in
all
and
on the part of man,
As such
it
It
is
the
inheres in the
as a transcendental form of cognition just as time
space, according to
But superimposition but also one
'
functioning of the intellect.
subjective principle of multiplicity.
human mind
Superimposition {adh-
that.'
'
Kant and Schopenhauer.
is
which has
called not only its
source
in
'
a natural procedure,'
zvrong knowledge
'
{jnithyd-
THE DOCTRINE OF ^ANKARACARYA. jndna) namely,
We
ject.
cendental
and '
'
'
between subject and ob-
failure to discriminate
have here a kind of metaphysical or rather trans'
total
depravity,'
which
affecting the
'
depravity
total
73
total depravity
tian thinkers.
is
of the intellect
'
once
at
'
racial
'
affecting all
thought of eveiy man.
entire
men This
the Indian analogue of the
is
by a certain school of ChrisNescience or non-knowledge {avidya) is the name of the
'
zvill
as held
given to this transcendental depravity of the intellect, since persists
juncts
'
superimposing the unreal apddhis or
in
upon the one
reality,
Knowledge
multiplicity.
'
it
limiting ad-
and so creating the appearance of
{I'idya),
on the other hand,
is
the dis-
crimination of the Self from the not-self, the Real from the un-
The world
real.
of ordinaiy experience {lokavyavahdrd)
According to the Indian
garded as the sphere of Nescience. thinker, to
know
re-
is
and such things
individuals, houses, trees,
is
to
know nothing as one ought to know. Cankara does not say that for one who knows nothing higher such knowledge may not have the value of entire
reality.
Indeed, he
tells
complex of phenomenal existence
is
us plainly that
long as the knowledge of Brahman being the Self of arisen
;
just as the
phantoms
true until the sleeper
wakes
of a '
(II,
dream i,
'
the
considered as true as has not
all
are considered to be
And from
14).
this point
of view he refutes the idealism and nihilism of the Buddhists in
language which makes him almost seem to be a 28-32). reality,
realist (II, 2,
Thus, according to ^ankara, there are two kinds of the
first
practical,
phenomenal,
relative
{tydvahdnkd), and
the second noumenal and absolute '{pdramdrthika).
responding to these, there are two kinds of knowledge
knowledge
'
{luitJiydjndiid) the correlative
and perfect knowledge '
lute reality. is
to
To
become 'a
'
And :
'
cor-
wrong
of phenomenal reality,
{samyagjndiid) the correlative of abso-
identify oneself with the first
or lower reality
part of nature,' subject to the law of sainsdra,
the eternal sequence of moral causation.
But, on the other
hand, to identify oneself with the second or higher reality
is
to
transcend the sphere of merit and demerit and to realize the unity and blessedness of
The theory
Brahman
the Highest.
of the superimposition of
'
limiting adjuncts
'
leads
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
74
naturally to the doctrine of the identity of the individual self
and the Highest
jars,
'
:
considered
if
merged
from
apart
limiting conditions,
their
which
in universal space, so the soul,
the highest Self
which
soul,
Nescience,
is
Thus 'the Lord
7).
3,
is
embodied, acts and enjoys, and the
in
(I,
same way
nothing else but differs
from the
the product of
is
who
as the real juggler,
stands on
the ground differs from the illusive juggler, who, holding
hand a shield and a sword, climbs up rope jar'
in
his
sky by means of a
or as the free unlimited ether differs from the ether of a
;
(I,
I,
17).
and the highest
In short, the difference between the individual self Self,
while valid for the lower point of view,
From
not valid for the higher. reality
at the
'fictitious.'
it is
analogous
spirit (rrpsu/xa,
New
Before leaving
and the Divine.
human
The
spirit '
Spirit or
We
Self.'
it is
in
Tioe~Jna
declared to
is
the N. T. some-
and sometimes the Divine '
Spirit.^
human is made
the link between the
is
as 'the Spirit of God,' 'the Spirit
when dtman
just as,
;
often enlarged to
even have
we may glance
God
reference of Tivzufxa to the Divine
of Christ,' 'the Holy Spirit' Self,
But
spirit
by such expressions
explicit
this point
Testament doctrine.
Possessing or rather being
in the
refers to the
Parmndtman, the Highest '
Pauline writings a kind of doctrine
of identity, namely, the personal confession of Paul the mystic Gal.
II,
20
:
'It
is
is
the standpoint of the highest
John IV, 24).
times indicates the
one
to the
are
exists in all bodies,
considered apart from the limiting adjuncts,
be
is
it may be broken up into spaces by earthen jars and As Space is to spaces, so is the Supreme Self to inAs ^ankara puts it selfs. Just as the spaces within
like.
dividual
if
as for Kant, space [dkdga)
But
one.
the
For ^ankara,
Self.
no longer
that
I
but Christ liveth
live,
in
in me.'
Perhaps the most characteristic as well as speculatively the highest doctrine of ^ankaracarya nature of Brahman, according
edge or of Nescience' passages
in
would seem
The
(I,
i,
as
is
it is
11).
the doctrine of the
We
the Upanishads {Brh.,
1
So with
is 1-ilak
double
have already referred to
II, 3,
to furnish the starting point
doctrine in question
'
the object either of knowl-
i,
for
Taitt.,
II, 6),
such a
which
distinction.
the outcome of a consistent and '
spirit
'
in the
O. T.
THE DOCTRINE OF ^ANKARACARYA.
75
As
thoroughgoing appHcation of the theory of hmiting adjuncts. already explained,
we
if
only pure being which is
think
the
there remains
iipddliis,
This
pure thought, one and absolute.
is
once the standpoint and the method of deliverance {inoksha).
at
For
away
'
as
soon
consequence of the declaration of non-differ-
as, in
ence contained in such passages as "that art thou," the convic-
comes to consciousness, the transmigratory and the creative quality of Brahman vanish at once, the whole phenomenon of plurality, which springs from wrong knowledge, being sublated by perfect knowledge tion of non-difference
state of the individual soul
'
(II,
I,
We have
22).
doctrine of {ethically)
here at once a doctrine of scripture and a Christian
Just as the
faith.
dead unjo
sin,
but alive unto
(Rom. VI,
scripture to this effect
1
to
is
God on '
Brahman
the
'
much
for the
man
of
plurality
all
one only without a second
basis of such scripture texts as Tat '
reckon himself
the basis of the
even so the Vedantist
1),
reckon himself metaphysically separate from identical with
*
perfect
tvam
asi
knowledge
'
'
'
is
and
on the
that art thou.'
who
to
So
has attained to
the perfect vision {sainyagdargand) or intuition [pratyaksa) of the
But what of the unenlightened multitudes who know not Brahman and yet profess to know and worship him as God ? To answer this, we must remember that the law of the Highest Self
tipddJiis
governs
all
as sense-perception. '
functioning of the intellect, ideation as well
To
limiting adjuncts,' or, as
think at
all is
Kant would
space and time.
i.
e.,
God, just as much as any
out, the superimposition of
But as already pointed
idea.
the upadhis, although a necessity of mind, its
source
in
wrong knowledge.
of intellect taints
all
is
regarded as having
This transcendental
thought and
all
is
unreal
:
the unthinkable alone
Unthinkable by thought
is
'
depravity'
the objects of thought, even
the highest object God, with the taint of unreality. able
of
Ideas, then, as well as percepts obey the law of
the upddhis, and the highest Idea,
lower
to think in terms of the
say, under the forms
is real.
that
Through which they say that thought
Brahman know that alone to be, Not that which people here adore.
is
thought
(Kena,
I,
5.)
The
think-
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
7^
By whom not thought by him 'tis thought By whom 'tis thought, he knows it not. (Kena,
Brahman
II, 3.)
accordingly apprehended under two forms,
is
first
upon with attributes, through the tendency of the mind to superimpose limiting con-
as qualified, defined, clothed inevitable ditions
'
on
'
all
the objects of
its
As such
thought.
it
constitutes
the anthropomorphic deity of popular worship, and so as an ject of devotion
localized in heaven, in
is
Of
'no, no.'
Attributes such as etc.,
suppose connection with a characterization of
impossible,
mystery one can only say
that ultimate
nipotent, omniscient,
is
if this
infinite, eternal,
neti neti
unchangeable,
are inapplicable, since they spatial or
Brahman
ompre-
all
Even the thought and bliss,
temporal order.
as unity, reality,
point of view be held rigorously, since these
concepts derived from experience.
all
from
as separate
adjuncts whatever, as pure, unqualified, unattached,
all limiting
absolute.
are
ob-
the heart and so on.
Brahman may be apprehended
But, secondly,
K
'
'
In a word, as the final
product of abstraction carried to the uttermost
limits
we have
the concept of an absolute entity concerning which not a single predication can legitimately be made.
which
The world
of experience,
usually regarded as the sphere of science,
is
is
here
made
the sphere of nescience, while that transcendent being concerning
which we can say absolutely nothing, knowledge'!
What
then
is
is
called
*
an object of
the relation between the
'higher'
lower Brahman ? Both are the same and yet not the The higher Brahman = the lower Brahman minus the limiting adjuncts, while the lower Brahman = the higher Brah-
and the
'
'
same.
man
plus the limiting adjuncts.
thropomorphically
deanthropomorphized Vorstelhiiig of Hegel,
imagination
;
the
is
is is
Ultimate reality conceived an-
lower Brahman.
the higher Brahman.
Ultimate
The
a representation projected
the other, like the Begriff o{\\\q
by the
same
reality
one, like the religious
thinker,
is
a
The lower knowledge {apard I'idyoL) is conlower Brahman as the supreme concept of re-
concept of reason. cerned with the ligion
;
while the higher knowledge {^pard vidjd)
with the higher
Brahman
as the
is
concerned
supreme concept of philosophy.
THE DOCTRINE OF (^ANKARACARYA.
We
come
77
As
cosmology of ^ankaracarya.
finally to the
al-
ready explained, that form of Brahman which, according to the mortal, phenomenal, defined, conditioned and sub-
Upanishads,
is
ject to time
and space, namely, Brahman as the ordered world {iiatiira nattcrata), is in ^ankara's system virtually
of experience
What
Maya.
called
^ankara says
the relation
is
one place
in
' :
Maya
of
Although
Brahman
to
?
are denied to
all qualities
Brahman, we nevertheless may consider it to be endowed with powers, if we assume in its nature an element of plurality, which i, is the mere figment of Nescience' (II, 31); and in another place
By
'
:
is
as the existing or the non-existing.
of its
apparent world with
true and real nature
lifted
more
it
of
the fiction
is
by name and form, which
characterized
evolved as well as non-evolved, which
this entire
which
that element of plurality
nescience, which
is
not to be defined either
Brahman becomes
its
is
the basis
changes and so on, while
in
same time remains unchanged, (II, i, 27); and once
at the
above the phenomenal universe' Belonging to the
' :
as
self,
it
Avere,
the omniscient
of
Lord, there are name and form, the figments of Nescience, not to be defined either as being nor as different from
it,
of the entire expanse of the phenomenal world, called
power
Smriti the illusion {jndjd),
Lord
of the omniscient
'
(II,
i,
[gakti),
14).
the germs
in (Jruti
and
or nature [prakriti)
These passages give the we may briefly sum-
cosmological theory of ^ankara, which marize as follows 1.
The
same
Brahman nor
as
prakriti
:
universe consists of something which
'
matter
'
and gakti
'
is
neither the
Objectively considered,
different.
it
is
But matter and force, while
force.'
true for experience, cannot be true in the sphere of absolute reality
(
paraindrthatas).
universe
is ^^-/V/;'^
world as
idea,'
As
Therefore,
'nescience'
2S\d.
subjectively considered, the
indyd 'illusion.'
which has no existence except
It
is
'the
for consciousness.
consisting of the aggregate of the upddliis, the world of ex-
perience belongs to the nature of the lower Brahman,
man 2.
as 'fictitiously connected with
maya
Between the world of the upadhis or
lower Brahman
there intervene
'
i.
c. Brah-
(II, 2, 2).
'
'
finite
name and
modes
'
and the
form' {iidmanipc),
^
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
78
which are conceived both ation
(I, I, 5) in
as ideally present even before the cre-
the knowledge of (the lower)
Brahman as Creator, With the In-
and as the highest categories of human experience.
name and form we may compare Spinoza's Thought and Extension, which are regarded as
dian conception of
two
attributes of
'
'
bridging the gulf between the one
distinction
is
also acquainted with the
between individual {vyakti) and species {dkrti
The former he eternal
Substance and the
infinite
^ankara
multiplicity of finite modes,
(I, 3,
=eioo(^').
regards as coming into existence, but the latter as
The dkrtayas
28).
of (Jankara are analogous to the
Hence on we might arrange a
Ideas of Plato and possibly to the Essences of Spinoza. the basis of relation to the world of experience
manner of the Gnostic emaThus (^a) the higher Brahman separate from maya, nations. {b^ the lower Brahman connected with maya, {c) name and form, series in a
descending scale
after the
:
the revelation of maya,
Maya
3.
ing.
It is
sich
nor
;
{cC)
is
it,
{pijgakti
I,
Brahman
We
Without
'
it
Lord
the highest
of an illusion
it
is
'
causal potenti-
the highest Lord could not be con-
become active if he were desSuch causal potentiality
titute of the potentiality of action.'
'
Ding an
have here to do with the Vedantic
^ankara speaks of a
ceived as creator, as he could not
has
as the
4, 3) as the antecedent condition of the present
ordered world.
'
individuals.
on the other hand, absolutely unreal, since
doctrine of development, '
{c) finite
neither being nor non-being, but rather a becom-
is
not identical with the pure
real to consciousness.
ality
eternal species,
for its
{indydmaji).
'
substratum
'
and
is
'
of the nature
Here then we have the doctrine of
a world-process grounded in Brahman as the highest Lord, real for sense, but unreal for reason, sory. is
It is to
ipso facto the lower
related
and so
in its
deepest nature
illu-
be noted that Brahman when related to the world
Brahman
;
Brahman, as opposed to the higher or un-
thus, as the first term in the world-process
(noumenal A), the lower Brahman quite properly bears the name of Parajnegvara,
'
the highest Lord.'
as real and just as unreal as the
part and parcel of
it.
It
is
The lower Brahman
is
phenomenal world, since
just it
is
the ultimate causal abstraction to
which thought naturally and inevitably tends.
Like
Kant's
THE DOCTRINE OF gANKARACARYA. Lord
Ideal of pure reason, the concept of the highest
great
cause has vahdity only as a principle
first
thought, not as striking '
virtually
'
'
There
of reality.
For Kant the concept
difference.
regulative
'
as the
regulative
of
'
however, a
is,
God,' while only
from the standpoint of speculative reason, becomes
'
constitutive
But
reason.
tical
constitutive
'
'
79
for
'
when viewed from
^ankara there
the standpoint of prac-
no way of making the con-
is
cept of a world-cause or a world-ground any
phenomenal world
more
than the
real
But the world-process, such as
itself
is,
it
serves as a sphere for the self-revelation of the highest Lord. '
The
Self
.
.
.
reveals itself in a graduated series of beings,
so appears in forms of various dignity and power' '
Wherever there
is
to be worshipped.'
(I,
and ii).
i,
excess of power, and so on, there the Lord
^
'
The
highest Lord may,
assume a bodily shape formed of Maya, thereby his devout worshippers
(I,
'
is
pleases,
order to gratify
in
Such
20).
i,
when he
(Jankara's
is
explanation and justification of the Indian theory of different incarnations. 4.
We
have then
the system
in
Brahman and Maya standing over pure thought and '
This
matter.'
Maya
at first sight
But (^ankara saves his avidyd
Nescience.'
'
texts as all
'
The
and,
it
reference
be light
:
is
terms
'
mind
it
'
and
'
matter.'
the creation of the world out
'
support
is
perhaps found
clearly to Gen.
and there was is
light.'
I,
3
' :
And God
The thought
so great that
He
were, easily as a Cf. Gita,
man X,
41.
said.
In like
is
manner (Jankara things
all
sends forth his breath' 2
Let there
of the Psalm
can create as easily as a
being can speak or breathe.
>
such
in ;
speaks of the highest Lord as having created as
as
nature,'
word of the Lord were the heavens made and them by t/ie breath of his mouth. ... For he was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.^
that God's power
human
'
the
the host of
spake,
Brahman
energy,'
monism by making Maya the synonym of A word with reference to the analogous
Its best scriptural
By
'
looks like a speculative dualism, a
doctrine in Christian theology of of nothing.'
^ankara the absolute
as the hypostasis of
rendering of the
transcendental
of
against each other.
Pa.
XXXIII,
(I,
6, 9.
i,
in
sport
3).
For
'
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
8o '
although the creation of undertaking,
difficult
unlimited'
world appears to us a weighty and
this
mere play
it is
to the Lord,
whose power
God
the Sanskrit suggest primarily the lack of effort with which creates,
and also possibly the unreality of the creation
pared with the immense reality of the Creator. realism and the Indian doctrine effect
would both seem
may
ever this
be,
it
to
God and
is
But the Hebrew
of the identity
be against the
com-
as
of cause
and
How-
last conjecture.
certain that for the mediaeval theologians
is
the world was created out of
&carya the world
is
These passages both from the Hebrew and
(II, i, 33).
just
'
nothing
Maya
'
and that
'illusion.'
for (^ankar-
In the
the world stand over against each other
system
first
in
;
the second,
Brahman and Maya. The monism of both systems is saved by making the second term in each antithesis, namely the world and Maya,
derivative, secondary,
nay
in the
deepest sense juireal.
B. Qankardcdiya and Rdmdnnjdcdrya.
^ankaracarya lived In
the
twelfth
eighth century (788-820 A. D.).
in the
century, however, another great
exegete
and
theologian flourished, the famous Rduidmijdcdrya, likewise the
author of a commentary on the Vedanta-Sutras and the founder
The
of a school of thought.
text of his
erally accessible, nor does the
work
commentary
is
not gen-
exist in a complete transla-
know. For the purpose in hand it is necessary compare only the chief tenets of Ramanuja with the corre-
tion, so far as I
to
The fundamental
sponding views of ^ankara.
doctrines of the
system of Ramanuja are presented with admirable brevity and clearness in Professor Thibaut's learned introduction to his trans-
On
lation of the Vedanta-Sutras.^
the basis of this sketch the
following points of difference between the two systems indicated I.
of
As
to the unity of
a qualified
be
Brahman, Ramanuja was the exponent
non-duality
duality of ^ankara's
as
system.
be absolutely homogeneous. in itself
may
:
opposed
The
the
objection that
elements of manifoldness,' that 1
to
absolute
non-
Cankara conceived Brahman to
SEE., Vol.
XXXIV.
'
'
Brahman has
as the tree
has
many
THE DOCTRINE OF gANKARACARYA. Brahman
branches, so
ness are therefore both true II,
I,
and that
the phrase
having
'
common
origin
its
of plurality inal i^''
'
assume
sense, '
(II,
I,
31),
all
in the
it is
speech
in
If we,
'
only because of that innate and
we
the other hand, Ramanuja,
There
no
is
orig-
So ^ankara taught.
as already hinted, held that mulits
ally
and comple-
share in the reality of the One.
between the One and the many.
real antithesis
unity of Ramiinuja
'
are compelled to view
not the foe of unity, but rather
The many somehow
ment.
r,
on the basis
Brahman an element
nature of
unity under the disguise of multiplicity.
On
manifold-
Ramanuja,
(Chand. Up., VI,
'
effects.
depravity of intellect by which
tiplicity is
unity and
(the very position of
'
4-6) declares the unreality of of
'
mentioned only to be rejected on the ground that
is
14)
many powers and emergies
possesses
dependent on these powers,'
8
The
a concrete all-embracing unity rather than
is
an abstract, naked, characterless unity such as ^ankara taught.
For Ramanuja the world is not unreal, but as composed of acit and cit, matter and souls,' it constitutes the body of the Lord. The universe is one vast organism whose body nature is and God the soul.' The connection between Brahman and the world is '
*
'
'
Hence
real.
fied
there
and a lower or
no
is
distinction
qualified
between a higher or unquali-
Brahman.
Hence, too. Brahman as
the cause of a real world has the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence,
Moreover, there
is
God than is displayed ... is all-merciful ;
to
all evil."*
etc.,
which are involved
his nature
In a word, the
animating and governing
As
"
relation.
'
The Lord
fundamentally antagonistic
inner guide
in nature
and
'
in
a personal
is
{^BrJi.
Up., Ill, 7)
man, permeating,
by his spirit. between Brahman and the
all
to the relation
is
Brahman of Ramanuja
everywhere immanent both
2.
such a
the system of Cankara.
in
God, who as the Antarydmin or is
in
a greater emphasis on the moral attributes of
things
individual
Ramanuja proclaimed a qualified identity as opposed to by ^ankara. For ^ankara the individual soul is Brahman limited and disguised by the upadJiis* For Ramanuja, on the other hand, the inthe offspring of Maya. soul,
the absolute identity held
1
Thibaut, SBE., Vol.
XXXIV,
p. xxviii.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
82
As
dividual soul has a relative but nevertheless real existence.
a
finite
personality
it is
just as real in
God.
nite all-embracing personality of in the reality of
absorption
in,
Brahman.
its
own sphere
It is real
as the infi-
because
shares
it
Loss of separate personality through
or recognition of identity with, the highest Self
The
the ideal of ^ankara. similation to the nature
preservation of personality and
and character of Brahman
Raman uj a. 3. As regards cosmology
is
its
is
as-
the ideal of
both Ramanuja and ^ankara ad-
mit the doctrine of a world-process consisting of evolution and
But
dissolution.
for
^ankara
standpoint of common-sense,
and reason an
illusion.
this process,
is
while true from the
from the standpoint of Scripture
For Ramanuja, however,
it
is
a real de-
velopment, a real modification of the substance of the Lord.
Thus the theory
of
Maya
is
accepted by ^ankara, but rejected by
Ramanuja,
Thus there are two types of the Vedanta,the Vedanta of(^ankara The former is abstract, idealistic and far removed from common sense while the latter is concrete, realistic, and much nearer the standpoint of common sense. The watchword of the former is unity without multiplicity, all multiplicity being due to Maya. The watchword of the latter is iinity and the Vedanta of Ramanuja.
;
in multiplicity, the upadhis being regarded as real forms of existence.
The one
proclaims a doctrine of identity
;
the other, a
The Brahman of ^ankara is properly transcendent as transcendent as the God of Deism whereas the Brahman of Ramanuja is immanent, dwelling in all things as doctrine of emanation.
—
;
the Antarydmin or
'
inner guide.'
represents Indian orthodoxy C.
I,
2).
Their purpose
Upanishads.
excelloice.
The Veddnta-Sutras.
These consist of 555 were on which to string (I,
par
Finally the system of ^ankara
brief aphorisms, '
Bible, furnishes a
'
threads
'
as
it
the flowers of the Vedanta-passages is
'
to systematize the doctrine of the
The Shorter Catechism
fession of Faith, so far as
mere
it is
of the Westminster Con-
a resume of the doctrines of the
modern analogue of the Indian
Sutras, although
THE DOCTRINE OF gANKARACARYA.
83
by way of question and answer. We compare the aphorisms of the Novum Organum, and the
the latter do not proceed
may
also
propositions in Spinoza's Ethics.
The
Siatra style
extremely condensed, but not otherwise
is
there
is
an exception
prior Minidinsd
part
in
the case of the two Mhndj'nsd-Siityas, the
and the
Mhndmsd, which
later
the work-part
spectively
in-
All writers agree, however, in affirming that
trinsically obscure.
and the knowledge-
{karjuakdndd)
(^jndhakdnda) of the Veda.
" Scarcely one single Sutra
is
systematize re-
Here, as Thibaut remarks,
intelligible
commen-
without a
As an illustration of the combined brevity and obscurity of the Vedanta-Sutras, we may cite Sutra, I, i, 3, (^dstrayonitvdt, which may mean either Because (Brahman) is
tary" (pp.
xiii-xiv).
'
the source of Scripture,' or
Because Scripture
'
the knowledge of Brahman).'
(or authors) of the Vedanta-Sutras
make
is
the source (of
Deussen thinks that the author
was influenced by the
desire to
the secret doctrine of the Upanishads as stated in the Sutras
inaccessible
except through the oral
comment
of a qualified
teacher.*
There are two ways of approaching the Vedanta-Sutras
:
either
by way of the Upanishads whose doctrine the Sijtras are supposed to sum up, or by way of the commentators, the earliest and most important of which are ^ankaracarya and
Raman ujacarya, both
recognized doctors or teachers of the Vedanta as the epithet
Acdrya
indicates.
It
might be inferred on a priori grounds that
the Sutras set forth the same type of doctrine as the Upanishads, since their sole aim
matic form the teaching thereof sibility
is
is
found
in
to reproduce in a syste-
But, not to mention the pos-
of there being different types of doctrine in the
Upan-
we have already seen that the two systems of ^ankara and Ramanuja which differ on the most fundamental points, have been built upon the interpretation of the same Sutras. Both interpretations can hardly be correct. We must ishads themselves,
look for the true meaning of the Sutras either tion of (^ankara or in that of
Professor Thibaut
is
the
first ^
in
the interpreta-
Ramanuja, or possibly
to attempt to penetrate
Vedanta, S. 28.
in
neither.
beyond the
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
84
interpretations of the
to the
scholiasts
meaning of the
Sijtras
This he does by instituting a careful comparison of
themselves.
the interpretations of ^ankara with those of Ramanuja.
His
conclusions touching the type of Vedanta set forth in the Siatras "
are exceedingly important. says, " that they
do not
I
lower knowledge of Brahman
it
that they
;
Brahman and
the distinction of
must give
my
as
opinion," he
set forth the distinction of a higher
and
do not acknowledge
Igvara in ^ankara's sense
that
;
they do not hold the doctrine of the unreality of the world
and that they do tity
not, with
of the individual and the highest Self "^
These conclusions,
by any one who
as they are, can hardly be gainsaid
startling
;
Cankara, proclaim the absolute iden-
carefully follows Professor Thibaut through his line of research
The result to which we seem to be brought, Ramanuja is the more faithful exponent (^ankara is a more trustworthy guide to the mean-
and argumentation. then,
is this,
that while
of the SiJtras,
But
this implies that the Si!itras
do not
respects adequately represent the doctrine of the
Upan-
ing of the Upanishads. in all
How
ishads.
are
we
to account for this
history of Christian theology religion
A parallel
help us here.
its
set forth
/.
e.,
in his
system under which the Apostolic Church mostly
Roman
conquests throughout the
degeneration set
from the
Paulinism,
and theology as conceived by Paul and
Epistles, was the
made
may
?
The theology
in.
Empire.
But soon
of the middle ages was equal
to the theology of Paul neither in religious depth nor in spiritual power.
Finally the Reformation
to the sources,' with
its
came with
its
cry of
'
Back
The
of the theology of Paul.
revival
foremost representative of the Reformation on
its
theological and
philosophical side was Calvin, just as the foremost representative,
so
far as
we know,
of the
Hindu
Revival, at least on
things in
common,
lative type of
^ankara
is
its
philo-
The two men have many
sophical side, was (^ankaracarya.
the exponent of the most specu-
Vedantism, while Calvin represents the most spec-
Both
ulative type of Christian theology.
alike
were great
in
ex-
egesis as well as in theology, in fact they were great in theology
partly because
they were 1
great
SEE., Vol.
in
exegesis,
XXXIV,
p. c.
^ankara wrote
THE DOCTRINE OF (^ANKARACARYA. commentaries
Sanskrit on most or
in
expounded
ishads, while Calvin
kara, just as
modern
is
The momimentnin acre pere^inius *
his BJidsya
work
the
is
work '
in the field
of ^ankaracarya
on the Vedanta-Sutras, while Calvin's most famous ^
InstitiUio CJiristiance Religionis.'
ticing that neither writer even in his tive
But
Biblical exegesis begins with Calvin.
the fame of each rests primarily on constructive
of theology.
Upan-
of the classic
all
Latin nearly the whole of the
Indian exegesis really begins with ^an-
Scriptures.
Christian
in
85
most
It is
original
worth no-
and construc-
work altogether forsook the role of a commentator. The is a commentary on the Vedanta-Su-
BJidsya of ^ankaracarya tras, just as
the
'
Institutio
'
of Calvin began as an exposition of the
Ten Commandments, Lord's raments.
prayer, Apostles' Creed, and Sac-
But the important thing
is this,
that ^ankaracarya,
than Calvin, conducted his exposition in the light of a
less
hand knowledge of gether,
first
all
no
first-
Put two things to-
the sources involved.
the inherent obscurity of the Vedanta-Sutras, and
second ^ankara's thorough knowledge of the Upanishads as the sources of the system expounded in the Sutras, and see
how ^ankara might
interpret the
it
is
easy to
system through the sources
rather than the sources through the system.
This conclusion
is
independent of the question whether he followed an exegetical
and philosophical
It
through the
has already been remarked that
Sijtras
later system.
doubtful whether the
it is
adequately represent the doctrine of the Upanishads.
would be not any
Ramanuja, however, seems
tradition or not.
to interpret the earlier sources
strange,
at all
creative period,
whether
The work
they should not.
if
or in philosophy,
in religion
is
It
of
so
unusual that the succeeding age always seems to be marked by
As
degeneration.
instances of creative epochs take the period
of the great prophets
in
India, of Socrates, Plato,
His Apostles Schelling,
in
Israel, of the
and Aristotle
the time of the
and Hegel
in
modern
were succeeded by reaction. religious
New
in
classic
Upanishads
in
Greece, of Christ and
Testament, of Kant, Fichte,
times.
All of these periods
In each case the mountain peak of
or philosophic intuition very soon sank
nearly or quite to the old level.
down
again
There are two main reasons
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
86
why
the Vedanta-Sutras represent a less developed point of view
than the Upanishads.
First, as
already pointed out in the dis-
cussion of the philosophy of the Upanishads, there was before
Atman and "The pure doc-
very long a compromise between the religion of the
As Thibaut
the religion of the Devas.
ancient Brahmanical
those
of
trine
says
:
underwent
treatises
at
a
rather early period amalgamation with beliefs which most prob-
ably had sprung up
monument
a literary
altogether different communities."
in
of such amalgamation Thibaut cites the
But, secondly, every system of thought
Bhagavadgita.
termined not only by the positive content which press, but also
Now
As
^
by the antagonisms which
it
is
de-
wishes to ex-
it
forced to meet.
is
evident both from the text of the Vedanta-Sutras and
it is
from the testimony of both (Jankara and Ramanuja that the Sdu'ikhya doctrine
enjoyed especial prestige at the time of the
composition of the Sutras.
In fact the great antagonist of the
Siitrakara or author of the Siitras was the Sdinkliyavadin. Sdi'nkliya,
while
existence of
in
form a dualism affirming the eternal
both matter
and souls
(^prakriti)
i^piiriislias),
nevertheless, so far as the origin of the world materialistic
Hence the
monism.
the duel between
monism
it
is
is
cording to the one the world-ground
It is
The Vedantin Brahman pradhana. Ac-
the intelligent
the non-intelligent
according to the other intelligence
is
by nature
for the
;
intelligent
a late product of evolution.
is
remarkable that the system of Schopenhauer
such unbounded admiration
concerned, a
of the Vedanta,
Brahman and Pradhdna.
claimed that the cause of the world the SduikJiyavddin, that
was
doctrine of the Sdinkhya was
the natural foe of the spiritualistic
Hence
is
The self-
Upanishads,
who
is
professed
more nearly
akin to the materialistic side of the Sdinkhya than to the Ve-
We
danta of either ^ankara or Ramanuja.
have
in the conflict
between Sdinkhya and Veddnta the Indian phase of struggle between materialism and spiritualism. that
the refutation
telligent
pradhana was
felt
At
the time he wrote
it
of the
'
refutation of all heresies.'
was probably by no means Op.
Sijtrakara
Sdinkhya doctrine of a non-in-
virtually the
1
the* eternal
The
cit., p.
cxxvi.
certain
what
THE DOCTRINE OF gANKARACARYA. But
the issue would be.
—and
this
is
8/
the important point
—the
very fierceness of the antagonism which the Siitrakara was compelled to meet could not have been without influence on his
mode
The
of statement.
hypothesis of a non-intelligent principle of the world required the counter hy-
i^pradJidnd) as the cause
pothesis of an intelligent principle (Brahman), likewise conceived as the real
This
cause of a real world.
Siatrakara according to
all
the position of the
is
probability as well as the position of
Raman uja.
A
comparatively
realistic interpretation
of the Sutrakara was also
Buddha was
dhism.
losophy of left
Hume
out, so "
Brahman most
left
in
demanded by
Buddhism
is
As
'
an additional reason
why
wrote.
The
in
Hume,
This,
I
is
al-
say,
is
the SiJtrakara should have conceived
it
Buddhism was alive was virtually dead
Hence ^ankara could
revive the older
Buddha
the way.
date of the Vedanta-Sutras
solutely sure of
God
the philosophy of the Upanishads with
idealism of the Upanishads, since the later idealism of
no longer stood
Bud-
the phi-
a result the system of Buddha was
days of the Sutrakara, but
when ^ankara
As
Hume.
as the real cause of a real world.
in India in the
the part
the antithesis of
a sense an Indian
as pure a nihilism as the system of
Brahman
Brahman on
simply the philosophy of Berkeley with
is
out."
of
that they
is
uncertain.
All
we
are ab-
between the time of the oldest
fall
Upanishads (perhaps 400 B. C.) and the time of ^ankaracarya (800 A. D.).
But the Sutrakara
to
make
" a
it
refers to earlier teachers,
Bddari
Agniaratliya, Aiiduloini, Jaimini,
et al., in
c.
g.,
such a way as
pretty clear that the Sutras occupy, as Thibaut says,
strictly central position,
ries of early literary
summarizing, on the one hand, a se-
essays extending over
many generations, and
forming, on the other hand, the head spring of an ever broadening activity of commentators as well as virtually independent writers."
"
The
Vedanta-Siitras, then, will hardly be earlier than
the beginning of the Christian era and possibly later even than that. 1
Gough, Upanishads,
2
Introduction to
p. 1 87.
SBE.,
vol.
XXXIV,
p.'xii.
A STUDY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
88 If time
had permitted, a chapter might have been added on
the work of the later theologians, the authors of dogmatic treatises
such as the Veddnta-Sdra the Veddnta-Paribhdsd and the Panca-
These carry on the work of ^ankaracarya and are related
dagi.
him much
to
the later
as
Amesius and Zanchius
Protestant scholastics Turretinus,
render the abstractions of ^ankara
An
In a word, they
are related to Calvin.
able criticism of the
in
still
Vedanta of the
more
abstract terms.
later theologians
is
to
be
Nehemiah Goreh's Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philosophical Systems as translated by Dr. Fitz-Edward
found
in
Pandit
Hall.
The systems of Cankaracarya and Ramanujacarya are related somewhat as Galvanism is related to Arminianism.
to each other,
Galvanism empiricism. side
religious
is
The one
Arminianism
rationalism.
manward side. The one more human, A similar
the other, from the
;
logical
;
the other, the
is
There
to be made.
as
the Upanishads,
the Siatras, from only one point of view, which
in
be called (although not quite accurately) the point of view ^ankara, on the other hand, adopts a double
of experience,
point of view, the standpoint of
proper standpoint. is
Ramanuja
however, an important qualification
Ramanuja construes the theology of
summarized
may
is,
Godward the more
difference in
point of view separates the systems of ^ankara and
from each other.
religious
is
construes theology from the
Dr. Shedd,
Ramanuja
my
own
as well as his
honored teacher
in
theology,
reported to have once said in the course of conversation: "
Bible
is
a Galvinistic book,"
thought, "but
it
has a good
and then apparently as an
many Arminian
texts in
The
after-
This
it."
is
exactly the position of ^ankara with reference to the Upanishads.
For him the doctrine
of the Upanishads
was the doctrine of the
higher Brahman, and yet he saw clearly that the lower Brahman.
So by
many
texts refer to
his doctrine of a higher
Brahman, the Brahman of philosophic
intuition
and
a
lower
and the Brahman
of religious belief and experience, he sought to do justice to both
With ^ankara's distinction between the higher and the lower Brahman we may compare Spinoza's distinction between the god of philosophy as expounded in the Etliica, the classes of texts.
THE DOCTRINE OF CANKARACAR\A. object of a passionless
amor
'
ticus.
It
may
and the god of the-
mtellectualis'
ology or revelation as described
in
89
the Tractates TJieologico-Poli-
be doubted whether the distinction between a
higher and a lower Brahman in ^ankara's sense
But that
nized in the Upanishads.
me
noblest utterances seems to
it is
fairly
is
formally recog-
implied
in
some
of their
clear.
At any
rate, as
Thibaut says, "the adoption of that distinction furnishes the terpreter with an instrument of extraordinary
power
in-
for reducing
by the not only more pliable, more
to an orderly whole the heterogeneous material presented
...
old theosophic treatises.
It is
capable of amalgamating heterogeneous material than other systems, but
mony
fundamental doctrines are manifestly
its
in greater har-
with the essential teaching of the Upanishads than those
To
of the other Vedantic systems."^
venture on another com-
parison, the monistic Vedanta of ^ankara bears about the same relation to the qualified monistic
Vedanta of Ramanuja that supra-
lapsarian Calvinism bears to sublapsarian Calvinism.
In the Rig-Veda Brahman the system of ^ankara these two limits
Brahman, the word,
comes
as
it is
we have is,
the absolute, the unthinkable.
'
on the one hand, in the
is
to separate
objectified,
world of nature.
subjectified' so to speak,
Between
and so be-
It is,
on the
and conceived as the
in-
The Brahman from everything knowable or
dwelling reason or self of things. abstraction
In
the following scheme of development.
were incarnate
it
other hand,
simply 'hymn' or 'prayer.'
is
last step in the
process of
thinkable.
Our vert,
task
is
done.
The primary aim has
but to understand.
throughout.
been, not to contro-
An objective attitude has been maintained upon historical exposition, and by premature objections. The deof Brahman is interesting not only
Criticism should wait
not complicate
its
processes
velopment of the doctrine
from the point of view of Indian history, philosophy, and theology, but also for the light which
it
throws on the psychology of the
Indian mind. Op,
cit.,
pp. cxxiii, cxxiv.
j^
.t>
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