The Sanskrit Epics

by Delphi Classics

  The view of the Kaushītaki Upanishad (i. 2–3) is somewhat different. Here all who die go to the moon, whence some go by the “path of the Fathers” to Brahma, while others return to various forms of earthly existence, ranging from man to worm, according to the quality of their works and the degree of their knowledge.

  The Kāṭhaka, one of the most remarkable and beautiful of the Upanishads, treats the question of life after death in the form of a legend. Nachiketas, a young Brahman, visits the realm of Yama, who offers him the choice of three boons. For the third he chooses the answer to the question, whether man exists after death or no. Death replies: “Even the gods have doubted about this; it is a subtle point; choose another boon.” After vain efforts to evade the question by offering Nachiketas earthly power and riches, Yama at last yields to his persistence and reveals the secret. Life and death, he explains, are only different phases of development. True knowledge, which consists in recognising the identity of the individual soul with the world soul, raises its possessor beyond the reach of death: —

  When every passion vanishes

  That nestles in the human heart,

  Then man gains immortality,

  Then Brahma is obtained by him (vi. 14).

  The story of the temptation of Nachiketas to choose the goods of this world in preference to the highest knowledge is probably the prototype of the legend of the temptation of Buddha by Māra or Death. Both by resisting the temptation obtain enlightenment.

  It must not of course be supposed that the Upanishads, either as a whole or individually, offer a complete and consistent conception of the world logically developed. They are rather a mixture of half-poetical, half-philosophical fancies, of dialogues and disputations dealing tentatively with metaphysical questions. Their speculations were only later reduced to a system in the Vedānta philosophy. The earliest of them can hardly be dated later than about 600 B.C., since some important doctrines first met with in them are presupposed by Buddhism. They may be divided chronologically, on internal evidence, into four classes. The oldest group, consisting, in chronological order, of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, Chhāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Kaushītaki, is written in prose which still suffers from the awkwardness of the Brāhmaṇa style. A transition is formed by the Kena, which is partly in verse and partly in prose, to a decidedly later class, the Kāṭhaka, Īçā, Çvetāçvatara, Muṇḍaka, Mahānārāyaṇa, which are metrical, and in which the Upanishad doctrine is no longer developing, but has become fixed. These are more attractive from the literary point of view. Even those of the older class acquire a peculiar charm from their liveliness, enthusiasm, and freedom from pedantry, while their language often rises to the level of eloquence. The third class, comprising the Praçna, Maitrāyaṇīya, and Māṇḍūkya, reverts to the use of prose, which is, however, of a much less archaic type than that of the first class, and approaches that of classical Sanskrit writers. The fourth class consists of the later Atharvan Upanishads, some of which are composed in prose, others in verse.

  The Aitareya, one of the shortest of the Upanishads (extending to only about four octavo pages), consists of three chapters. The first represents the world as a creation of the Ātman (also called Brahma), and man as its highest manifestation. It is based on the Purusha hymn of the Rigveda, but the primeval man is in the Upanishad described as having been produced by the Ātman from the waters which it created. The Ātman is here said to occupy three abodes in man, the senses, mind, and heart, to which respectively correspond the three conditions of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The second chapter treats of the threefold birth of the Ātman. The end of transmigration is salvation, which is represented as an immortal existence in heaven. The last chapter dealing with the nature of the Ātman states that “consciousness (prajnā) is Brahma.”

  The Kaushītaki Upanishad is a treatise of considerable length divided into four chapters. The first deals with the two paths traversed by souls after death in connection with transmigration; the second with Prāṇa or life as a symbol of the Ātman. The last two, while discussing the doctrine of Brahma, contain a disquisition about the dependence of the objects of sense on the organs of sense, and of the latter on unconscious life (prāṇa) and conscious life (prajnātmā). Those who aim at redeeming knowledge are therefore admonished not to seek after objects or subjective faculties, but only the subject of cognition and action, which is described with much power as the highest god, and at the same time as the Ātman within us.

  The Upanishads of the Sāmaveda start from the sāman or chant, just as those of the Rigveda from the uktha or hymn recited by the Hotṛi priest, in order, by interpreting it allegorically, to arrive at a knowledge of the Ātman or Brahma. The fact that the Upanishads have the same basis, which is, moreover, largely treated in a similar manner, leads to the conclusion that the various Vedic schools found a common body of oral tradition which they shaped into dogmatic texts-books or Upanishads in their own way.

  Thus the Chhāndogya, which is equal in importance, and only slightly inferior in extent, to the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, bears clear traces, like the latter, of being made up of collections of floating materials. Each of its eight chapters forms an independent whole, followed by supplementary pieces often but slightly connected with the main subject-matter.

  The first two chapters consist of mystical interpretations of the sāman and its chief part, called Udgītha (“loud song”). A supplement to the second chapter treats, among other subjects, of the origin of the syllable om, and of the three stages of religious life, those of the Brahman pupil, the householder, and the ascetic (to which later the religious mendicant was added as a fourth). The third chapter in the main deals with Brahma as the sun of the universe, the natural sun being its manifestation. The infinite Brahma is further described as dwelling, whole and undivided, in the heart of man. The way in which Brahma is to be attained is then described, and the great fundamental dogma of the identity of Brahma with the Ātman (or, as we might say, of God and Soul) is declared. The chapter concludes with a myth which forms a connecting link between the cosmogonic conceptions of the Rigveda and those of the law-book of Manu. The fourth chapter, containing discussions about wind, breath, and other phenomena connected with Brahma, also teaches how the soul makes its way to Brahma after death.

  The first half of chapter v. is almost identical with the beginning of chapter vi. of the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. It is chiefly noteworthy for the theory of transmigration which it contains. The second half of the chapter is important as the earliest statement of the doctrine that the manifold world is unreal. The sat by desire produced from itself the three primary elements, heat, water, food (the later number being five — ether, air, fire, water, earth). As individual soul (jīva-ātman) it entered into these, which, by certain partial combinations called “triplication,” became various products (vikāra) or phenomena. But the latter are a mere name. Sat is the only reality, it is the Ātman: “Thou art that.” Chapter vii. enumerates sixteen forms in which Brahma may be adored, rising by gradation from nāman, “name,” to bhūman, “infinity,” which is the all-in-all and the Ātman within us. The first half of the last chapter discusses the Ātman in the heart and the universe, as well as how to attain it. The concluding portion of the chapter distinguishes the false from the true Ātman, illustrated by the three stages in which it appears — in the material body, in dreaming, and in sound sleep. In the latter stage we have the true Ātman, in which the distinction between subject and object has disappeared.

  To the Sāmaveda also belongs a very short treatise which was long called the Talavakāra Upanishad, from the school to which it was attached, but later, when it became separated from that school, received the name of Kena, from its initial word. It consists of two distinct parts. The second, composed in prose and much older, describes the relation of the Vedic gods to Brahma, representing them as deriving their power from and entirely dependent on the latter. The first part, which is metrical and belongs to the period of fully develo
ped Vedānta doctrine, distinguishes from the qualified Brahma, which is an object of worship, the unqualified Brahma, which is unknowable: —

  To it no eye can penetrate,

  Nor speech nor thought can ever reach:

  It rests unknown; we cannot see

  How any one may teach it us.

  The various Upanishads of the Black Yajurveda all bear the stamp of lateness. The Maitrāyaṇa is a prose work of considerable extent, in which occasional stanzas are interspersed. It consists of seven chapters, the seventh and the concluding eight sections of the sixth forming a supplement. The fact that it retains the orthographical and euphonic peculiarities of the Maitrāyaṇa school, gives this Upanishad an archaic appearance. But its many quotations from other Upanishads, the occurrence of several late words, the developed Sānkhya doctrine presupposed by it, distinct references to anti-Vedic heretical schools, all combine to render the late character of this work undoubted. It is, in fact, a summing up of the old Upanishad doctrines with an admixture of ideas derived from the Sānkhya system and from Buddhism. The main body of the treatise expounds the nature of the Ātman, communicated to King Bṛihadratha of the race of Ikshvāku (probably identical with the king of that name mentioned in the Rāmāyaṇa), who declaims at some length on the misery and transitoriness of earthly existence. Though pessimism is not unknown to the old Upanishads, it is much more pronounced here, doubtless in consequence of Sānkhya and Buddhistic influence.

  The subject is treated in the form of three questions. The answer to the first, how the Ātman enters the body, is that Prajāpati enters in the form of the five vital airs in order to animate the lifeless bodies created by him. The second question is, How does the supreme soul become the individual soul (bhūtātman)? This is answered rather in accordance with the Sānkhya than the Vedānta doctrine. Overcome by the three qualities of matter (prakṛiti), the Ātman, forgetting its real nature, becomes involved in self-consciousness and transmigration. The third question is, How is deliverance from this state of misery possible? This is answered in conformity with neither Vedānta nor Sānkhya doctrine, but in a reactionary spirit. Only those who observe the old requirements of Brahmanism, the rules of caste and the religious orders (āçramas), are declared capable of attaining salvation by knowledge, penance, and meditation on Brahma. The chief gods, that is to say, the triad of the Brāhmaṇa period, Fire, Wind, Sun, the three abstractions, Time, Breath, Food, and the three popular gods, Brahmā, Rudra (i.e. Çiva), and Vishṇu are explained as manifestations of Brahma.

  The remainder of this Upanishad is supplementary, but contains several passages of considerable interest. We have here a cosmogonic myth, like those of the Brāhmaṇas, in which the three qualities of matter, Tamas, Rajas, Sattva, are connected with Rudra, Brahmā, and Vishṇu, and which is in other respects very remarkable as a connecting link between the philosophy of the Rigveda and the later Sānkhya system. The sun is further represented as the external, and prāṇa (breath) as the internal, symbol of the Ātman, their worship being recommended by means of the sacred syllable om, the three “utterances” (vyāhṛitis) bhūr, bhuvaḥ, svar, and the famous Sāvitrī stanza. As a means of attaining Brahma we find a recommendation of Yoga or the ascetic practices leading to a state of mental concentration and bordering on trance. The information we here receive of these practices is still undeveloped compared with the later system. In addition to the three conditions of Brahma, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, mention is made of a fourth (turīya) and highest stage. The Upanishad concludes with the declaration that the Ātman entered the world of duality because it wished to taste both truth and illusion.

  Older than the Maitrāyaṇa, which borrows from them, are two other Upanishads of the Black Yajurveda, the Kāṭhaka and the Çvetāçvatara. The former contains some 120 and the latter some 110 stanzas.

  The Kāṭhaka deals with the legend of Nachiketas, which is told in the Kāṭhaka portion of the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, and a knowledge of which it presupposes. This is indicated by the fact that it begins with the same words as the Brāhmaṇa story. The treatise appears to have consisted originally of the first only of its two chapters. For the second, with its more developed notions about Yoga and its much more pronounced view as to the unreality of phenomena, looks like a later addition. The first contains an introductory narrative, an account of the Ātman, of its embodiment and final return by means of Yoga. The second chapter, though less well arranged, on the whole corresponds in matter with the first. Its fourth section, while discussing the nature of the Ātman, identifies both soul (purusha) and matter (prakṛiti) with it. The fifth section deals with the manifestation of the Ātman in the world, and especially in man. The way in which it at the same time remains outside them in its full integrity and is not affected by the suffering of living beings, is strikingly illustrated by the analogy of both light and air, which pervade space and yet embrace every object, and of the sun, the eye of the universe, which remains free from the blemishes of all other eyes outside of it. In the last section Yoga is taught to be the means of attaining the highest goal. The gradation of mental faculties here described is of great interest for the history of the Sānkhya and Yoga system. An unconscious contradiction runs through this discussion, inasmuch as though the Ātman is regarded as the all-in-all, a sharp contrast is drawn between soul and matter. It is the contradiction between the later Vedānta and the Sānkhya-Yoga systems of philosophy.

  According to its own statement, the Çvetāçvatara Upanishad derives its name from an individual author, and the tradition which attributes it to one of the schools of the Black Yajurveda hardly seems to have a sufficient foundation. Its confused arrangement, the irregularities and arbitrary changes of its metres, the number of interpolated quotations which it contains, make the assumption likely that the work in its present form is not the work of a single author. In its present form it is certainly later than the Kāṭhaka, since it contains several passages which must be referred to that work, besides many stanzas borrowed from it with or without variation. Its lateness is further indicated by the developed theory of Yoga which it contains, besides the more or less definite form in which it exhibits various Vedānta doctrines either unknown to or only foreshadowed in the earlier Upanishads. Among these may be mentioned the destruction of the world by Brahma at the end of a cosmic age (kalpa), as well as its periodic renewal out of Brahma, and especially the explanation of the world as an illusion (māyā) produced by Brahma. At the same time the author shows a strange predilection for the personified forms of Brahma as Savitṛi, Īçāna, or Rudra. Though Çiva has not yet become the name of Rudra, its frequent use as an adjective connected with the latter shows that it is in course of becoming fixed as the proper name of the highest god. In this Upanishad we meet with a number of the terms and fundamental notions of the Sānkhya, though the point of view is thoroughly Vedāntist; matter (prakṛiti), for instance, being represented as an illusion produced by Brahma.

  To the White Yajurveda is attached the longest, and, beside the Chhāndogya, the most important of the Upanishads. It bears even clearer traces than that work of being a conglomerate of what must originally have been separate treatises. It is divided into three parts, each containing two chapters. The last part is designated, even in the tradition of the commentaries, as a supplement (Khila-kāṇḍa), a statement fully borne out by the contents. That the first and second parts were also originally independent of each other is sufficiently proved by both containing the legend of Yājnavalkya and his two wives in almost identical words throughout. To each of these parts (as well as to Book x. of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa) a successive list (vaṃça) of teachers is attached. A comparison of these lists seems to justify the conclusion that the first part (called Madhukāṇḍa) and the second (Yājnavalkya-kāṇḍa) existed during nine generations as independent Upanishads within the school of the White Yajurveda, and were then combined by a teacher named Āgniveçya; the third part, which consists of all kinds of
supplementary matter, being subsequently added. These lists further make the conclusion probable that the leading teachers of the ritual tradition (Brāhmaṇas) were different from those of the philosophical tradition (Upanishads).

  Beginning with an allegorical interpretation of the most important sacrifice, the Açvamedha (horse-sacrifice), as the universe, the first chapter proceeds to deal with prāṇa (breath) as a symbol of soul, and then with the creation of the world out of the Ātman or Brahma, insisting on the dependence of all existence on the Supreme Soul, which appears in every individual as his self. The polemical attitude adopted against the worship of the gods is characteristic, showing that the passage belongs to an early period, in which the doctrine of the superiority of the Ātman to the gods was still asserting itself. The next chapter deals with the nature of the Ātman and its manifestations, purusha and prāṇa.

  The second part of the Upanishad consists of four philosophical discussions, in which Yājnavalkya is the chief speaker. The first (iii. 1–9) is a great disputation, in which the sage proves his superiority to nine successive interlocutors. One of the most interesting conclusions here arrived at is that Brahma is theoretically unknowable, but can be comprehended practically. The second discourse is a dialogue between King Janaka and Yājnavalkya, in which the latter shows the untenableness of six definitions set up by other teachers as to the nature of Brahma; for instance, that it is identical with Breath or Mind. He finally declares that the Ātman can only be described negatively, being intangible, indestructible, independent, immovable.