BRAHMA-KNOWLEDGE-PART-1

BRAHMA-KNOWLEDGE

The Wisdom of the East Series

EDITED BY

L. CRANMER-BYNG

Dr. S. A. KAPADIA

BRAHMA-KNOWLEDGE

AN OUTLINE OF

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE VEDANTA

AS SET FORTH BY THE UPANISHADS

AND BY S'ANKARA

By L. D. BARNETT, M.A., LITT.D.

PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I

AN ACCOUNT OF THE VEDANTA

VEDaNTA, THE VEDAS' END

THE FOUR VEDAS

THE UPANISHADS

FOUNDATIONS OF UPANISHADIC IDEAS

BRAHMA AND PRaNA

DOCTRINE OF TRANSMIGRATION AND WORKS

ATMa, SELF OR SPIRIT

UPANISHADIC PRINCIPLES

ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE FROM BRAHMA

BRAHMA IS ABSOLUTE BEING

BRAHMA IS THOUGHT

BRAHMA IS ATMa

BRAHMA IS INCOGITABLE

PARMENIDES

PHASES OF THE SELF

MaYa

RELATION OF UNIVERSAL TO INDIVIDUAL SOUL

ORGANISM OF SOUL

THE SUBTLE BODY

KARMA

FREEDOM OF WILL

GOD

BRAHMA THE DESTROYER

SALVATION

THE AFTER LIFE

PART II

SOME TEXTS OF THE VEDANTA

APPENDIX I., THE SAMBANDHAS

APPENDIX II., LIST OF CHIEF UPANISHADS AND ABBREVIATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EDITORIAL NOTE

THE object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West--the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nation of another creed and colour.

L. CRANMER-BYNG.

S. A. KAPADIA.

NORTHBROOK SOCIETY,

21, CROMWELL ROAD,

KENSINGTON, S.W.

INTRODUCTION

THE following pages sketch in outline--and therefore inadequately--the most important elements in the series of ideas which, under the general name of Vedanta, have been in one form or another the basis of all Indian thought worthy of the name. No attempt is made here either to justify or to refute them. Their philosophic weakness is obvious; no less patent is the intensity of the longing for an intellectual resting-place, a "Rock of Ages," which has driven millions of the most thoughtful Hindus to drown their soul's disquiet in the utterly blank abstraction of "Brahma."

In the main the Vedanta agrees with the teaching of Parmenides and the early Eleatics of his school, and has many points of contact with Plato's idealism. But whereas the Greek philosophers were only professors, the Vedanta has always had a deep practical significance. Like the early Christian Church, it preached as highest consummation the renunciation of the world and of self, passing in some of its phases into a religious self-surrender fully equal in completeness, if not superior, to that of European monasticism; and even as a purely intellectual force it has had an incalculable influence upon the minds and characters of millions of Hindus in nearly every station of civilised life. To discuss this issue is beyond the province of our book; it must suffice to point to it.

PART I

AN ACCOUNT OF THE VEDANTA

section 1. VEDaNTA, THE VEDAS' END.--The Sanskrit word Vedanta (veda-anta) signifies "end" or "bound of the Vedas." It was originally given, at a somewhat advanced stage of their development, to the works called Upanishads, and subsequently to the various philosophies claiming to be based upon them. Besides the Upanishads, one of these philosophies will be noticed in the following pages, namely the system promulgated in the ninth century by S'ankara in his great commentary (S'ariraka-bhashya) upon the epitome of Upanishadic doctrine commonly known as the Brahma-sutra, or "Aphorisms of Brahma," and traditionally ascribed to one or the other of the legendary sages Badarayana and Vyasa.

section 2. THE FOUR VEDAS.--The hymns of the Rig-veda, composed by various authors some three thousand years ago, are almost the only monument of the first period of Indian thought; for the collections known as the Yajur-veda and Sama-veda are for the most part merely adaptations of the Rig-veda for special liturgical purposes, while the Atharva-veda, which was not admitted until much later into the Vedic canon, combines Rig-vedic hymns selected for ritual objects with a mass of various incantations of little or no philosophic and literary merit. The study of these hymn-collections in their liturgical application by the Brahman schools bore as fruit the bulky volumes known generically as Brahmanas.

section 3. THE UPANISHADS. --The earlier Upanishads, a series of philosophic tracts of varying length and character, arose in the schools of the Brahmanas, and especially were attached to the sections of the latter styled Aranyakas. The Hindus class together Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads under the general title of "Veda" (knowledge) or "Revelation" (s'ruti, "hearing").

The Vedas and Brahmanas are the handbooks of a crude naturalistic ritualism; but the Aranyakas ("Forest-books"), apparently intended for the study of anchorites in the woods, where the more elaborate liturgies were suspended, deal more with the theory of ritual, chiefly from an allegorical point of view. Hence they lead over to the earlier Upanishads, which express a series of generally cognate metaphysical and psychological ideas, at first by allegorical interpretation of Vedic ritual and myth, later with increasing independence of method. Their relation towards Vedic ritualism was at first one of opposition; preaching the saving grace of knowledge alone, they regarded as inadequate the actual liturgies, which admittedly aimed only at worldly welfare. Later their attitude became more conciliatory, and we find them styling themselves Vedanta (first Mund. III. ii. 6, S'vet. VI. 22).

section 4. FOUNDATIONS OF UPANISHADIC IDEAS.--The Rig-veda contains many strata of religious and philosophic thought. Its oldest element is a worship of nature-deities, such as the Sky-Father, Earth-Mother, Dawn, etc., who were inherited from the time before the division of the Indo-European stocks. These figures, however, are not as a rule living forces in religion; for the most part they are kept alive merely by conservatism and poetic convention. The most real gods of the Vedic pantheon are peculiarly Indian. Often indeed a distant connection can be traced between them and nature-deities in the other Indo-European races; but their myths and legends have undergone a long process of development on Indian soil, by which they have acquired the characteristic stamp of the Hindu genius. But even in the naturalistic polytheism of this mythology we can trace in the Rig-veda, especially in its later parts, a tendency towards a pantheism merging all being into a Supreme Spirit of vaguely defined character, a primal Infinite.

Thus "there is one Existence, sages call it by many names" (Rig-veda, I. clxiv. 46; cf. x. cxiv. 5). The primitive spirit and source of being is called Hiranya-garbha ("Germ of Gold"), or Praja-pati ("Lord of Creatures"), x. cxxi.; as his own firstborn he enters the universe created by him (x. lxxii., lxxxii., etc.). In x. cxxix. the first Being is neither existent nor non-existent, a watery void, from which arose a primal Unity, whence sprang Desire as first bond between being and non-being. Another poet (x. xc.) tells how the universe arose from Purusha, "Man," that is, an ideal human sacrifice offered by the gods. For as, to the Vedic mind, a sacrifice is a power controlling Nature, and the human sacrifice is the most powerful of all, then the greatest of all forces, the cosmogonic energies, must have arisen from an ideal offering of this kind made by the highest agents, the gods.

To the demand of philosophy for a final and absolute Reality beyond the temporary and merely relative reality of phenomenal experience the Vedic poets thus gave almost the same answer as the early Greek thinkers. They asserted, in very diverse and often very mystic terms, the existence of a single cosmic matter or World-Spirit, whom they styled variously Praja-pati, Brahma (masculine), Purusha, Hiranaya-garbha, etc.

section 5. BRAHMA AND PRanA.--This conception, however it might be disguised in cosmogonic and mythopoeic forms, was in essence strictly materialistic. But by its side there arose in the schools of the Brahmanas two somewhat different currents of thought--the doctrines of Brahma and of Prana. Brahma, in the earlier Vedic books, is a neuter noun, meaning the spell or prayer of the priest and the magic power which it exerts over gods, men, and the universe. Prana, again, is properly the breath of the body, hence the incorporeal forces or functional energies on which depends the existence of material life. Thus arose the idea of Force, cosmic power, Brahma, as the ultimate reality and origin of phenomenal being, the knowledge of which brought with it the knowledge of all the phenomena evolved from it.

Often the Upanishads, especially the older texts, identify Brahma (and the individual Self which is one with Brahma), with the "life-breath" in the microcosm and its analogue, the wind of the macrocosm. On the supremacy of the breath over the other functions, see B.A. I. v. 14, Ch. I. xi. 5, v. i. 6 f., VI. vii., VII. xv., Pra. VI. 3 f.; breath or wind the guiding force of nature, B.A. I. v. 21 f., III. iii. 2, vii. 2 f.; first principle of nature, Kau. II. 12 f.

In the same mythological fashion Brahma is often symbolised by the manas, or organ of determinate sense-perception and will (see section 18), and by the ether, the macrocosmic analogue of the manas.

The earlier Upanishads often also speak of the cosmic principle as Purusha, literally "man." This term, as we have seen, arises from the Vedic hymn which mystically describes the origin of the world from the body of an ideal man sacrificed by the gods; hence it often denotes the Demiurge, or first principle of cosmic life (with a false etymology from puri-s'aya, "lying in the city," viz. in the microcosmic and macrocosmic body), and sometimes is used loosely for spirit generally.

As the sun is sometimes mentioned as a symbol of Brahma, so also Brahma is sometimes typified macrocosmically by the purusha in the sun and microcosmically by the purusha in the eye (i.e. the reflected figure in the pupil).

Another symbol of Brahma as identified with the individual soul is the bodily heat (Ch. III. xiii. 7 f.). In Ch. IV. x.-xv. the sacred fires are identified with Brahma, to which are given the especial attributes of space (kham) and joy (kam). See further section section 8, 22.

section 6. DOCTRINE OF TRANSMIGRATION AND WORKS.--At this point we may note two new ideas which henceforth dominated Indian thought--transmigration of the soul (samsara, literally "wandering") and the influence of works (karma). The Vedic Hindu was passionately convinced of the joy of life, the Hindu of a later generation no less impressed by its misery. This pessimism finds expression in two ideas. The first is that the only life worth living is that vouchsafed to the few elect--union of the soul with the transcendent Brahma; all other existence, whatever it may seem, is wretched, an infinite number of souls flitting in constant sorrow and blindness through every degree of organic embodiment. The second idea is that every instant of experience is the rigidly predetermined resultant of a previous act; a present pleasure is the requital of a relatively good deed, a present sorrow the repayment of an ill deed, in a previous life; and every act whatsoever, whether of deed, thought, or speech, is absolutely evil, as attaching the soul still further to the fetters of embodiment. Gloomy and impracticable as is this attitude, it is simply a phase of extreme idealism.

section 7. ATMa, SELF OR SPIRIT.--The word atma is several times used in the Rig-veda with the meaning of "breath," "spirit," in the literal sense; and so far there was little to distinguish it from the word prana ( section 5). But from this sense was further evolved the meaning "self." Then we can imagine that men began to reflect upon their own words. What, they doubtless asked, is the "self" of which we speak when we use sentences like "he finds it out by [him]self," "he goes by [him]self," "he sees [him]self"? It must be the inmost essence, the indwelling reality, the ayto of each agent, the informing eidos of subjecthood. Therefore it must be thought itself. For subjecthood is a mode of thought; and to thought or will all action is finally traceable. And the Atma, the Self, the consciousness of self-identity on which is based all further ideation of the thinking subject, is one with Brahma, the universal Power. My Idea is the World-Idea; "I am Brahma."

There is another link in this chain. The Vedic poets speak now and then of a god Daksha, who, as his name implies, is simply the abstract idea of "skill" or "intelligence" rather vaguely personified; and twice (x. v. 7, lxxii. 4, 5) Daksha is regarded as primal Being and universal father, from whom sprang the great gods and the universe. Thus Vedic mythology furnished two fruitful ideas--that the objective universe sprang from Intelligence, Daksha, and from an ideal Man, Purusha; and hence grew up gradually the idealistic conception of the universe as arising from, and existing in, the Thought of man.

section 8. UPANISHADIC PRINCIPLES. -- These conceptions, which are conveyed by the Upanishads in very diverse and often mystic and contradictory utterances, may be summed up in three propositions. Firstly, the whole of finite or phenomenal being is evolved from an infinite and unconditioned substrate of absolute reality, Brahma. Secondly, Brahma is pure Thought, absolute Spirit. Thirdly, Brahma is one with the essential thought of each individual subject of thought, the Soul or Atma.

S'ankara, in following these principles, lays down a broad distinction between Brahma as absolute, unqualified, and indeterminate (nirguna), and Brahma as secondary, determined by self-imposed limitations of space, time, and causality (saguna). The former is real, and object of real knowledge; the latter is essentially unreal, an illusion arising from the congenital error of the subject of thought, and vanishing away as soon as the latter by enlightenment ceases to conceive the Absolute in forms of determinate thought, and realises his essential unity with it. Thus all objects of thought must be regarded from two standpoints: the first is that of empiric experience, determined by conditions of space, time, and causality; the second is transcendental, admitting the existence of nothing but an absolute unqualified One. Sankara argues from both standpoints without much regard for consistency. He justifies the Upanishadic habit of describing Brahma under the qualified forms of empirical thought, or as represented by a symbol, as a concession to feebler intellects, which cannot comprehend an abstract and unqualified principle, and are by these representations induced to worship Brahma in his qualified character, and thereby to attain freedom from ignorance and sin, worldly welfare, and "gradual release," krama-mukti (see section 25), whereas the true essence of Brahma is conveyed only by those passages which deny of him all qualification (see especially his commentary on Ch. VIII. i. and on Brahma-sutra, I. iii. 14 f., III. ii. 11 f.).

section 9. ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE FROM BRAHMA.--I. Upanishads.--The Upanishads, being the work of Brahmans, are naturally influenced to a great extent by the naturalism of Vedic myth, especially in their conception of the origination of the universe from Brahma. As we saw ( section 4), the Veda already speaks of a primal Being that created a phenomenal world from itself and became its indwelling soul; and thus, by its empiric distinction between the first Being as cause and the world as its effect, the Veda has arrived at a pantheistic standpoint.

From this the Upanishadic authors started, and struggled slowly towards the strictly idealistic position from which the universe, organic and inorganic, subjects and objects, is regarded as a single Idea which is the same as the Idea of the individual subject of thought. In this progress they still made frequent use of the Vedic ideas and the mythical forms embodying them; they admitted their distinction of Brahma as cause and the world as effect, but admitted it as a mode of empiric thought of merely relative validity, while from the standpoint of transcendental reality they asserted the identity of the two.

Brahma (Atma), causing the hitherto unconditioned universe to become conditioned as Name and Form (the elements of cogitable being), entered into it "up to the nail-tips" as immanent soul, B.A. I. iv. 7; cf. Ch. VI. ii. 3, iii. 3, Ait. I. i. 11 f., Taitt. II. 6. Brahma is wholly present as its soul in every living thing, B.A. II. i. 16, iv., III. iv., v., Ch. VI. viii.-xvi. The Cosmic Soul, Hiranya-garbha or Brahma (masculine), enters into creation as firstborn of Brahma (neuter), or highest manifestation, B.A. II. v. ("the brilliant immortal Male," Purusha), Ait. III. iii. (Brahma-Atma is intelligence), Kau. I. Brahma is Cosmic Soul, universal subject of thought from which arise the principles of finite thought (mahan atma, Kath. III. 10, mahan purushah, S'vet. III. 19). The world is created from and by Brahma as the web from the spider, sparks from fire, B.A. II. i. 20, S'vet. VI. 10, Mund. I. i. 7, II. i. 1. Brahma is "the Eternal cloaked by (empirical) reality," B.A. I. vi. 3, cf. I. iv. 7, II. iv. 12, v. 18, etc., Ch. III. xiv. 1, IV. iv.-ix., VI. xiii., etc. The individual soul, according to the Upanishads, does not exist previous to the creation by Brahma.

The universe is created from water, B.A. I. v. 13, Ch. VII. x. 1, Ait. I. 1. Three elements, B.A. I. ii. 2, Ch. VI. ii. (heat, water, and food, successively created one from the other, after which each was blended with part of the others). Five elements (adding ether and wind), Taitt. II. i., Pra. IV. 8.

II. Later Vedanta.--S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra, II. iii. 1 f.) endeavours to reconcile the discrepant cosmogonic theories of Ch. VI. ii. and Taitt.II. i., by laying down that from the Self arises ether, thence wind, thence fire, thence water, thence earth, and that this process is reversed on the dissolution of the universe. With this qualification he follows the Ch. in its derivation of inorganic nature from heat (fire), water, and food (earth). These he regards as primitive subtle elements, which by being mixed together form the gross elements; a gross element is produced by the predominance of the corresponding subtle element in admixture with the other two. For his metaphysical explanation of creation, see section 12.

S'ankara does not mention the theory of quintuplication (panchikarana) adopted by the later Vedanta. This doctrine assumes that there are five elements--ether, air, fire, water, earth--in both subtle and gross forms; in order that a particular gross element, e.g. water, may arise, it is necessary that a proportion of one-half of the corresponding subtle form of water be mixed with a proportion of one-half of the half of the other four subtle elements. These five elements, according to the same theory, arise from the union of the Cosmic Self or Is'vara with cosmic ignorance, in the order above mentioned (see further below, section 12).

section 10. BRAHMA IS ABSOLUTE BEING.--The question whether the universal substrate, or Brahma, should properly be called being (sat) or non-being (a-sat), already agitated the Vedic poets (see Rig veda, x. cxxix. 1), and passed through the schools of the Brahmanas to those of the older Upanishads. The debate, however, was merely over words. As Brahma is beyond all the limiting conditions of phenomenal being, either term may be applied to it; it is at once metaphysically existent and empirically non-existent.

Brahma is non-being, B.A. II. iii. 1, Ch. III. xix. 1, Taitt. II. vi.-vii.; being, Ch. VI. ii. 1, etc. Brahma is "reality of reality," B.A. II. i. 20, iii. 6; "the Eternal cloaked in (empirical) reality," I. vi. 3. A reconciliation from the transcendental standpoint is found in S'vet. IV. 18, v. 1, Mund. II. ii. 1, etc. S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra, I. iv. 14 f.) rightly notes the twofold meaning of the terms "being" and "not-being."

section 11. BRAHMA IS THOUGHT.--The Vedic brahma, "prayer" or "spell," is naturally a function of intellect; and when it had risen to the rank of a cosmic Force, it retained this character. It is the universal subject of thought; but as it is itself the universe, and there is nothing beside, it is also its own object, like the Aristotelian noesis noeseus; and as it is above the conditions of space, time, and causality, we can say of it only that it exists, and is Thought.

Frequently, from the natural tendency to conceive a higher sphere of existence as a realm of light and thought as itself light, Brahma and the individual Self identified with it are described as supreme self-luminous light: B.A. IV. iv. 16, Ch. VIII. iii. 4, XII. 3, Kath. v. 15, S'vet. VI. 14.

section 12. BRAHMA IS ATMa.--I. Upanishads.--This idealistic conception became more marked when Brahma was identified with the Atma, the subject of individual thought. "The universe is an Idea, my Idea"--this doctrine is constantly preached in detailed expositions and in pithy phrases like the famous "I am Brahma" (aham brahmasmi), "thou art that" (tat tvam asi). Hence all phenomena are known when their substrate Brahma is known as the Self of the knower.

For tat tvam asi see Ch. VI. viii. 7 f.; aham brahmasmi, B.A. I. iv. 10; cf. tad vai tat, "truly this is that," B.A. V. iv., etad vai tat, Kath. IV. 3-6. The most adequate treatment of this theme is B.A. IV. iii.-iv.: the Self is "the Spirit (Purusha) made of understanding amid the Breaths, the inward light within the heart, that travels abroad, remaining the same, through both worlds," wandering in waking and dreaming through this world, and in deep sleep or death through the world of Brahma; in dreams it builds up a fairy world from the materials of waking thought; in dreamless sleep it is merged in the "understanding self," prajna atma, viz. Brahma as universal subject of thought, without consciousness of objects distinct from itself (cf. section section 11, 15,18). Atma is pure consciousness, Kau. III f.; as a purely intellectual force pervading all being, it is compared to salt dissolved in water, B.A. II. iv. 12, Ch. VI. xiii. Atma known, all is known, Ch. VI. i. f.; the later view of it as impassive spectator of the subjects, objects, and activity of finite thought, Pra. VI. 5, S'vet. VI. 11, Sarvopanishatsara, etc.

Ch. VIII. i. f. lays special emphasis on the presence of the whole macrocosm, the universal Self, in the heart of man, and hence on the absolute freedom of him who knows the Self within him. The whole world of cognitions exists for us only in so far as it enters into the range of our egoity; our pleasures are only for the satisfaction of our Self, which is the All; this recognition unites our soul with the universe and gives us control of all things from their source, B.A. II. iv., IV. v. The final reality of cognition is infinitude, bhuma, illimitable ideation, on realising which the soul wins absolute freedom, Ch. VII. xxiii. f.

Very important in this connection is the theory of the Five Selves propounded in the Taittiriya Upanishad, ii., an attempt to interpret the phenomena of physical existence in terms of the Atma. The author conceives the first four Selves as sheaths surrounding the fifth. The first is anna-maya, "formed of food"; that is, it comprises the physical organs of microcosmic and macrocosmic body. Within this is the second, the prana-maya, "formed of life-breaths"; it is the Self as embodied in the incorporeal functions on which depends the activity of the gross organs in the microcosm and macrocosm. The third is mano-maya, "formed of will," namely of the Vedas and Brahmanas, which are the powers inspiring the life of the world for worldly ends, for they ordain rituals for the carnal benefit of gods and their worshippers in this and other worlds. The fourth is vijnana-maya, "formed of understanding," namely that phase of consciousness in which the vanity of this Vedic ritual is recognised and superseded by an intellectual worship of Brahma, which however still distinguishes Brahma as object from the Self as worshipper. Within this is the inmost Self, the ananda-maya, "formed of bliss," the incogitable spirit of infinite peace and joy (cf. Ch. IV. x.-xv., where Brahma is essentially space and joy).

II. Later Vedanta.--The triad of attributes often mentioned in the later Vedanta, Existence, Thought, and Bliss (sack-chid-ananda), does not occur as a formula in S'ankara's writings; it is however anticipated by his definition of Brahma as "eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, eternally satisfied, eternally pure, intelligent, and free of nature, understanding, and bliss" (on Brahma-sutra I. i. 4). Brahma is the omnipotent and omniscient cause of the origin, maintenance, and dissolution of the universe, the intelligence forming the Self or true Ego of every being, of which the only possible predicates are absolute Being and Thought (on I. i. 2, 4, II. iii. 7, III. ii. 21, etc.).

In accordance with his principles, S'ankara regards the creation by and from Brahma from both an esoteric and an exoteric standpoint. On the one hand, he remarks, the creation of the phenomenal world as described in terms of empiric thought by the Vedas and Upanishads has no absolute reality at all; it is intended to teach parabolically that the Self of all things is Brahma (see commentary on Brahma-sutra II. i. 33). On the other hand, the world of experience cannot be ignored altogether; it is a fact of consciousness, though only of unenlightened consciousness, and accordingly an explanation of its process must be found. Creation consists in a division of Brahma by himself into a boundless variety of "names and forms," intelligible existences which constitute the empiric world and possess determinate principles of being, formal and material potentialities (s'akti) that never vary throughout all the world's successive cycles (see section 23). These potential forces, which relatively to one another are of infinite variety but intrinsically are strictly determinate, include not only the germinal principles of all phenomena but also the empiric souls (jiva) as such; and collectively they constitute the "powers" or s'aktis, i.e. the eternal demiurgic potencies of Brahma, which in the intervals between the creations of the worlds lie dormant in a deep sleep of illusion as a sum of merely potential energies, waiting for the next creation to arise in cosmopoeic activity (on I. iii. 30, IV. 9, II, i. 30 f., etc.). Thus the Upanishadic theory of a single creation is replaced by a doctrine of beginningless and endless successions of emergence and reabsorption of the phenomenal world (see section 23).

The force that moves the absolute Idea to conceive itself as a plurality of determinate subjects and objects of empiric thought is, according to S'ankara, Ignorance, which, though itself strictly negative, is the basis of that positive illusion, the phenomenal world (see section 16). Ignorance creates "determinations," upadhi, modes of thought limiting the self-conception of the absolute Brahma, and Ignorance causes the empiric soul thus produced to confuse Brahma with the determinations falsely imposed upon him, so that Brahma is imagined variously as individual soul, a world of experience, and a personal God.

The "determinations" that play the most important part in S'ankara's system are those which form the structure of individual consciousness by constituting the idea of an embodied individual soul, jiva. These are the pranas, or "breaths," the "works," the "subtle body," the gross body, and sometimes also the sensations and phenomenal perceptions (see section 18). A favourite metaphor by which Sankara illustrates his theory of upadhis is that of a jar. The space enclosed within a certain jar is really the same as the infinite space filling the universe, and the conception of it as limited by the jar nowise limits the infinitude of space itself; and so the conception of the Self as determined by the forms of embodied existence nowise excludes the identity of the embodied Self with the absolute Brahma. The soul itself, says S'ankara (on II. iii. 40), is totally incapable of (empiric) action, whether as subject or object; its apparent activity, e.g. in desire, grief, etc., is based merely upon Ignorance, for the activity arises because the soul falsely ascribes to itself the properties of "determinations" (cf. the definitions of the individual soul given on IV. ii. 4 as "the intelligent self, vijnanatma, having the determinations of ignorance, works, and previous experience").

The Vedantic schools which followed S'ankara theorised more schematically on the origin of the phenomenal world. They regard Ignorance as a cosmic sum of forces including all finite powers, causes, and effects, which has two characteristic properties, viz. "obscuration" (avarana), causing the Absolute Idea to conceive itself as distinct individual egos, and "distention" (vikshepa), arousing in the Self the illusive idea of an external world of phenomena. Accepting the Sankhya's division of matter into the three gunas or modes of sattva ("goodness" or "truth"), rajas ("passion"), and tamas ("gloom"), they identify matter with Cosmic Ignorance, or the sum of individual Ignorances, which acts as a "determinant" to the Supreme Self or Absolute Thought. The latter as "determined" in Cosmic Ignorance acts as a world-soul, directing the universal order of phenomena with supreme power and knowledge, and hence is called Is'vara, "the Lord." The Cosmic Ignorance is hence called "Is'vara's body," and also "Deep Sleep" (sushupti), for in it the force of Ignorance investing Thought is almost wholly inoperative, and the phenomenal world exists only in potentiality. This sphere of being is called the "sheath of Bliss," ananda-maya kos'a. To it corresponds a stage of existence in the individual soul, in which the Self or Thought (here styled Prajna) is "determined" by individual Ignorance. From Is'vara as "determined" by Cosmic Ignorance arise the subtle elements ( section 18) and thence both the "subtle bodies" ( section 19) and gross elements. The "subtle bodies" in the aggregate determine the Self into a mode called Prana, Sutratma, or Hiranyagarbha; individually they determine it into the mode called Taijasa. These combinations of matter with the Self form three successive phases of being for the individual soul: (1) the "sheath of understanding," vijnana-maya kos'a, composed of intelligence (buddhi) and the "organs of knowledge" ( section 18), which constitutes the real agent in empiric experience; (2) the "sheath of mind," mano-maya kos'a, formed of manas and the organs of action, thus constituting the instrument of empiric experience; and (3) the "sheath of the breaths," prana-maya kos'a, formed of vital breaths and organs of action, and constituting the effect of experience. These three phases of being are together called "Dream-Sleep," as in them arise the subtle or elementary forms of phenomena and the reflection of them upon the "determined" Self. The gross elements which arise from the subtle collectively "determine" the Self into the phase called Vais'vanara or Virat; individually they "determine" it into Vis'va. This lowest determination is called anna-maya kos'a, the "sheath of food," or the state of Waking, for into it the forms of both gross and subtle phenomena are displayed to the Self, as in waking both memory and sense-perception are active.

The scheme is thus as follows:

1. Individual Gross Body, determinant of Vis'va, in state of Waking.

Sheath of Food.

Cosmic Gross Body determinant of Virat, in state of Waking.

2. Individual Subtle Body, determinant of Taijasa, in state of Dreaming.

(1) Sheath of Breaths.

(2) Sheath of Mind.

(3) Sheath of Understanding.

Cosmic Subtle Body, determinant of Prana, in state of Dreaming.

3. Individual Causal Body, determinant of Prajna, in state of Dreamless Sleep.

Sheath of Bliss.

Cosmic Causal Body, determinant of Is'vara, in state of Dreamless Sleep.

section 13. BRAHMA IS INCOGITABLE.--Brahma or Atma, being an absolute Reality, the supreme Thing-in-Itself, is therefore inconceivable by the reason, and only capable of being comprehended by an inspired intuition. The Self, whether universal or individual, is a single subject of thought, and so cannot be an object of thought; and it is by nature absolute, above all conditions of finite determination. This negative conception is most forcibly expressed by the famous formula ascribed to Yajnavalkya, neti neti, "not so, not so," a denial of all possible predicates to the Self (B.A. IV. ii. 4, IV. 22, v. 15, etc.), and also by frequently describing Brahma or Atma in contradictory terms as limitless, infinitely extended and yet immeasurably limited in space and time, and denying to it all activity as cause or effect. See also B.A. II. iv. 14, III. iv. 2, vii. 23, viii. 11, Ch. III. xiv. 2, VII. xxiv. 1, Kena. III., XI., Kath. VI. 12 f. S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra II. iii. 29) explains these contradictions in the description of the size of the Self by asserting that the mention of it as immeasurably small refers to its condition as empiric soul, when it is limited by "determinations" ( section 12) and is conceived under the attributes of the "determination" of intelligence, buddhi ( section 18).

S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra III. ii. 17) tells a tale of a sage who, on being asked to teach the doctrine of Brahma, remained silent, and on the request being thrice repeated said simply, "I have told you, but you understand not; this Self is still" (cf. Ch. III. xiv. 1).

section 14. PARMENIDES.--The opportunity here presents itself to point to the singularly close parallel between Upanishadic thought and the doctrines of the early Eleatic philosophers, and especially Parmenides, who may well have been contemporary with the authors of some of the most important Upanishads. Following Xenophanes, who had defined God as eternal, one, and neither in motion nor immobile, Parmenides asserts a single universal Being which is identical with thought. Existence is a whole indivisible in space and time; non-being does not exist. "Thus there remains but one way to tell of, namely that Being is. There are many tokens to show that it is unborn and imperishable, whole, only-begotten, unshakeable, and endless. Never was it nor will it be, for it exists entirely in present time, one and indivisible... Thus it must exist either absolutely or not at all. The power of belief can never admit that from non-being anything else (but non-being) could arise... And it (viz., being) is not divisible, for it is identical throughout; nor is there any higher (being) that could prevent its uniformity, nor any less; it is entirely full of being. So it is wholly uniform, for being unites with being. But it is immobile in the limitations of mighty bonds, beginningless and endless; for birth and destruction have been driven very far away, right conviction has rejected them. It abides the same in the same and by itself, and thus remains constantly in its place... Thought and the object of thought are the same, for you cannot find thought without the existent thing in which it is expressed. There is and can be nothing except being, for fate has bound it down to be whole and immobile. Thus all (ideas) that men have set up, believing them to be true--birth and death, being and non-being, change of place, and alteration of bright hue--are mere words" (fragment 8, ed. Diels); cf. fragment 5, "thought (of being) and being are the same," fragment 6, "speech and thought must be real, for being exists and a naught does not exist," fragment 7, "non-being can never be proved to exist." Except in his view of Being as a sphere, Parmenides is in perfect accord with the Vedanta. The similarity of Plato's doctrines is well known.

section 15. PHASES OF THE SELF.--The highest existence is thus Thought without thinking, the state in which the soul has no consciousness of any external object, or indeed of any object at all, strictly speaking, for it is itself in conscious identity with the sum of all being or Universal Idea; "whilst he seeth not a thing, yet doth he see, though he see not the thing erstwhile to be seen. He that hath sight loseth not his sight, for it is imperishable. But there is naught beside him, naught apart from him, that he may see" (B.A. IV. iii. 23).

The only analogy that experience furnishes for this supposed condition of soul is that of dreamless sleep; and it was inferred that in such sleep the soul is actually in this transcendent state.

Besides this, the earlier Upanishads recognise two other states of the soul, waking and dreaming. When awake the soul puts forth out of itself a world of sense and organs of sense and empirical thought, and renders itself the subject of the experiences conjured up by them. In dreaming sleep the sense-organs swoon away and are absorbed into the manas, the organ forming the centre of empirical cognition and will ( section 18), which thus has now the vision of the world as it is reflected from the waking state; at the same time the "life-breaths," pranas, are active as in waking.

The later Upanishads assume yet another phase, which they call the "Fourth" (turiya, chaturtha). In this the soul, transcending dreamless sleep, is absolutely wakeful in its union with the universal subject of thought, and exercises in perfect stillness an infinite real consciousness of all in the Self which is different in kind from the "unconscious consciousness" ascribed to dreamless sleep.

The waking, dreaming, and dreamless phases are respectively termed Vais'vanara ("common to all mankind"), Taijasa ("luminous," for in dreams the soul is its own light, B.A. IV. iii. 9), and Prajna ("intelligent," for in deep sleep the Self is one with the Universal Idea or "intelligent Self," prajna atma, B.A. IV. iii. 21); these terms do not occur until Mand. iii. ff. On dreaming sleep see also B.A. II. i. 18 (soul wanders about within the body), IV. iii. 9-14 (two accounts, in one of which soul leaves the body, while in the other it remains in it), iii. 20 f., Ch. VIII. x. 2, Pra. IV. 2 f. Dreamless sleep, B.A. IV. iii. 19-33, Ch. VIII. vi. 3, x.-xi. Fourth State, Mand. VII., Maitr. VI. 19, VII. 11, Mandukya-karika I. 12-16, III. 33 f. See also S'ankara on Brahma-sutra I. iii. 19 f., 40 f., III. ii. 1 f. S'ankara, following Ch. IV. iii. 3, holds that in deep sleep, in which the soul is in temporary identity with Brahma, the functions of sense, together with the manas, in which they are absorbed, are merged in the "breaths" travelling through the pericardium and veins (cf. section 18), while the soul becomes one with the Brahma residing under "determinations" in the heart (in B.A. II. i. 19, it rests in the pericardium, in Ch. VIII. vi. 3 in the veins). The statement of Ch. VIII. xii. 3, that "the Calm (samprasada), rising from this body, wins to the Supreme Light, and shows itself in its own form; this is the highest spirit (purusha)" is taken by S'ankara (on Brahma-sutra IV. iv. 1 f.) as referring to the soul not in dreamless sleep, but in its final release from the body after enlightenment (see section 24); this "own form" is the existence of the soul in its absolute selfhood, where there is no longer a distinction between individual and universal soul. For the theories of the Vedanta after S'ankara see above, section 12.

section 16. MaYa.--The word maya, magic illusion, is commonly used in the later Vedanta to denote the phantom character of the phenomenal world; and in this sense it does not appear in the Upanishads until the S'vetas'vatara (IV. 10). It is not found in the Brahma-sutra; and hence the question has often been raised whether the idea denoted by it was actually present in the minds of the authors of the older Upanishads.

That phenomena, even to the first principles under which they are cognised (space, time, and causality), are unreal relatively to Absolute Being, is a cardinal doctrine not only of the Upanishads but of all metaphysics. Even the Vedic poets assert a real being of primal unity concealed behind the manifold of experience; and on this is founded the Upanishadic principle that the universe exists only in and by virtue of a World-Idea essentially identical with the individual consciousness. This, however, is still far from the maya-theory of the later Vedanta. The authors of the older Upanishads were still much influenced by the realism of the Vedas, and it is therefore doubtful whether they could have agreed with the Vedantists who treat the world of experience as absolutely unreal, a mere phantom conjured up by the Self for its own delusion. As typical of the Upanishadic attitude we may regard the theory of the Five Atmas ( section 12) and the long passage of the Brihad-aranyaka (III. vii. 3 f.) where the Self is described in detail as the antaryami, or "inward controller," functioning as soul within matter as its body. Their view was in the main somewhat as follows. Phenomena are evolved from the Self, and hold their existence as intelligibilia in fee from the Self; with the knowledge of the Self they become known as phases of it; hence they are, to this extent, and no further, really existent (satya, B.A. I. vi. 3), provisionally true, although it is only ignorance of the Self that regards them as really independent of the Self and manifold. The Upanishads on the whole conceive the empiric soul's ignorance as a negative force, an absence of light; with S'ankara and the later Vedanta it is positive, a false light, a constructive illusion. Brahma as cause of phenomena is in the Upanishads a real material, in S'ankara's school an unreal material.

The difficulties besetting S'ankara when he endeavours to bring logical order into the vague idealism of the Upanishads are very serious. On the one hand he maintains that the whole phenomenal world is unreal (avastu). As a magician (mayavi) causes a phantom or wraith to issue from his person which has no real existence and by which the magician himself is entirely unaffected, so Brahma creates from himself a universe which is an utter phantom and nowise modifies his absolute existence. His creative "powers" (which are real only when regarded from the standpoint of his creation, the world of finite subjects and objects) constitute the demiurgic principle of an empiric universe, which is, from its own standpoint, coextensive with him, whereas absolutely speaking it does not exist at all (see commentary on Brahma-sutra, II. i. 6, 9, etc., and above, section 9). On the other hand, the universe, phantom as it is, nevertheless is a fact of consciousness. Illusion though it be, the illusion is. This predicate of existence is the bond uniting it with its source, the truly existent, Brahma (on II. i. 6). Brahma is absolute thought, the world is false thought; but the subject in both cases is the same, the thinking Self. Thus Maya denotes the sum of phenomena--or, as more narrowly defined by some later Vedantists, the sum of matter--as illusively conceived by the Self; it is the Ignorance which creates the phantom of a universe and of an individual ego by imposing its figments upon pure Thought ( section 12).

section 17. RELATION OF UNIVERSAL TO INDIVIDUAL SOUL.--It is a first principle of the Upanishads that the numberless individual souls are really one with the Universal Self. But how is this relation conceivable? To this question no answer is vouchsafed. The older texts instead give us cosmogonic myths, which realistically depict a Universal Spirit creating the phenomenal world and then animating it as world-soul; and the latter they simply identify with the self of the individual, sometimes more pantheistically (Ch. VI. iii.), sometimes more idealistically (B.A.II. iv. 5, III. iv. 1, v. 1, etc.). But why should there be this division between the one Absolute Soul and the innumerable individual souls condemned to suffer the intellectual darkness and physical sorrows of embodied life? The Upanishads find a solution in their theory of karma, the acts done in previous births requiring further embodiment to work away their influence upon the soul. This implies a regressus ad infinitum, as every act is the resultant of a former act; and this conclusion is cheerfully drawn by the later Vedanta, which thus avoids the necessity of explaining the "origin of evil." The older Upanishads, whose cosmogonies contradict this theory, simply avoid the question.

The theory which begins to appear in a somewhat late Upanishad (the Maitrayaniya), that the Soul conceives division and plurality in consequence of the delusive attractions of physical Nature, and hence assumes embodied form and comes under the influence of "works," is partly connected with the dualism of the Sankhya school, and partly with the theory of "illusion" developed in the later Vedanta (see section 16). S'ankara generally regards the universe itself, i.e. the aggregate of subjects and objects of experience, as created in order to furnish finite souls with experiences in recompense of previous "works"; but the reason moving the Supreme Brahma to render himself an efficient and material cause of a universe distinct from himself, says S'ankara, can only be motiveless sport (see commentary on Brahma-sutra, II. i. 33).

section 18. ORGANISM OF SOUL.--I. Upanishads.--Every organic being is a soul, according to the Upanishads; and the degree of its organic development is directly proportioned to the merits of its former works. The highest therefore are the souls of gods and men. The soul in its human embodiment exercises three classes of functions: (1) the sense-organs (indriya), which in slumber or swoon become paralysed and merge themselves into (2) the organ of thought (manas), which converts the data of the sense-organs into conscious modes of thought and volition; and (3) the "breaths" (prana), a term originally denoting all the functions of physical life, then those higher functions upon which generally depends all life, whether conscious or unconscious, and into which during sleep or swoon are merged the manas and the sense-organs already absorbed in the latter.

The name indriya for the sense-organs appears first in Kath. and Kau. Other texts usually call them prana (a collective term, from the supremacy of the prana, or breath), and comprise under the name ordinarily breath, speech, sight, hearing, and manas (e.g. B.A. I. iv. 7). The same ten indriyas as in the later system occur first in B.A. II. iv. 11, IV. v. 12, which adds manas and heart (cf. Pra. IV. 2). On manas as central function of cognition and action see B.A. I. v. 3, IV. i. 6, Ch. VII. iii f., Kath. VI. 7. The sense-organs are compared to horses drawing the car of the body, manas to their bridle, Kath. III. 3; in Maitr. II. 6 the organs of action are the horses, the organs of intelligence (see below) the reins, manas the driver. On the immersion of organs with manas in prana see especially B.A. IV. iii. 12, Ch. VI. viii. 2, Pra. IV. 2 f. The "breaths" are usually given as five, viz.: (1) prana in the strict sense, which in B.A. and Ch. denotes exspiration, and later exspiration and inspiration together; (2) apana, in B.A. and Ch. the inspiration, later the wind causing digestion in the bowels or evacuation; (3) vyana, respiratory action connecting prana and apana, variously conceived; (4) samana, sometimes the wind digesting food, sometimes connection between exspiration and inspiration; (5) udana, which carries food and drink up and down (Maitr. II. 6) and guides the soul to Brahma in death and sleep (Pra. III. 7, IV. 4).

II. Later Vedanta.--In the system of S'ankara the gross body, subtle body ( section 19), karmas'raya ( section 20), and pranas are classed together as the "determinations" or upadhis by which the Self conceives itself as an individual soul (above, section 12). Whereas the gross body is abandoned on death, the other organisms travel in a potential form with the soul throughout all its births. By the term prana S'ankara, following the old Upanishadic usage, designates not only the unconscious "breaths," but also the conscious indriyas. The indriyas (the functional forces whence arise the material sense-organs) according to him comprise the five functions of action (viz. speech, grasp, locomotion, generation, and excretion) and the five of buddhi or intelligence (viz. sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell), with which is associated the manas as their centre. The pranas, or "breaths" in the strict sense are the five known in the Upanishads. S'ankara explains prana as exspiration, apana as inspiration, vyana as the force maintaining life when both exspiration and inspiration are checked, samana as the digestive force, and udana as the current leading the soul from the body on death (on II. iv. 8 f.). When death takes place, the indriyas sink into manas, this into the pranas, these into the individual soul (lodged in the heart), this into the "subtle body" ( section 19), which then starts on its wanderings. Thus S'ankara (on IV. ii. 1 f.) explains the statement of Ch. VI. viii. 6 that on death Speech is merged in manas, this into prana, this into Heat, this into the Higher Godhead. These words, he holds, mean that the potential functions of conscious sensation are merged into those of unconscious vitality, the latter into the individual soul, this again into the "Heat," i.e. the "subtle body," which conveys the soul through its wanderings. See also section section 12, 15.

The later Vedanta (e.g. the Vedanta-sara and the Atma-viveka and Vakya-sudha ascribed to S'ankara) schematises the functions of empiric thought by dividing the antah-karana, its collective organisation, into chitta, manas (often loosely called antah-karana), buddhi, and aham-kara. To chitta it ascribes the function of passing notice, to manas that of deliberation, and to buddhi that of determination. Sometimes also it uses buddhi as a general term denoting both aham-kara, the conception of egoity, which is the agent in empiric mental action, and manas, the instrument of egoity; in the false identification of these functions with the Self or Spirit lies the root of phenomenal illusion.

section 19. THE SUBTLE BODY.--According to the later Vedanta, the Soul in its wanderings from birth to birth is accompanied by the sense-organs and "breaths" as sums of potential faculties, and has for its vehicle the "subtle body," sukshmas'arira. The latter consists of portions of the five elements in their higher suprasensual form, and thus is as it were a seed which on occasion grows by the accession of gross matter into a physical body.

There is no clear evidence for the existence of this idea in the Upanishads until the mention of a linga (the term used in the Sankhya school for "subtle body") in B.A. IV. iv. 6; cf. Kath. VI. 8, S'vet. VI. 9, Maitr. VI. 10. For S'ankara's view see especially on Brahma-sutra, III. i. 1 f., IV. ii. 6 f. The "subtle body" adheres to the soul until it attains perfect enlightenment and release in Brahma; the souls which never reach this goal are always attended by it.

section 20. KARMA.--The propelling force which conducts the Soul with its potential functions through endless incarnations as man, god, beast, or vegetable, is the karmas'raya, the substrate of its karma or works. By "work" is understood not only every act of will, and of body in obedience to will, but also every act of ideation in which the subject of thought posits a non-self in opposition to itself, for in this false duality begins the Will, desire, attachment of the soul to its fetters of finitude, and therewith moral blindness. Every such act transforms itself into a positive force acting upon the soul, and demanding a corresponding requital of good for good and evil for evil in future experiences; and the sum of these forces at the end of each life determines the form of birth in the next incarnation.

section 21. FREEDOM OF WILL.--It follows that in so far as man shares in the empiric world his whole moral and physical life is at every instant strictly predestined. But at the same time his Self is implicitly free, inasmuch as in essence it is one with the Absolute Brahma, no matter how it be empirically sunk in the phenomenal world; and as soon as he attains the knowledge of this fundamental unity which is itself salvation, his freedom is complete; he is the One Absolute Brahma, and beside him there exists no empiric world.

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK

Chapter XV-XVI-XVII-XVIII-XIX-XX-XXI-XII

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter XIII-XIV

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter XI-XII

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter IX-X

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter VII-VIII

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter V-VI

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter III-IV

S’rimad Devî Bhâgavatam THE FIRST BOOK Chapter I-II

VISHNU PURANA. - BOOK III. CHAP -16,17,18

VISHNU PURANA. - BOOK III. CHAP. XV.

VISHNU PURANA. - BOOK III. CHAP. XIV.