Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 28

[Footnote 164: Even the Upanishads (_e.g._ Chand. III. 17, Mahanar. 64) admit that a good life which includes _tapas_ is the equivalent of sacrifice. But this of course is teaching for the elect only. The Brih.-aran. Up. (V. ii) contains the remarkable doctrine that sickness and pain, if regarded by the sufferer as _tapas_, bring the same reward.]

[Footnote 165: So too in the Taittiriya Upanishad _tapas_ is described as the means of attaining the knowledge of Brahman (III. 1-5).]

[Footnote 166: Any ritual without knowledge may be worse than useless.

See Chand. Up. I. 10. 11.]

[Footnote 167: See the various narratives in the Chandogya, Br.-aran.

and Kaus.h.i.+taki Upanishads. The seventh chapter of the Chandogya relating how Narada, the learned sage, was instructed by Sanatk.u.mara or Skanda, the G.o.d of war, seems to hint that the active military cla.s.s may know the great truths of religion better than deeply read priests who may be hampered and blinded by their learning. For Skanda and Narada in this connection see Bhagavad-gita x. 24, 26.]

[Footnote 168: For the necessity of a teacher see Kath. Up. II. 8.]

[Footnote 169: See especially the bold pa.s.sage at the end of Taitt.

Upan. II. "He who knows the bliss of Brahman ... fears nothing. He does not torment himself by asking what good have I left undone, what evil have I done?"]

[Footnote 170: The word Upanishad probably means sitting down at the feet of a teacher to receive secret instruction: hence a secret conversation or doctrine.]

[Footnote 171: Some allusions in the older Upanishads point to this district rather than the Ganges Valley as the centre of Brahmanic philosophy. Thus the Br?had-ara?yaka speaks familiarly of Gandhara.]

[Footnote 172: Cat. Adyar Library. The ?ig and Sama Vedas have two Upanishads each, the Yajur Veda seven. All the others are described as belonging to the Atharva Veda. They have no real connection with it, but it was possible to add to the literature of the Atharva whereas it was hardly possible to make similar additions to the older Vedas.]

[Footnote 173: Debendranath Tagore composed a work which he called the Brahmi Upanishad in 1848. See Autobiography, p. 170. The sectarian Upanishads are of doubtful date, but many were written between 400 and 1200 A.D. and were due to the desire of new sects to connect their wors.h.i.+p with the Veda. Several are Saktist (e.g. Kaula, Tripura, Devi) and many others show Saktist influence. They usually advocate the wors.h.i.+p of a special deity such as Ga?esa, Surya, Rama, N?i Si?ha.]

[Footnote 174: Br.-aran. VI. 1, Ait. aran. II. 4, Kaush. III. 3, Prasna, II. 3, Chand. V. 1. The apologue is curiously like in form to the cla.s.sical fable of the belly and members.]

[Footnote 175: Br.-aran. VI. 2, Chand. V. 3]

[Footnote 176: Br.-aran. II. 1, Kaush. IV. 2.]

[Footnote 177: The composite structure of these works is ill.u.s.trated very clearly by the B?ihad-ara?yaka. It consists of three sections each concluding with a list of teachers, namely (_a_) adhyayas 1 and 2, (_b_) adh. 3 and 4, (_c_) adh. 5 and 6. The lists are not quite the same, which indicates some slight difference between the sub-schools which composed the three parts, and a lengthy pa.s.sage occurs twice in an almost identical form. The Upanishad is clearly composed of two separate collections with the addition of a third which still bears the t.i.tle of _Khila_ or supplement. The whole work exists in two recensions.]

[Footnote 178: The Eleven translated in the _Sacred Books of the East_, vols. I and XV, include the oldest and most important.]

[Footnote 179: Thus the Aitareya Brahmana is followed by the Aitareya ara?yaka and that by the Aitareya-ara?yaka-Upanishad.]

[Footnote 180: R.V. X. 121. The verses are also found in the Atharva Veda, the Vajasaneyi, Taittiriya, Maitraya?i, and Ka?haka Sa?hitas and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 181: R.V. X. 129.]

[Footnote 182: IV. 5. 5 and repeated almost verbally II. 4. 5 with some omissions. My quotation is somewhat abbreviated and repet.i.tions are omitted.]

[Footnote 183: The sentiment is perhaps the same as that underlying the words attributed to Florence Nightingale: "I must strive to see only G.o.d in my friends and G.o.d in my cats."]

[Footnote 184: It will be observed that he had said previously that the atman must be seen, heard, perceived and known. This is an inconsistent use of language.]

[Footnote 185: Chandogya Upanishad VI.]

[Footnote 186: In the language of the Upanishads the atman is often called simply Tat or it.]

[Footnote 187: _I.e._ the difference between clay and pots, etc. made of clay.]

[Footnote 188: Yet the contrary proposition is maintained in this same Upanishad (III. 19. 1), in the Taittiriya Upanishad (II. 8) and elsewhere. The reason of these divergent statements is of course the difficulty of distinguis.h.i.+ng pure Being without attributes from not Being.]

[Footnote 189: The word union is a convenient but not wholly accurate term which covers several theories. The Upanishads sometimes speak of the union of the soul with Brahman or its absorption in Brahman (_e.g._ Maitr. Up. VI. 22, _Sayujyatvam_ and _asabde nidhanam eti_) but the soul is more frequently stated to be Brahman or a part of Brahman and its task is not to effect any act of union but simply to _know_ its own nature. This knowledge is in itself emanc.i.p.ation. The well-known simile which compares the soul to a river flowing into the sea is found in the Upanishads (Chand. VI. 10. 1, Mund. III. 2, Prasna, VI. 5) but Sankara (on Brahma S. I. iv. 21-22) evidently feels uneasy about it. From his point of view the soul is not so much a river as a bay which _is_ the sea, if the landscape can be seen properly.]

[Footnote 190: The Ma??ukya Up. calls the fourth state _ekatmapratyayasara_, founded solely on the certainty of its own self and Gau?apada says that in it there awakes the eternal which neither dreams nor sleeps. (Kar. I. 15. See also III. 34 and 36.)]

[Footnote 191: B?.-ara?yaka, IV. 3. 33.]

[Footnote 192: Cf. Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, p. 244. "The perfect ... means the ident.i.ty of idea and existence, attended also by pleasure."]

[Footnote 193: Tait. Up. II. 1-9. See too ib. III. 6.]

[Footnote 194: B?.-aran. III. 8. 10. See too VI. 2.15, speaking of those who in the forest wors.h.i.+p the truth with faith.]

[Footnote 195: Chandog. Up. IV. 10. 5.]

[Footnote 196: It occurs Katha. Up. II. v. 13, 15, also in the Svetasvatara and Mu??aka Upanishads and there are similar words in the Bhagavad-gita. "This is that" means that the individual soul is the same as Brahman.]

[Footnote 197: The N?isi?hottaratapaniya Up. I. says that isvara is swallowed up in the Turiya.]

[Footnote 198: But still ancient and perhaps anterior to the Christian era.]

[Footnote 199: Svet. Up. VI. 7.]

[Footnote 200: Svet. Up. IV. 3. Max Muller's translation. The commentary attributed to Sankara explains nila? pata?ga? as bhramara? but Deussen seems to think it means a bird.]

[Footnote 201: Chand. Up. vi. 14. 1. Sat. Brah. viii. 1. 4. 10.]

[Footnote 202: The Brahmans are even called low-born as compared with Kshatriyas and in the Ambattha Sutta (Dig. Nik. iii.) the Buddha demonstrates to a Brahman who boasts of his caste that the usages of Hindu society prove that "the Kshatriyas are higher and the Brahmans lower," seeing that the child of a mixed union between the castes is accepted by the Brahmans as one of themselves but not by the Kshatriyas, because he is not of pure descent.]

[Footnote 203: He had learnt the Veda and Upanishads. Brih.-ar. iv. 2.

1.]

[Footnote 204: Chand. Up. v. 3. 7, Kaush. Up. iv., Brih.-ar. Up. ii. 1.

The Kshatriyas seem to have regarded the doctrine of the two paths which can be taken by the soul after death (_devayana_ and _pitriyana_, the latter involving return to earth and transmigration) as their special property.]

[Footnote 205: Literally set in front, praefectus.]

[Footnote 206: Sat. Brah. ii. 4. 4. 5.]

[Footnote 207: Sat. Brah. iv. 1. 4. 1-6.]

[Footnote 208: The legends of Vena, Parasurama and others indicate the prevalence of considerable hostility between Brahmans and Kshatriyas at some period.]

[Footnote 209: Brahmacarin, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, Sannyasin.]

[Footnote 210: Thus in the B?ih.-ara?. Yajnavalkya retires to the forest. But even the theory of three stages was at this time only in the making, for the last section of the Chandogya Up. expressly authorizes a religious man to spend all his life as a householder after completing his students.h.i.+p and the account given of the stages in Chand. ii. 21 is not very clear.]