Three lectures on the Vedânta philosophy

8/9/2019 Three lectures on the Vednta philosophy

1/192


2/192


3/192


4/192


5/192

COLLECTED WORKSOF

THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MOLLER

XVITHREE LECTURES

ON THE

VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY


6/192


7/192

THREE LECTURESON THE

VEDANTA PHILOSOPHYDELIVERED

AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTIONIN MARCH, 1894

BY THE

RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER, K.M.LATE FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE

NEW IMPRESSION p j- ty ( *

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1904\All rights reserved ]


8/192

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.First Edition, 8vo, May, 1894.Reprinted in the Collected Edition of Prof. Max Muller s

Works, April, 1901, and August, 1904.


9/192

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FIRST LECTURE.ORIGIN OF THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY.

PAGEThe Importance of Philosophy iWhat is important and what is merely curious . . 2The Importance of the Vedanta Philosophy ... 6Opinions of the Vedanta by Schopenhauer, Sir W. Jones,

Victor Cousin, F. Schlegel 8The Vedanta, both Philosophy and Religion . . 1 1The Upanishads as Vedanta . . . . . 15The Four Stages of Life 18Relation of the Soul (Atman) to Brahman (the Parama-

atman) 20Unsystematic Character of the Upanishads . . .22Growth of Religious and Philosophic Thought before

the Upanishads . . . . . . -25Belief in one God . .27Two Forms of the Vedanta 29The Upanishads treated as Revealed, not as HistoricalBooks 32

Moral Preparation for the Study of the Vedanta . . 36Mistrust in the Evidence of the Senses . . . .40Metaphorical Language of the Upanishads . . -42


10/192

vi Table of Contents.

SECOND LECTURE.THE SOUL AND GOD.PAGE

Extracts from the Upanishads 47I. From the Ka//$a Upanishad . . . .47

II. From the Maitrayaa Upanishad ~. . .55Sarikara s Analysis of Subject and Object . . .61The Inheritance of the Vedanta 71No Esoteric Vedanta 72Relation between the Higher Biihman and the LowerBrahman 82

Relation between the Higher Atman and the LivingAtman 87Different Views of the Soul in Indian Philosophy . . 89The Upadhis as the cause of difference between theSoul and God 92

The Psychology of the Vedanta 94Our Mind is not our Self (Atman) . . . . -97The Upadhis due to Avidya 97Nescience (Avidya) destroyed by Knowledge (Vidya) . 100How the Soul can be one with God . . . .102

THIRD LECTURE.SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INDIANAND EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY.Strangeness of Eastern Philosophy . . . .108General Interest of Indian Philosophy . . . .noCritical Treatment of Oriental Literature . . .112The Sacred Syllable Om . . . . . .115Whatever was Old became Sacred . . . . 1 1 7


11/192

Table of Contents. vii

PAGEBooks for the Study of the Vedanta . . . .118Coincidences. Spinoza s Substantia . . . .123The Meanings of Real 126The Nature of Avidya and Mayav 128Colebrooke on Maya . . . . . . .129Sir W. Jones on the Vedanta 131The Two Brahmans are One 132The Germs of the Vedanta in the Upanishads . .135The Knowledge of Brahman 138Names and Forms the Objects of Brahman s Knowledge 1 40Thought and Language Inseparable . . . .141Coincidences between Names and Forms and the GreekLogos 142

Speech as a Creative Power in the Veda . . .144Similarity with the Old Testament Wisdom . . .146Did Brahman mean Word ? 147Brahman derived from the same Root as Verlum and

Word 149Names and Forms the Connecting-link between Brahmanand the World 151

The Gods of other Religions 154Names and Forms the Product of Avidy& . . .158The Vedanta in Practical Life 161The Ethics of the Vedanta 162The Doctrine of Karman 165Pre-existence of the Soul . . . . . .167Recapitulation 170


12/192


13/192

THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURESON THE

VEDANTA PHILOSOPHYLECTURE I.

ORIGIN OF THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY.The Importance of Philosophy.

I AM fully aware of the difficulties which I shallhave to encounter in trying to enlist your interest,nay, if possible, your sympathy, for an ancientsystem of Indian Philosophy, the Vedanta Philosophy. It is no easy task, even within the wallsof this scientific Institution, to obtain a hearingfor a mere system of philosophy, whether new orold. The world is too busy to listen to purelytheoretical speculations ; it wants exciting experiments and, if possible, tangible results. And yetI remember one who ought to be well known toall of you in this place, I remember our dearfriend Tyndall, rejoicing over a new theory,

B


14/192

The Ved&nta Philosophy.

because, as he said, Thank God, it will notproduce any practical results ; no one will everbe able to take out a patent and make moneyby it/ Leibniz, I suppose, took no patent forhis Differential Calculus, nor Sir Isaac Newtonfor his theory of gravitation. Trusting in thatspirit of Tyndall s, which has been so long thepresiding spirit of this busy laboratory of thought,I hope that there may be some friends andadmirers of his left within these walls, who arewilling to listen to mere speculations, speculationswhich will never produce any tangible results, inthe ordinary sense of the word, for which certainlyno one can take out a patent, or hope, if he hadsecured it, to make any money by it; and yetthese speculations are bound up with the highestand dearest interests of our life.

What is important and what is merely curious.The system of philosophy for which I venture

to claim your attention is chiefly concerned withthe Soul and its relation to God. It comes tous from India, and is probably more than twothousand years old. Now the soul is not a


15/192

Origin of the Vedanta.

popular subject in these days. Even if its existence is not denied altogether, it has long beenranged among subjects on which it is folly tobe wise/ However, if I were to claim yourattention for a Greek or German system ofphilosophy, if I were to tell you what Plato orKant have said about the soul, it is just possiblethat their sayings might at least be consideredas curious. But I must say at once that thiswould not satisfy me at all. I look upon thatword curious as a lazy and most objectionableword. If a man says, * Yes, that is very curious/what does he mean ? What he really means isthis, Yes, that is very curious, but no more/But why no more ? Not because it is of noimportance in itself, but simply because in thepigeon-holes of his own mind, there is no place asyet ready to receive it ; simply because the chordsof his mind are not attuned to it, and do notvibrate in harmony with it; simply because hehas no real sympathy with it. To a well-storedmind and to a well-arranged intellect there oughtto be nothing that is simply curious ; nay it hasbeen

trulysaid that almost every great discovery,B 2


16/192

The Veddnta Philosophy.

all real progress in human knowledge is due tothose who could discover behind what to theworld at large seemed merely curious, somethingreally important, something pregnant with results.The electric spark of the lightning has beencurious as long as the world exists ; it seems butyesterday that it has become really important.

If my object were simply to amuse you I couldplace before you a very large collection of soul-curios, tell you ever so many curious things aboutthe soul, sayings collected from uncivilized andfrom civilized races. There are, first of all, thenames of the soul, and some of them, no doubt,full of interest. Among the names applied tothe soul, some mean breath, others heart, othersmidriff, others blood, others the pupil of the eye,all showing that they were meant for somethingconnected with the body, something supposed tohave its abode in the eye, in the heart, in theblood or the breath, yet different from every oneof these coarse material objects. Other namesare purely metaphorical, as when the soul wascalled a bird, not because it was believed to bea bird, caged in the body, but because it seemed


17/192

Origin of the Veddnta.

winged in its flights of thought and fancy; or whenit was called a shadow, not because it was believedto be the actual shadow which the body throws ona wall (though this is held by some philosophers),but because it was like a shadow, somethingperceptible, yet immaterial and not to be grasped.Of course, after the soul had once been likenedto and called a shadow, every kind of superstition followed, till people persuaded themselvesthat a dead body can no longer throw a shadow.Again, when the soul had once been conceivedand named, its name, in Greek ^x 7?, was transferred to a butterfly, probably because the butterflyemerged winged from the prison of the chrysalis.And here, too, superstition soon stepped in andrepresented pictorially the soul of the departedas issuing from his mouth in the shape ofa butterfly. There is hardly a tribe, howeveruncivilized and barbarous, which has not a namefor soul, that is for something different fromthe body, yet closely allied to it and hard at workwithin it. It was but lately that I received fromthe Bishop of North Caledonia a new metaphorfor soul. The Zimshian Indians have a word


18/192

The Veddnta Philosophy.

which means both soul and fragrance. Whenquestioned by the Bishop on the subject, theIndians replied : * Is not a man s soul to hisbody what the fragrance is to the flower ?This, no doubt, is as good a metaphor as any,and it may fairly claim a place by the side ofPlato s metaphor in the * Phaedo, where hecompares the soul to the harmonious musicthat can be drawn from a lyre.

If I wished to excite your interest in a collection of such curios, I might place before you everso many names, ever so many metaphors, ever somany sayings with reference to the soul. Nay,if looked upon as contributions to a study of theevolution of the human mind, as documents forthe history of human wisdom or human folly,such curious sayings might even claim a certainscientific value, as giving us an insight into theancient workshop of the human intellect.

The Importance of the Vedanta Philosophy,But I may say at once that I shall not be

satisfied with metaphors, however poetical orbeautiful, and that in placing before you an


19/192


outline of the Vedanta Philosophy I have farhigher objects in view. I wish to claim thesympathy not only of your mind, but of yourheart for the profoundest thoughts of Indianthinkers about the soul. After all, I doubtwhether the soul has really lost with all of usthat charm which it exercised on ancient thinkers.We still say, ( What shall it profit a man, if heshall gain the whole world, and lose his ownsoul ? And how can we even claim to havea soul to lose, if we do not know what we meanby soul. But if it seem strange to you that theold Indian philosophers should have known moreabout the soul than Greek or Mediaeval ormodern philosophers, let us remember that however much the telescopes for observing the starsof heaven have been improved, the observatoriesof the soul have remained much the same, forI cannot convince myself that the observationsnow made in the so-called physico-psychologicallaboratories of Germany, however interesting tophysiologists, would have proved of much helpto our Vedanta philosophers. The rest and peacewhich are required for deep thought or for ac-


20/192

8 The Veddnta Philosophy.

curate observation of the movements of the soul,were more easily found in the silent forests ofIndia than in the noisy streets of our so-calledcentres of civilization.Opinions of the Vedanta by Schopenhauer, Sir W.

Jones, Victor Cousin, P. Schlegel.Anyhow, let me tell you that a philosopher so

thoroughly acquainted with all the historicalsystems of philosophy as Schopenhauer, andcertainly not a man given to deal in extravagantpraise of any philosophy but his own, deliveredhis opinion of the Vedanta Philosophy, as contained in the Upanishads, in the following words :In the whole world there is no study so beneficialand so elevating as that of the Upanishads. Ithas been the solace of my life, it will be the solaceof my death/ If these words of Schopenhauer srequired any endorsement, I should willingly giveit as the result of my own experience duringa long life devoted to the study of many philosophies and many religions.

If philosophy is meant to be a preparation fora happy death, or Euthanasia, I know of no betterpreparation for it than the Vedanta Philosophy.


21/192


Nor is Schopenhauer by any means the onlyauthority who speaks in such rapturous terms ofthe ancient philosophy of India, more particularlyof the Vedanta Philosophy.

Sir William Jones, no mean authority as anoriental as well as a classical scholar, remarks1 that it is impossible to read the Veddnta or themany fine compositions in illustration of it, withoutbelieving that Pythagoras and Plato derived theirsublime theories from the same fountain with thesages of India/ (Works, Calcutta ed., i. pp. 20,125, 127.) It is not quite clear whether SirWilliam Jones meant that the ancient Greekphilosophers borrowed their philosophy fromIndia. If he did, he would find few adherentsin our time, because a wider study of mankindhas taught us that what was possible in onecountry, was possible in another also. But thefact remains nevertheless that the similaritiesbetween these two streams of philosophicalthought in India and in Greece are very startling,nay sometimes most perplexing.

Victor Cousin, the greatest among the historiansof philosophy in France, when lecturing at Paris


22/192

io The Veddnta Philosophy.

in the years 1828 and 1829 on the history ofmodern philosophy, before an audience, we aretold, of two thousand gentlemen, spoke in thefollowing terms : When we read with attentionthe poetical and philosophical monuments of theEast, above all, those of India which are beginningto spread in Europe, we discover there manya truth, and truths so profound, and which makesuch a contrast with the meanness of the resultsat which the European genius has sometimesstopped, that we are constrained to bend theknee before the philosophy of the East, and tosee in this cradle of the human race the nativeland of the highest philosophy. (Vol. i. p. 32.)German philosophers have always been themost ardent admirers of Sanskrit literature, and

more particularly, of Sanskrit philosophy. Oneof the earliest students of Sanskrit, the truediscoverer of the existence of an Indo-Europeanfamily of speech, Frederick Schlegel, in his workon Indian Language, Literature, and Philosophy(p. 471), remarks: It cannot be denied that theearly Indians possessed a knowledge of the trueGod; all their writings are replete with senti-


23/192

Origin of the Vedanta. 1 1

ments and expressions, noble, clear, and severelygrand, as deeply conceived and reverentially expressed as in any human language in which menhave spoken of their God/ And again : Eventhe loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, theidealism of reason, as it is set forth by Greekphilosophers, appears, in comparison with theabundant light and vigour of Oriental idealism,like a feeble Promethean spark in the full floodof heavenly glory of the noonday sun falteringand feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished.1And with regard more especially to the Vedanta

Philosophy, he says : * The divine origin of manis continually inculcated to stimulate his effortsto return, to animate him in the struggle, andincite him to consider a reunion and reincorporationwith divinity as the one primary object of everyaction and exertion V

The Vedanta, both Philosophy and Religion.What distinguishes theVeddnta Philosophy from

all other philosophies is that it is at the same1 See Mana^sukharama Suryarama, Vi/fcarasagara, p. 5.


24/192


time a religion and a philosophy. With us theprevailing opinion seems to be that religion andphilosophy are not only different, but that theyare antagonistic. It is true that there are constant attempts made to reconcile philosophy andreligion. We can hardly open a Review withoutseeing a new Eirenicon between Science andReligion. We read not only of a Science ofReligion, but even of a Religion of Science. Butthese very attempts, whether successful or not,show at all events that there has been a divorcebetween the two. And why ? Philosophy as wellas religion is striving after truth ; then why shouldthere be any antagonism between them ? It hasoften been said that religion places all truthbefore us with authority, while philosophy appealsto the spirit of truth, that is, to our own privatejudgment, and leaves us perfectly free to acceptor reject the doctrines of others. But such anopinion betrays a strange ignorance of the historyof religions. The founder of every new religionpossessed at first no greater authority than thefounder of a new school of philosophy. Manyof them were scorned, persecuted, and even put


25/192

Origin of the Vedanta. 1 3

to death, and their last appeal was always, whatit ought to be an appeal to the spirit of truthwithin us, and not to twelve legions of angels,nor, as in later times, to the decrees of Councils,to Papal Bulls, or to the written letter ofa sacred book. Nowhere, however, do we findwhat we find in India, where philosophy is lookedupon as the natural outcome of religion ; nay, asits most precious flower and fragrance. Whetherreligion leads to philosophy, or philosophy toreligion, in India the two are inseparable, andthey would never have been separated with us,if the fear of men had not been greater than thefear of God or of Truth. While in other countriesthe few who had most deeply pondered on theirreligion and most fully entered into the spirit ofits founder, were liable to be called heretics by theignorant many, nay were actually punished forthe good work they had done in purifying religionfrom that crust of superstition that will alwaysgather around it; in India the few were honouredand revered, even by those who could not yetfollow them into the purer atmosphere of freeand unfettered thought. Nor was there in India


26/192


any necessity for honest thinkers to screen theirdoctrines behind the name of Esoteric Religion.If religion is to become esoteric in order to beallowed to live, as it often is with us, what is theuse of it ? Why should religious convictions everfear the light of day ? And, what is even morecreditable to the ancient believers and philosophers of India, they never, in the exalted positionwhich was allowed to them on account of theirsuperior knowledge and sanctity, looked downwith disdain on those who had not yet risen totheir own height. They recognised the previousstages of submissive studentship and active citizenship as essential steps towards the freedom whichthey themselves enjoyed ; nay, they admitted noone to their companionship who had not passedthrough these stages of passive obedience andpractical usefulness. Three things they preachedto them as with a voice of thunder: Damyata,Subdue yourselves, subdue the passions of thesenses, of pride and selfwill ; Datta, Give, beliberal and charitable to your neighbours ; and Da-yadhvam, Have pity on those who deserve yourpity, or, as we should say, Love your neighbours


27/192

Origin of the Vedanta. 15

as yourselves/ These three commands, each beginning with the syllable Da, were called the threeDa s, and had to be fulfilled before any higherlight was to be hoped for (Brzhad Ara^yakaUpanishad V, 2), before the highest goal of theVeda, the Vedanta, could be reached.

The Upanishads as Vedanta.Vedanta means the end of the Veda, whether

we take it in the sense of the final portion, or thefinal object of the Veda. Now the Veda, as youknow, is the old Bible of the Brahmans, andwhatever sects and systems may have sprung upwithin their religion during the three thousandyears of its existence, they all, with the exceptionof course of Buddhism, agree in recognising theVeda as the highest authority on all religiousquestions. The Vedanta philosophy thus recognises by its very name its dependence on theVeda, and the oneness of religion and philosophy.If we take the word in its widest sense, Veda, asyou know, means knowledge, but it has becomethe special name of the Hindu Bible, and thatBible consists of three portions, the Sa/^hitas,


28/192

1 6 The Veddnta Philosophy.

or collections of metrical prayers and hymns ofpraise, the Brahma^as, or prose treatises on thesacrifices, and the Ara^yakas, books intendedfor the dwellers in the forest, the most importantportion of which is formed by the Upanishads.These Upanishads are philosophical treatises,and their fundamental principle might seem withus to be subversive of all religion. In theseUpanishads the whole ritual and sacrificial systemof the Veda is not only ignored, but directlyrejected as useless, nay as mischievous. Theancient gods of the Veda are no longer recognised. And yet these Upanishads are lookedupon as perfectly orthodox, nay as the highestconsummation of the Brahmanic religion.This was brought about by the recognition ofa very simple fact which nearly all other religionsseem to have ignored. It was recognised inIndia from very early times that the religion ofa man cannot be and ought not to be the sameas that of a child ; and again, that with the growthof the mind, the religious ideas of an old manmust differ from those of an active man of theworld. It is useless to attempt to deny such


29/192

Origin of the Veddnta. 1 7

facts. We know them all from the time whenwe first emerge from the happy unconsciousnessof a child s faith, and have to struggle with important facts that press upon us from all sides,from history, from science, and from a knowledgeof the world and of ourselves. After recoveringfrom these struggles man generally takes hisstand on certain convictions which he believesthat he can honestly hold and honestly defend.There are certain questions which he thinks aresettled once for all and never to be opened again ;there are certain arguments to which he will noteven listen, because, though he has no answer tothem, he does not mean to yield to them. Butwhen the evening of life draws near and softensthe lights and shades of conflicting opinions, whento agree with the spirit of truth within becomes fardearer to a man than to agree with the majorityof the world without, these old questions appealto him once more, like long-forgotten friends ;he learns to bear with those from whom formerlyhe differed ; and while he is willing to part withall that is non-essential and most religious differences seem to arise from non-essentials he

c


30/192

1 8 The Veddnta Philosophy.

clings all the more firmly to the few strong andsolid planks that are left to carry him into theharbour, no longer very distant from his sight.It is hardly credible how completely all otherreligions have overlooked these simple facts, howthey have tried to force on the old and wise thefood that was meant for babes, and how theyhave thereby alienated and lost their best andstrongest friends. It is therefore a lesson, all themore worth learning from history, that one religionat least, and one of the most ancient, most powerful,and most widely spread religions, has recognisedthis fact without the slightest hesitation.

The Four Stages of Life.According to the ancient canons of the Brah-

manic faith, each man has to pass through threeor four stages. The first is that of discipline,which lasts from childhood to the age of manhood. During these years the young man issent away from home to the house of a teacheror Guru, whom he is to obey implicitly, and toserve in every way, and who in return has toteach him all that is necessary for life, and more


31/192


particularly the Veda and what pertains to hisreligious duties. During all that time the pupilis supposed to be a mere passive recipient, alearner and believer.Then follows the second stage, the stage of

manhood, during which a man has to marry, torear a family, and perform all those duties whichare prescribed for a householder in the Veda andthe Law-books. During these two periods nodoubt is ever hinted as to the truth of theirreligion, or the binding form of the law whicheverybody has to obey.

But with the third period, which begins whena man s hair has turned white, and he has seenthe children of his children, a new life opens,during which the father of the family may leavehis home and his village and retire into theforest with or without his wife. During thatperiod he is absolved from the necessity of performing any sacrifices, though he may or mustundergo certain self-denials and penances, someof them extremely painful. He is then allowedto meditate with perfect freedom on the greatproblems of life and death. And for that pur-c 2


32/192

2O The Veddnta Philosophy.

pose he is expected to study the Upanishads,contained in the Ara?zyakas or Forest-books, orrather, as books did not yet exist, he is expectedto learn their doctrines from the mouth of aqualified teacher. In these Upanishads not onlyare all sacrificial duties rejected, but the verygods to whom the ancient prayers of the Vedawere addressed, are put aside to make room forthe One Supreme Being, called Brahman 1.

Kelation of the Soul (Atman) to Brahman (theParama-atman).

The same Upanishads had then to explainthe true relation between that Brahman, theSupreme Being, and the soul of man. The soulof man was called Atman, literally the self, also(^ivcltman, the living self; and after the substantial unity of the living or individual self withthe Supreme Being or Brahman had been discovered, that Brahman was called the HighestSelf or Parama-atman. These terms Brahman

1 Brahman as a neuter is paroxytone, as a masculine oxytone,Brahman.


33/192

Origin of the Veddnta. 2 1

and Atman, Îvatman and Paramatman haveto be carefully remembered in order to understand the Vedanta philosophy. Self, you willperceive, is a far more abstract name thansoul, but it is meant to express what othernations have expressed by less abstract terms,such as soul, anima, ^xn or -rrvevâ. Every oneof these names has still something left of itsoriginal predicative power, such as moving orbreathing, while atman, self, before it was chosenas a name for soul, had become a mere pronoun,free from any metaphorical taint, and assertingnothing beyond existence or self-existence.These terms were not new technical terms

coined by philosophers. Some of them are veryold terms which occur in the oldest Vedic compositions, in the hymns, the Brahmaâs, andfinally in the Upanishads.The etymological, that is the original, mean

ing of Brahman is doubtful, and it would takeup too much of our time at present, wereI to attempt to examine all the explanationsof it which have been proposed by Indian andEuropean scholars. I hope to return to it


34/192


afterwards l . For the present I can only saythat Brahman seems to me to have meantoriginally what bursts forth or breaks forth,whether in the shape of thought and word, orin the shape of creative power or physical force.The etymology of atman also is difficult, and

this very difficulty shows that both these words,brahman and atman, are very ancient, and, fromthe point of view of historical Sanskrit, belongto a prehistoric layer of Sanskrit. But whateverwas the etymological meaning of itman, whetherbreath or anything else, it had, in the Vedaalready, become a mere pronoun ; it meant self,just like the Latin ipse, and it was after it meantipse, that it was used to express the ipseitas ofman, the essence or soul of man, and likewiseof God.

Unsystematic Character of the Upanishads.

We can watch the growth of these thoughtsin the Upanishads, and their more systematictreatment in the Vedanta-sutras. When we read

1 See infrat p. 149.


35/192

Origin of the Veddnta. 23

the Upanishads, the impression they leave onour mind is that they are sudden intuitions orinspirations, which sprang up here and there, andwere collected afterwards. And yet there issystem in all these dreams, there is a commonbackground to all these visions. There is evenan abundance of technical terms used by differentspeakers so exactly in the same sense, that onefeels certain that behind all these lightning-flashesof religious and philosophical thought there isa distant past, a dark background of which weshall never know the beginning. There arewords, there are phrases, there are whole linesand verses which recur in different Upanishads,and which must have been drawn from a commontreasury; but we receive no hint as to who collected that treasury, or where it was hidden, andyet accessible to the sages of the Upanishads.

This name of Upanishad means etymolo-gically sitting near a person, the French stanceor session, and these Upanishads may representto us the outcome of sittings or gatheringswhich took place under the shelter of mightytrees in the forests, where old sages and their


36/192


37/192


Growth of Keligious and Philosophic Thoughtbefore the Upanishads.

There are indeed a few traces left of a previousgrowth in the spiritual life of the Brahmans, andwe must dwell for a moment on these antecedentsof the Upanishads, in order to understand thepoint from whence the Vedanta philosophersstarted. I have often pointed out that the realimportance, nay the unique character of the Vedawill always be, not so much its purely chronological antiquity, great though it be, as theopportunity which it affords us of watching theactive process of the fermentation of early thought.

We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelationof Deity, the first expressions of surprise andsuspicion, the first discovery that behind thisvisible and perishable world there must be something invisible, imperishable, eternal or divine.No one who has read the hymns of the Rig-vedacan doubt any longer as to what was the originof the earliest Aryan religion and mythology.Nearly all the leading deities of the Veda bear theunmistakable traces of their physical character.


38/192


Their very names tell us that they were in thebeginning names of the great phenomena ofnature, of fire, water, rain and storm, of sunand moon, of heaven and earth. Afterwards,we can see how these so-called deities and heroesbecame the centres of mythological traditions,wherever the Aryan speakers settled, whetherin Asia or in Europe. This is a result gainedonce for all, and this light has shed its rays farbeyond the Vedic mythology and religion,

andlightened up the darkest corners in the historyof the mythological and religious thoughts of theother Aryan nations, nay of nations unconnectedby their language with the speakers of Aryanspeech.

In the same way the growth of the divineidea is laid bare in the Veda as it is nowhere else. We see before our eyes who thebright powers of heaven and earth were thatbecame the Devas, the Bright ones, or the Gods,the deities of other countries. We see how theseindividual and dramatic deities ceased to satisfytheir early worshippers, and we find the incipientreasoners postulating One God behind all the


39/192


deities of the earliest pantheon. As early a writeras Ydska about 500 B.C. has formed to himselfa systematic theology, and represents all theVedic deities as really three, those like the Fire,whose place is on earth, those like Indra, whoseplace is in the air, and those like the Sun,whose place is in the sky; nay he declares thatit is owing to the greatness of the deity that theone Divine Self is celebrated as if it were many *.

Belief in one God.We see, however, in the ancient hymns already,say 1500 B.C., incipient traces of this yearningafter one God. The gods, though separateindividualities, are not represented as limitedby other gods, but each god is for the timebeing implored as supreme, a phase of religiousthought, which has been described by the name ofHenotheism, as distinguished from the ordinary

1 The same ideas are well summed up in one of the Upani-shads (Brz"h. Ar. Up. Ill, 9), where we are told that there wereat first more than three thousand and three hundred gods, butthat they were reduced to 33, to 6, to 3, to 2, to i^, and at lastto one, which One is the breath of life, the Self, and his nameis That.


40/192


Polytheism. Thus one of the Vedic gods, Indra,the god of the air, is called Visvakarman, theMaker of all things, while the Sun (Savitar) isinvoked as Pra^apati, the Lord of all livingbeings. In some places this One as a neuter,is called the great Divinity of all the gods, mahatdevanam asuratvam ekam (R.V. Ill, 55, i).These were indeed giant strides, and we can

watch them clearly in different parts of the Veda,from the simplest invocations of the unknownagents behind sun and moon, heaven and earth,to the discovery of the One God, the Maker ofheaven and earth, the Lord and Father, and lastlyto the faith in one Divine Essence (Brahman), ofwhich the Father or Maker of all things is whatthey call the pratika or face, or manifestation or,as we should say, the persona, the mask, theperson.

This was the final outcome of religious thought,beginning with a most natural faith in invisiblepowers or agents behind the startling drama ofnature, and ending with a belief in One GreatPower, the unknown, or rather the unseen God,worshipped, though ignorantly worshipped, through


41/192


many years by the poets of the Vedic age. It wasthis treasure of ancient religious thought whichthe sages of the Upanishads inherited from theirforefathers, and we shall now have to see whatuse they made of it, and how they discoveredat last the true relation between what we callthe Divine or the Infinite, as seen objectively innature, and the Divine or the Infinite as perceivedsubjectively in the soul of man. We shall thenbe better able to understand how they erectedon this ancient foundation what was at the sametime the most sublime philosophy and the mostsatisfying religion, the Vedanta.

Two Forms of the Vedanta.When we speak of Vedanta philosophy we

must distinguish between two forms in which wepossess it. We possess it in an unsystematic form,nay as a kind of wild growth in the Upanishads,and we have it once more, carefully elaborated,and fully systematized in the Vedanta-sutras.These Sutras are ascribed to Badaraya/za \

1 This Vyasa Badarayawa can hardly be, as Weber and others


42/192

3O The Vedanta Philosophy.

whose date, as usual, is disputed. They do notform a book, in our sense of the word, for theyare really no more than headings containing thequintessence of the Vedanta philosophy. Bythemselves they would be completely unintelligible, but if learnt by heart, as they were and stillare, they would no doubt form a very usefulthread through the labyrinth of the Vedanta.By the side of these Sutras, however, there mustalways have existed a body of oral teaching, andit was probably this traditional teaching whichwas gathered up at last by .Sankara, the famousteacher of the Vedanta, in his so-called commentary or Bhashya on the Sutras. That Bhashya,however, so far from being a mere commentary,may in fact be regarded as the real body of theVedanta doctrines, to which the Sutras form nomore than a useful index. Yet these Sutras mustsoon have acquired an independent authority, for

supposed, the same as the Vyasa Dvaipayana, the reputed authorof the Mahabharata. The character of their works is different,and so are their names. Badarayarca, the author of the Brahma-sutras, is generally

referred to about 400 A.D., though withoutvery conclusive evidence.


43/192


they were interpreted in different ways by differentphilosophers, by 6ankara, by Ramanuâ 1 , Madhva,Vallabha, and others, who became the foundersof different Veddnta 2 sects, all appealing to theSutras as their highest authority.The most extraordinary feature of this Vedanta

philosophy consists, as I remarked before, in itsbeing an independent system of philosophy, yet

1 We are told in the Sarvadar-rana-sangraha (p. 80, transl.Cowell) that Ramanuâ, who lived in the twelfth century, foundthe previous commentary composed by Bodhayana too prolix,and therefore composed his own. Ramanuâ says so himselfin his *$ribhashya, and informs us that other teachers beforehim had done the same (Ved.-sutras, transl. Thibaut, vol. i,p. xxi). If the Vrzttikara against whom some of Sahkara sremarks are said to be intended is the same Bodhayana, hisdate would be previous at least to 700 A.D.

2 In some cases the different expositors of the Vedanta-sutrasdo actual violence to the text. Thus in I, i, 15 the text of theSutras is Vikara-âbdan na iti /en na pra. We meet even inthe Upanishads themselves with discussions provoked by these contradictory statements andintended to reconcile them, as when we read inthe AMnd. Up. VI, 27, ttut how could thatwhich is, be born of that which is not ? No,my son, that only which is, was in the beginning,one only, without a second */ But while in theUpanishads these various guesses at truth seemthrown out at haphazard, they were afterwardswoven together with wonderful patience and ingenuity 2. The uniform purpose running throughall of them, was clearly brought out, and a systemof philosophy was erected out of such diversematerials, which is not only perfectly coherent,but quite clear and distinct on almost every pointof doctrine. Though here and there the SCitrasadmit of divergent interpretations, no doubt isleft on any important point of Ankara s philosophy ; which is more than can be said of anysystem of philosophy from the days of Plato tothe days of Kant.

1 See Taitt. Up. II, 7, Sacred Books of the East, xv, p. 58.*See Vedanta-sfttras I, 4, 14-15.D 2


48/192


Moral Preparation for the Study of the Vedanta.The study of philosophy in India was not only

an integral part of the religion of the Brahmans,but it was based from the very beginning on amoral foundation. We saw already that no onewas admitted to the study of the Upanishads whohad not been properly initiated and introduced bya qualified teacher, and who had not fulfilledthe duties, both civil and religious, incumbent ona householder. But even that was not enough.No one was supposed to be fit for true philosophical speculation who had not completelysubdued his passions. The sea must no longerbe swept by storms, if it is to reflect the lightof the sun in all its divine calmness and purity.Hence, even the hermit in the forest was expectedto be an ascetic, and to endure severe penancesas a help for extinguishing all the passions thatmight disturb his peace. And it was not onlythe body that had to be subdued and hardenedagainst all external disturbances such as heatand cold, hunger and thirst. Six things had to


49/192


be acquired by the mind, namely tranquillity *,restraint, self-denial, long-suffering, collectedness,and faith. It has been thought 2 that this quietness is hardly the best outfit for a philosopher, who, according to our views of philosophy,is to pile Ossa on Pelion in order to storm thefortress of truth and to conquer new realms inearth and heaven. But we must remember thatthe object of the Vedanta was to show that wehave really nothing to conquer but ourselves, thatwe possess everything within us, and that nothingis required but to shut our eyes and our heartsagainst the illusion of the world in order to findourselves richer than heaven and earth. Evenfaith, ^raddha 3, which has given special offenceas a requisite for philosophy, because philosophy,according to Descartes, ought to begin with deomnibus dubitare^ has its legitimate place in theVedanta philosophy, for, like Kant s philosophy,it leads us on to see that many things are beyond

1 *Sama, Dama, Uparati (often explained as relinquishmentof all sacrificial duties), Titikshd, Samadhi, -Sraddha.

2 Deussen, System, p. 85.3 It is left out in some texts.


50/192


the limits of human understanding, and must beaccepted or believed, without being understood.How seriously and religiously philosophy wastaken up by the Vedantists, we see from what areconsidered the essential requisites of a true philosopher. He ought to have surrendered all desirefor rewards in this life or in the life to come.He ought therefore never to dream of acquiringwealth, of founding a school, of gaining a namein history ; he ought not even to think of anyrecompense in a better life. All this may soundvery unreal, but I cannot help thinking that inancient India these things were real, for whyshould they have been imagined ? Life was asyet so simple, so unartificial, that there was noexcuse for unrealities. The ancient Brahmansnever seem to pose they hardly had a publicto pose to. There were no other nations to watchthem, or if there were, they were barbarians in theeyes of the Brahmans, and their applause wouldhave counted for nothing. I do not mean to saythat the ancient Hindu philosophers were madealtogether of a better stuff than we ourselves.I only mean that many of the temptations to which


51/192


our modern philosophers succumb, did not existin the days of the Upanishads. Without wishingto draw any disparaging comparisons, I thoughtit necessary to point out some of the advantageswhich the ancient thinkers of India enjoyed intheir solitude, in order to account for the extraordinary fact that after 2,000 years their works arestill able to rivet our attention, while with us, inspite of advertisements, of friendly and unfriendlyreviews, the philosophical book of the season isso often the book of one season only. In Indiathe prevailing philosophy is still the Vedanta, andnow that printing of ancient Sanskrit texts hasset in and become profitable, there are more neweditions published of the Upanishads and 6ankarain India 1 , than of Descartes and Spinoza inEurope. Why is that ? I believe much of theexcellency of the ancient Sanskrit philosophersis due to their having been undisturbed by thethought of there being a public to please or criticsto appease. They thought of nothing but the

1 See Catalogues of Sanskrit Books in the British Museum,by Haas and Bendall, s.v. Badarayaa.


52/192


workthey

had determined to do : their one ideawas to make it as perfect as it could be made.There was no applause they valued, unless itcame from their equals or their betters; publishers, editors, and log-rollers did not yet exist.Need we wonder then that their work was doneas well as it could be done, and that it has lastedfor thousands of years ? The ancient Upanishadsdescribe the properly qualified student of philosophy in the following words (Brzh. Up. IV, 4,23): He therefore who knows the Self, afterhaving become quiet, subdued, satisfied, patient,and collected, sees self in Self, sees all as Self.Evil does not overcome him, he overcomes allevil. Evil does not burn him, he burns all evil.Free from evil, free from spots, free from doubt,he becomes a true Brahma^a/

Mistrust in the Evidence of the Senses.Another essential requisite for a student of

philosophy was the power to distinguish betweenwhat is eternal and what is not. This distinction lies no doubt at the root of all philosophy.


53/192


Philosophy begins when men, after having gazedon the world, suddenly stare and start, and ask,What art thou? There are minds perfectlysatisfied with things as they appear, and quiteincapable of apprehending anything except whatis visible and tangible. They would hardly knowwhat is meant by anything invisible or eternal,least of all could they bring themselves to believethat what is invisible is alone real and eternal,while what is visible is by its very nature unrealor phenomenal only, changeable, perishable, andnon-eternal. And yet they might have learntfrom St. Paul (2 Cor. iv. 18) that the thingswhich are seen are temporal ; but the thingswhich are not seen, eternal. To the Brahmansto be able to mistrust the evidence of the senseswas the very first step in philosophy, and theyhad learnt from the remotest times the lessonthat all secondary, nay all primary qualities also,are and can be subjective only. In later timesthey reduced these ancient philosophical intuitionsto a system, and they reasoned them out with anexactness which may well excite our surprise andadmiration.


54/192


Metaphorical Language of the Upanishads.In the earliest period of philosophic thought,

however, which is represented to us by some ofthe Upanishads, they were satisfied with propheticvisions, and these were often expressed in pregnant metaphors only. The phenomenal worldwas to them like the mirage of the desert,visible, but unreal, exciting thirst, but neverquenching it. The terror of the world was likethe fright occasioned by what seemed a snakein the dark, but in the light of day or of truth,proved to be a rope only. If asked why theInfinite should be perceived by us as qualified,they answered : Look at the air in the sky, it isnot blue; yet we cannot help seeing it as blue.If asked how the One Infinite Being, the Onewithout a Second, could appear as many in thisworld, they said : Look at the waves of the sea,and the ripples in the rivers and the lakes: inevery one there is the sun reflected a thousandfold yet we know that there is but one sun,though our eyes cannot bear its great glory andits dazzling light.


55/192


It is interesting, however, to observe howcarefully 6ankara guards against the abuse ofmetaphorical illustration. He knows that omnesimile claudicat. An illustrative simile, he says,very truly, is meant to illustrate one point only,not all ; otherwise it would not be a simile.He goes on to remark that the comparison ofBrahman or the Highest Self, as reflected inthe variety of this universe, with the sun or moon,as reflected in the water, may seem not quiteadmissible, because the sun has a certain form,and comes in contact with the water which isdifferent from it and at a distance from it. Herewe can understand that there should be an imageof the sun in the water. But the Atman or theHighest Self has no form, and as it is presenteverywhere and all is identical with it, there areno limiting conditions different from it. But hecontinues, if therefore it should be objected thatthe two instances are not parallel, we answer :The parallel instance (of the sun s reflection in

the water) holds good, since one common featurewith reference to which alone the comparison isinstituted does exist. Whenever two things are


56/192


compared, they are so with reference to some particular point only which they are thought to havein common. Entire equality between two thingscan never be demonstrated ; indeed if it could bedemonstrated, there would be an end of thatparticular relation which gives rise to a comparison/ .Sankara therefore was fully aware ofthe dangerous nature of comparisons which haveoften done so much mischief in philosophical andreligious discussions, by being extended beyondtheir proper limits. But even then he is not yetsatisfied. He seems to say, I am not answerablefor the comparison ; it occurs in the Veda itself,and whatever occurs in the Veda, must be right.This shows that even a belief in literal inspirationis not a new invention. He then adds that thespecial feature on which the comparison rests isonly the participation c in the increase and decrease/What he means is that the reflected image ofthe sun expands, when the surface of the waterexpands, and contracts when the water contracts ;that it trembles when the water trembles, anddivides when the water is divided. It thusparticipates in all the attributes and conditions


57/192


of the water ; while the real sun remains all thetime the same. Similarly the Brahman, theSupreme Being, although in reality uniform andnever changing, participates, as it were, in theattributes and states of the body and the otherlimiting conditions (or upad his) within which itabides ; it grows with them as it were, decreaseswith them as it were, and so on. Hence, astwo things compared possess certain features incommon, no valid objection can be made to thecomparison.

This will show you that, however poetical andsometimes chaotic the language of the Upanishadsmay be, 6arikara, the author of the great commentary on the Vedanta-sutras, knows how toreason accurately and logically, and would be ableto hold his own against any opponent, whetherIndian or European.There is another well-known simile in the

Upanishads, intended to illustrate the doctrinethat Brahman is both the material and the efficientcause of the world, that the world is made notonly by God, but also of God. How can that be ?the pupil asks, and his teacher answers : Look at


58/192


the spider who with the utmost intelligence drawsthe threads of its wonderful net out of its ownbody/ What he meant was of course no morethan an illustration that should help his pupilto understand what was meant by Brahman beingat the same time the material and the efficientcause of the web of the created world. But whathas been the consequence ? Some of the earliestmissionaries related that the god of the Brahmanswas a large black spider sitting in the centre ofthe universe, and creating the world by drawingit out like threads from its own body.

Comparisons, you see, are dangerous things,unless they are used cautiously, and though theUpanishads abound with poetical metaphors weshall see that no one could have availed himselfof these philosophical similes with greater cautionthan 6ankara, the author of the classical work onthe Vedanta philosophy.


59/192

LECTURE II.THE SOUL AND GOD.

Extracts from the Upanishads. I. From theKaMa Upanishad.

I SHALL to-day give you first of all a fewspecimens of the style in which the Upanishadsare written.

In one of the Upanishads we read of a fatherwho glories in having made a complete and perfectsacrifice by surrendering all that he could call hisown, to the gods. Thereupon his son, his onlyson, seems to have taunted him with not havingsacrificed him also to the gods. This has beenconsidered as a survival of human sacrifices inIndia, just as Abraham s willingness to sacrificeIsaac has been accepted as a proof of the formerexistence of similar sacrifices among the Hebrews.It may be so, but nothing is said in our case ofa real killing of the son. After the father hassaid that he would give his son to Death, we find


60/192


at once that the son has entered the abode ofDeath (Yama Vaivasvata), and that, in the absenceof Death, there is no one to receive him with thehonours due to a Brahman. Hence when the lordof the Departed, Yama, returns after three daysabsence, he expresses his regret, and offers theyoung man three boons to choose. The youngphilosopher asks first that his father may not beangry with him, when he returns (so he evidentlymeans to return to

life),and secondly that he mayacquire the knowledge of certain sacrificial acts

which lead to happiness in Paradise. But for thethird boon he will accept nothing but a knowledgeof what becomes of man after death. There isthat doubt/ he says, when a man is dead, somesaying, he is; others, he is not. This I shouldlike to know, taught by thee, this is the third ofmy boons.Yama, the god of death, declines to answerthat question, and tempts the young man with

every kind of gift, promising him wealth, beautifulwomen, a long life, and pleasures of every kind.But his guest resists and says (I, 26): Thesethings last till to-morrow, O Death, and they wear


61/192

The Soul and God. 49

out the vigour of our senses. Even the whole ofour life is short. Keep thy horses, keep danceand song for thyself. No man can be made happyby wealth. Shall we possess wealth, when we seethee, O Death ?

In the end Death has to yield. He haspromised the three boons, and he must fulfil hispromise. All this throws a bright light on thestate of life and the state of thought in India, say3,000 years ago. For although all this is poetry,we must remember that poetry always presupposesreality, and that no poets could have successfullyappealed to human sympathy, unless they hadstruck chords which could vibrate in response.Then Yama says : After pondering on allpleasures that are or seem delightful, thou hast

dismissed them all. Thou hast not gone into theroad that leadeth to wealth, by which many go todestruction. Fools dwelling in darkness, wise intheir own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round, staggering to and fro,like blind men led by the blind. The Hereafternever rises before the eyes of the thoughtlesschild, deluded by the delusion of wealth.

" ThisE


62/192


is the world," he thinks, "there is no other" andthus he falls again and again under my swaythe sway of death.

After Yama has convinced himself that hisyoung Brahman guest has subdued all passions,and that neither sacrifice nor faith in the ordinarygods, nor hope for happiness in heaven, will satisfyhim, he begins to indicate to him the true natureof the Brahman, which forms the eternal realityof the world, in order to lead him on to see theoneness of his soul, that is, of his self with Brahman ; for this, according to the Upanishads, istrue immortality. The Self/ he says, smallerthan small, greater than great, is hidden in theheart of the creature. A man who is free fromdesires and free from grief, sees the majesty ofthe Self by the grace of the Creator V

1 It is very tempting to read dhatuprasadat, and to translatefrom the quieting of the elements/ taking elements in the

sense of the three Gu;zas, sattvam, ra^as, and tamas ; see (rabalaUp. IV. But the same expression dhatu^ prasadat occurs againin the Svetajvatara Upanishad III, 20 and in the Mahanaray.Up. VIII, 3 ; while the compound dhatuprasada does not occurin the Upanishads, nor is prasada ever used of the equalisationof the guwas, but constantly of the favour or grace of personalbeings (Lrvara, &c.).


63/192


That Self cannot be gained by the Veda norby understanding, nor by much learning. Hewhom the Self chooses, by him the Self can begained. The Self chooses him as his own.

This idea that the knowledge of Self does notcome by study nor by good works, but by the graceor the free choice of the Self, is familiar to theauthors of the Upanishads, but it is not the same aswhat was called before the grace of the Creator.Then he goes on : * No mortal lives by the

breath that goes up and by the breath that goesdown, what we should call the breath of life.We live by another, in whom these two repose.Here we see that the Brahmans had clearlyperceived the difference between the organic lifeof the body, and the existence of the Self,a difference which many philosophers of muchlater times have failed to perceive.And again : He, the highest Person, who is

awake in men 1 while they are asleep, shapingone lovely sight after another, that indeed is the

1 It would introduce a thoroughly modern idea to translateThe spirit who watches over those who sleep. Nor does

atyeti mean * to escape/ E 2


64/192


Bright,that is Brahman, that alone is called the

Immortal. All worlds are contained in it, and noone goes beyond/

As the one fire, after it has entered the world,though one, becomes like unto every form which ittakes (like unto whatever it burns), thus the oneSelf within all things becomes different, accordingto whatever it enters,- but it exists also without/

* As the sun, the eye of the whole world, is notcontaminated by the external impurities seen bythe eyes, thus the one Self within all things isnever contaminated by the misery of the world,being himself without/

Here you see the transcendent character ofthe Self maintained, even after it has becomeincarnate, just as we hold that God is present inall things, but also transcends them (Westcott,St. John, p. 1 60). Again, he says : There is oneruler, the Self within all things, who makes theone form manifold. The wise who perceive himwithin their self or soul, to them belongs eternalhappiness, not to others/

* His form is not to be seen, no one beholdshim with the eye. He is imaged by the heart.


65/192


by wisdom, by the mind. Those who know thisare immortal/

It is remarkable how little the mind of theauthor of this Upanishad, whoever he may havebeen, is concerned with anything like proving theimmortality of the soul by arguments. And thesame applies to the religions of most of theancient people of the world, nay, even to the religions of savage and uncivilized races with whoseopinions concerning the soul and its fate afterdeath we are acquainted. No attempt is evermade to collect arguments in support of the soul simmortality, for the simple reason, it would seem,that though there was undeniable evidence of thedecay and final decomposition of the body, nothinglike the death of the soul had ever come withinhuman cognizance. The ideas as to the mannerof life which the soul would lead after death are,no doubt, often very childish and imperfect, butthe idea that the soul would come to a completeend after the death of the body, the most childishand imperfect of all ideas, belongs decidedly toa later age. Like other sacred writings, theUpanishads also indulged in the most fanciful


66/192


descriptions of the abode of the soul after death,and their conceptions of the happiness or un-happiness of the departed spirits are hardlysuperior to those of the Greeks. It may havebeen the very fancifulness of these, descriptionsthat raised the doubts of more serious thinkers,and thus made them throw up their belief in thevulgar immortality of the souls, together withtheir old belief in Elysian fields and Isles of theBlessed. The Upanishads, however, adopt amuch wiser course. They do not argue againstthe popular belief, they leave the old belief asuseful to those who know no higher happinessthan an increase of the happiness which theyenjoyed in this life, and who, by good works, haddeserved the fulfilment of their human hopes andwishes. But they reserve a higher immortality,or rather the only true immortality, for those whohad gained a knowledge of the eternal Brahmanand of their identity with it, and who could aslittle doubt of their existence after death, as theydoubted of their existence before death. Theyknew that their true being, like that of Brahman,was without beginning and therefore without end,


67/192


and they were wise enough not to indulge in anyprophetic visions as to the exact form which theirfuture existence would assume. Immortality isrepresented as the result of knowledge. Manis immortal as soon as he knows himself, orrather his self, that is, as soon as he knows theeternal Self within him.The whole of this philosophy may be called the

common property of the ancient thinkers of India.It was natural enough that it should not havebeen taught to children or to people unfit as yetfor higher thought; but no person qualified bybirth and education was kept from it. All thatstrikes us is a certain reticence, even on the partof Death, when he is made to communicate hisknowledge to his young guest. We see that theteacher is fully aware of the high value of hisknowledge, and that he entrusts it to his pupilrather grudgingly, and as the most precious thinghe has to give.

II. From the Maitraya^a Upanishad.We shall see the same hesitation in another

episode taken from the Maitraya^a Upanishad.


68/192

56 The Vedanta Philosophy.

Here it is not a young Brahman, but an old kingwho had surrendered the crown to his son andretired into the forest to meditate on life anddeath. He there meets a wise hermit, and throwshimself at his feet, saying : * O Saint, I know notthe Self, thou knowest its essence. Teach it to me.Here also the teacher tells the king at firstthat what he asks is difficult to teach. But theking insists. What is the use of the enjoymentof pleasures/ he says, in this offensive, unsubstantial body a mere mass of bones, skin,sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears,phlegm, ordure, water, bile and slime ? What isthe need of the enjoyment of pleasures in thisbody which is assailed by lust, hatred, greed,delusion, fear, anguish, jealousy, separation fromwhat we love, union with what we do not love,hunger, thirst, old age, death, illness, grief andother evils ? We see that all is perishable, likethese insects, like herbs and trees, growing anddecaying. Mighty rulers of empires, wielders ofbows then follows a long list of names havebefore the eyes of their whole family surrenderedthe greatest happiness and passed on from this


69/192


world to the next. Great oceans have been driedup, mountains have fallen, even the pole-starmoves *, the ropes that hold the stars have beencut 2, the earth has been submerged 3 and thevery gods have fled from their places. In sucha world as this, what is the use of the enjoymentof pleasures, if he who has fed on them has toreturn again and again ! (You see here the fearof another life ; the fear, not of death, but ofbirth, which runs through the whole of Indianphilosophy.) * Deign therefore/ he says, to takeme out. In this world I am like a frog in a drywell. O Saint, thou art the way, thou art myway/Then follows the teaching, not, however, fromthe teacher s own mind, but as he himself had

been taught by another teacher, called Maitri.And Maitri, again, is not represented as what weshould call the author, but he also relates onlywhat had been revealed by Pra^apati, the lord of

1 Probably the earliest references to the procession of theequinoxes.

2 This may refer to shooting stars or to comets.8 This may refer to the tradition of a deluge.


70/192


creatures, to some other saints, the Valakhilyas.All this shows a distant historical background,and however fanciful some of the details mayseem to us, we get the impression that the lifedescribed in these Upanishads was a real life, thatin the very remotest times the settlers in thatbeautiful and over-fertile country were occupiedin reasoning out the thoughts which are recordedin the Upanishads, that they were really a raceof men different from us, different from any otherrace, that they cared more for invisible than forvisible things, and that kings and princes amongthem really descended from their thrones and lefttheir palaces, in order to meditate in the darkand cool groves of their forests, on the unsolvedproblems of life and death. At a much later timeGautama Buddha did the same, and it would becarrying historical scepticism too far were we todoubt his having been the son of a prince ornobleman who gave up his throne and everythinghe possessed, in order to become a philosopherand afterwards a teacher. When we see how hissuccess among the people depended on the veryfact of his having sacrificed crown and wealth,


71/192


wife and child, to become a Buddha and a saviour ;nay, when we see how one of the strongestreproaches addressed to him by the Brahmanswas that he, being a Kshatriya or nobleman,should have ventured to assume the office of aspiritual teacher, we can hardly doubt that we aredealing here with historical facts, however theymay have been embellished by his enthusiasticfollowers.

In our Upanishad the first question asked is :O Saint, this body is without intelligence, likea cart. By whom has this body been madeintelligent, and who is the driver of it ? ThenPra^apati answers that it is He who is standingabove, passionless amidst the objects of the world,endless, imperishable, unborn and independent,that it is Brahman that made this body intelligent and is the driver of it.Then a new question follows, namely, How

a being without passions and desires could havebeen moved to do this, and the answer is somewhat mythological, for we are told that Pra^apati(VLyva) stood alone in the beginning, that hehad no happiness when alone, and that medi-


72/192


tating on himself he created many creatures. Helooked on them and saw they were like stone,without understanding, and standing about likelifeless posts. He had no happiness, and thoughthe would enter into them that they might awake.This he achieved in his own peculiar way, andthen became the subjective principle within them,though he himself remained unmoved and un-defiled. Then follow physiological and psychological details, which we may pass over. Therefollow beautiful passages declaring the presenceof Brahman in the sun and in other parts ofnature ; but the end is always the same, thatHe who is in the fire, and He who is in theheart, and He who is in the sun, are all one andthe same/ and that he who knows this becomesone with the One (VI, 17). As birds and deerdo not approach a burning mountain, so sinsnever approach those who know Brahman/ Andagain (VI, 20), * Through the serenity of thisthought he kills all actions, good or bad ; his selfserene, abiding in the Self, obtains imperishablebliss/

Thoughts alone/ he says, cause the round


73/192


of a new birth and a new death ; let a mantherefore strive to purify his thoughts. Whata man thinks, that he is : this is the old secret x(VI, 34). If the thoughts of men were so fixedon the Eternal or Brahman, as they are on thethings of this world, who would not be freedfrom bondage ? When a man, having freed hismind from sloth, distraction, and unrest, becomesas it were delivered from his mind, that is thehighest point. Water in water, fire in fire, etherin ether, no one can distinguish them ; likewisea man whose mind has entered into the Eternal,into Brahman, obtains liberty/

*Sankara s Analysis of Subject and Object.We shall now have to see how wonderful asystem of philosophy has been built up withsuch materials by the author or authors of theVedanta Philosophy. Here the scattered fragments are carefully arranged and systematically

1 Exactly the same idea is expressed by Buddha in the firstverse of the Dhammapada (Sacred Books of the East, x, p. 3):All that we are is the result of what we have thought : it isfounded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts/


74/192


put together, one step follows after another, andthe thread of the argument is never broken orlost. The so-called Vedanta-sutras cannot betranslated, and if translated they would conveyas little sense as the different . headings inthe programme of my lectures. I shall try,however, to give you a specimen of the styleof 6ankara, to whom we owe the elaboratecommentary on these Sutras, and who is indeedthe principal representative of the Vedanta philosophy in the literary history of India. ButI must warn you that his style, though muchmore like the style of an ordinary book, is difficult to follow, and requires the same effort ofattention which we have to bestow on the intricate arguments of Aristotle or Kant.

As it is well known, 6arikara says, in the verybeginning of his work, that object and subject,which fall under the perception of We and You(or, as we should say, of the Ego and Non-Ego),are in their very essence opposed to each otherlike darkness and light, and that therefore onecannot take the place of the other, it follows allthe more that their attributes also cannot be


75/192


interchanged/ What he means is that subjectand object, or what falls under the names ofWe and You, are not only different from eachother, but diametrically opposed and mutuallyexclusive, so that what is conceived as theobject can never be conceived as the subject ofa sentence, and vice versa. We can never thinkor say We are You/ or You are We, norought we ever to substitute subjective for objective qualities. Thus, for instance, the You maybe seen and heard and touched, but the We orthe / can never be seen, heard, or touched. Itsbeing is its knowing, not its being known.

Having established this general proposition,6aiikara continues : Therefore we may concludethat to transfer what is objective, that is whatis perceived as You, the Non-Ego and its qualities, on what is subjective, that is what is perceived as We, the Ego, which consists of thought,or vice versa to transfer what is subjective onwhat is objective, must be altogether wrong. Asubject can never be anything but a subject,the object always remains the object.

Nevertheless/ he continues, it is a habit


76/192


inherent in human nature, a necessity of thought,we should call it, something which human naturecannot shake off, to say, combining what is true

This is a habit caused by a false apprehensionof subjects and predicates which are absolutelydifferent, and by not distinguishing one from theother, but transferring the essence and the qualities of the one upon the other/You can easily see that subject and object

are not used by ,5ahkara in their merely logicalsense, but that by subject he means what istrue and real, in fact the Self, whether divineor human, while objective means with him whatis phenomenal and unreal, such as the body withits organs, and the whole visible world. Combining the two, such statements as I am strongor I am weak, I am blind or I can see/ formthe false apprehension which, he admits, is inherent in human nature, but which neverthelessis wrong, and has to be weakened, and finallyto be destroyed by the Vedanta philosophy.Then follows a disquisition as to what is meant

by this act of transference whereby what is the


77/192


subject is made objective. All definitions seemto agree in this that this transference consists inimagining in one s mind or memory that onerecognises something seen before, but that onesees it somewhere else. As an illustration hegives the fact that some people mistake mother-of-pearl for silver, that is, transfer the essence andqualities seen in silver on mother-of-pearl. Oragain, that some people imagine they see twomoons, though they know perfectly well that thereis only one. In the same manner people imaginethat the living being or the ordinary Ego is thetrue subject or self, or that there are two realselves, the body and the soul, though there canbe only one, which is all in all. The nature ofthis transference which lies at the root of allmundane experience or illusion, is once moreexplained as taking a thing for what it is not,which is illustrated by a compassionate man saying it fares badly with him and that he ismiserable, though he himself is quite well, andit is his wife and children only who are suffering.In a similar way a man says that he is fat, or thin,that he moves, stands, or springs, that he does

F


78/192


anything, that he wishes for this or for that, whilein truth, he himself, that is, his true self, theideal subject, is only the witness of all this doingand wishing, the looker on, who is or ought to bequite independent of the various states of thebody.

In conclusion 6ankara sums up by saying thatall that is founded on this wrong transference orassumption, all in fact that we know and believeto be true, whether in science, or ordinary philosophy, or law, or anything else, belongs to therealm of Avidya or Nescience, and that it isthe aim of the Vedanta Philosophy to dispel thatNescience, and to replace it by Vidya, or trueknowledge.

This kind of reasoning may sound strange tous who are accustomed to quite a differentatmosphere of thought, but it contains nevertheless an important thought, and one that has never,so far as I know, been fully utilized by Europeanphilosophers, namely, the fundamental incompatibility between what is subjective and what isobjective ; nay, the impossibility of the subjectever becoming an object, or an object the subject.


79/192


Subject, with the Vedantists, is not a logical buta metaphysical term. It is, in fact, another namefor self, soul, spirit or whatever name has beengiven to the eternal element in man and God.European philosophers, whatever they mayhold about the soul, always speak of it as something that can be known and described, andtherefore may form a possible object. If theHindu philosopher is clear on any point it is this,that the subjective soul, the witness or knower,or the Self, can never be known as objective, butcan only be itself, and thus be conscious of itself.

,5ankara would never allow that the self or thesubject could be known as an object. We canonly know ourselves by being ourselves ; and ifother people think they know us, they know ourphenomenal self, our Ego only, never our subjective self, because that can never be anythingbut a subject; it knows, but it cannot be known.The same, if we imagine that we know others,what we know is what is visible, knowable, thatis the appearance, but never the all-pervading self.So again if we transfer to what is objective only,such as the sky, or a river, or a mountain, a sub-F 2


80/192


jective selfhood, we go wrong, we produce mythology and idolatry we gain false, not trueknowledge.When we say that the whole world is dividedinto a visible and an invisible world, into phenomena and nolimena, the Vedantist would say thatthere is a subjective and an objective world, andthat what is subjective in their sense of the wordcan never be perceived as objective nor vice versd.Psychologists may imagine that they can treatthe soul as an object of knowledge, dissect itand describe it. The Vedantist would say, thatwhat they dissect and weigh and analyse anddescribe is not the soul, in his sense of the word, itis not the subject, it is not the self in the highestsense of the word. What they call perception,memory, conception, what they call will and effort,all this, according to the Vedantist, is outside theself, and even in its most perfect and sublimemanifestations is nothing but the veil throughwhich the eternal self looks at the world. Of theself behind the veil, we can know nothing beyondthat it is, and this too we know in a way differentfrom all other knowledge. We know it by being


81/192


it, just as the sun may be said to shine by its ownlight, and by that light to lighten the wholeworld.The nearest approach to what Ankara means

by subject and object is found, I believe, inSchopenhauer s Wille and Vorstellung, his Willecorresponding to Brahman, or the subject of theworld, the only true reality, his Vorstellung tothe phenomenal world, as seen by us objectively,and to be recognised as unreal, changeable andperishable. These ideas are perfectly familiarto the authors of the Upanishads. With themtherefore true immortality consists simply andentirely in the self knowing his self. Thus in afamous dialogue 1 between Ya^/zavalkya and hiswife Maitreyl, who wishes to follow her husbandinto the forest and to learn from him what thesoul is, and what is immortality, Ya^/zavalkyasums up all he has to say in the following words :Verily, beloved one, the Self, i.e. the soul, isimperishable and of an indestructible nature.For, when there is, as it were, duality, then one

J Br/h. Ar. Upanishad IV, 6; S. B. E. xv, p. 185.


82/192


sees the other, one hears the other, one perceivesthe other, one knows the other. But when theSelf only is all this, how should he see another,how should he hear another, how should heperceive or know another? How should heknow Him, by whom he knows all ? ThatSelf can only be described by " No, no " (thatis by protesting against every attribute). ThatSelf is incomprehensible, he is imperishable,he is unattached, he is unfettered. How, Obeloved one, should he, the knower, know theknower ?Here is the critical point. How should the

knower know the knower ? or, as we should say,How can the soul know the soul ? He can onlybe the knower, he in whom subject and objectare one, or rather, in whom there is no distinctionbetween subject and object, between knowing andbeing known, whose very being is knowing andwhose knowing is being. As soon as the Self isconceived and changed into something objective,Nescience steps in, the illusory cosmic life begins,the soul seems to be this or that, to live andto die, while as a subject, it can be touched by


83/192


neither life nor death it stands aloof, it isimmortal. That is true immortality, as Ya^a-valkya said, and with these words he went awayinto the forest.

The Inheritance of the Vedanta.Let us now look back on what I called the

ancient inheritance of the Vedanta philosophers.We saw that they had inherited a concept, slowlyelaborated in the Vedic hymns and Brahma^as,that of Brahman, that is, that from which, as theVedanta-sutras say, the origin, subsistence anddissolution of this world proceed (Vedanta-sutrasI, 2). The only attributes of this Brahman, ifattributes they can be called, are that he is, thathe knows, and that he is full of bliss.

But if that is the highest concept of the SupremeBeing, of Brahman or of God in the highest sense,a concept, as they say, so high that speech turnsback from it, because with the mind it cannotreach it * ; if, as they say, it is unknown to thewise, but known to the foolish Cognoscendo

1 St. Augustine, De Doctr. Christ, i, 6 : Si autem dixi, nonest quod dicere volui/


84/192


ignoratur, Ignorando cognoscitur how was itpossible to reconcile this exalted concept withthe ordinary descriptions of Brahman, given inthe Veda, nay, in some portions of these veryUpanishads, as a creator, as a maker and rulerof the world ; nay, often as no more than anordinary deity ?

No Esoteric Vedanta.It has been supposed that the Vedanta con

sisted of two schools, an exoteric and esoteric,that the vulgar concept of Brahman was for theformer : the sublime concept for the latter.There is some truth in this, but it seems to meto import our European ideas into

India. InIndia the truth was open to all who thirstedfor it. Nothing was kept secret, no one wasexcluded from the temple, or rather the forest,of truth.

It is true that the lowest class, possibly theaboriginal inhabitants, were excluded. The casteof the .Sudras was not admitted to the educationprovided for the higher or the twice-born castes.To admit them to a study of the Veda would


85/192


have been like admitting naked savages to thelecture-room of the Royal Institution.And yet, in principle, even this exclusion was

wrong, and clearly in contradiction with the truespirit of the Vedanta, It is generally supposedthat the fourth caste, the .Sudras, were the aboriginal inhabitants, and racially distinct, therefore,from the Aryan conquerors. This may be so,though it has never been proved, and we knowthat even people of Aryan speech might lose allclaim to caste, and fall socially to as low a stageas the .Sudras ; nay, even to a lower stage.Badardya^a speaks also of people who, owing topoverty or other circumstances, stand betweenthe three upper castes and the .Sudras. And withregard to them, he distinctly states that they arenot to be excluded from the study of the Vedanta.The question whether real .Sudras are admissibleor not, has evidently exercised the minds of theVedantists to a considerable extent, but in theend they adhere to the principle of exclusion.And yet there are cases in the Upanishads whichseem to show that this spirit of exclusion was lessstrong in ancient times. We must not forget that


86/192


in one of the hymns of the Rig-veda the 6udrasare distinctly stated to have sprung from Brahmanlike the other castes. There are not wanting indications that they spoke the same language as theBrahmans. There are two cases, at least, inwhich the Upanishads seem to speak of 6udras asadmitted to the wisdom of the Vedanta, namelythose of (Sanamiti and Satyakama.The story of (Jana.sTuti is somewhat obscure, and

though (ranasruti is distinctly called a 6udra, thewhole character of the story would rather seemto indicate that he was a Kshatriya, and that whenRaikva called him a .Sudra, he used the word asa mere term of abuse. The Brahmans themselvestry by a forced etymology to show

that .Sudra inthis passage must not be taken in its technicalsense, but however that may be they agree thata real 6udra could not have been instructed inthe Vedanta. The story runs as follows :

i. There lived, once upon a time, 6anamitiPautraya;za (the great-grandson of ^ana^ruta),who was a pious giver, bestowing much wealthupon the people and always keeping open house.He built places of refuge everywhere, wishing


87/192


that people should everywhere eat of hisfood.

2. Once in the night some Ha/^sas (flamingoes)flew past, and one flamingo said to the other:" He ! Bhallaksha, Bhallaksha (short-sighted one),the light (glory) of (Sanamiti Pautraya^a, isspread like the sky. Do not touch it, that itmay not burn thee."

3. The other answered him : " How can youspeak of him, being what he is, as if he were likeRaikva with the car * ? "

4. The first replied : " How is it with thisRaikva with the car of whom thou speakest ? "

The other answered : " As (in a game of dice)all the lower casts belong to him who has conquered with the Krzta (the highest) cast, sowhatever good deeds others perform, all belongto that Raikva with the car. He who knows whathe knows, he is thus spoken of by me."

1 The text is certainly corrupt, but none of the emendations hitherto proposed is in the least satisfactory. It is easyto say what the text ought to be, but it is difficult to explainhow the text, if it ever was like what we think it ought tohave been, could have become what it is now, Hie Rhodes,hie salta 1


88/192


5. * ana.STuti Pautraya/za overheard this conversation, and as soon as he had risen in themorning, he said to his doorkeeper : " Thouspeakest, indeed, of me as if I were Raikva withthe car." He replied: "How is.it with thisRaikva with the car ?

"

6. The King said : " As (in a game of dice) allthe lower casts belong to him who has conqueredwith the Knta (the highest) cast, so whatevergood deeds others perform, all belong to thatRaikva with the car. He who knows what heknows, is thus spoken of by me."

7. The doorkeeper went to look for Raikva,but returned saying, " I found him not."

Then the King said : " Alas ! where a Brah-ma^a should be searched for (in the solitude ofthe forest), there go for him."

Three lectures on the Vedânta philosophy

Documents