Title Thumbnail & Hero Image: Two seers (one Greek and one Bharat) debated philosophical matters, developed on April 29, 2026.
1.008: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UPANIṢADS 1
First revision: Apr.29, 2026
Last change: Jun.22, 2026
Searched, gathered, rearranged, translated, and compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
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CHAPTER IV
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UPANIṢADS
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Introduction—The fluid and indefinite character of the teaching of the Upaniṣads—Western students of the Upaniṣads—Date—Early Upaniṣads—The great thinkers of the age—The hymns of the Ṛg-Veda and the doctrine of the Upaniṣads compared—Emphasis on the monistic side of the hymns—The shifting of the center from the object to the subject—The pessimism of the Upaniṣads—The pessimistic implications of the conception of saṁsāra—Protest against the externalism of the Vedic religion—Subordination of the Vedic knowledge—The central problems of the Upaniṣads—Ultimate reality—The nature of Ātman distinguished from body, dream consciousness and empirical self— The different modes of consciousness, waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep and ecstasy—The influence of the Upaniṣad analysis of self on subsequent thought —The approach to reality from the object side—Matter, life, consciousness, intelligence and ānanda— Śamkara and Rāmānuja on the status of ānanda—Brahman and Ātman-Tat tvam asi—The positive character of Brahman—Intellect and intuition—Brahman and the world—Creation—The doctrine of māyā-Deussen’s view examined—Degrees of reality—Are the Upaniṣads pantheistic?—The finite self—The ethics of the Upaniṣads—The nature of the ideal—The metaphysical warrant for an ethical theory—Moral life—Its general features—Asceticism—Intellectualism—Jñāna, Karma and Upāsana—Morality and religion—Beyond good and evil—The religion of the Upaniṣads—Different form—The highest state of freedom—The ambiguous accounts of it in the Upaniṣads—Evil—Suffering—Karma—Its value—The problem of freedom—Future life and immortality—Psychology of the Upaniṣads—Non-Vedāntic tendencies in the Upaniṣads—Sāṁkhya—Yoga—Nyāya—General estimate of the thought of the Upaniṣads—Transition to the epic period.
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I
THE UPANIṢADS
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The Upaniṣads1 form the concluding portions of the Veda, and are therefore called the Veda-anta, or the end of the Veda,
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1. The word Upaniṣads comes from upa ni sad, “sitting down near.” It means “sitting down near” the teacher to receive instruction. It gradually came to mean what we receive from the teacher, a sort of secret doctrine or rahasyam. Sometimes it is made to mean what enables us to destroy error, and approach truth. Śaṁkara, in his introduction to the Taittirīya Upaniṣads, says: “Knowledge of Brahman is called Upaniṣad because in the case of those who devote themselves to it, the bonds of conception, birth, decay, etc., become unloosed, or because it destroys them altogether, or because it leads the pupil very near to Brahman, or because therein the highest God is seated.” See Pandit, March 1872, p. 254.
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a denomination which suggests that they contain the essence of the Vedic teaching. They are the foundations on which most of the later philosophies and religions of India rest. “There is no important form of Hindu thought, heterodox Buddhism included, which is not rooted in the Upaniṣads.”1 Later systems of philosophy display an almost pathetic anxiety to accommodate their doctrines to the views of the Upaniṣads, even if they cannot father them all on them. Every revival of idealism in India has traced its ancestry to the teaching of the Upaniṣads. Their poetry and loftily idealism have not as yet lost their power to move the minds and sway the hearts of men. They contain the earliest records of Indian speculation. The hymns and the liturgical books of the Veda are concerned more with the religion and practice than the thought of the Aryans. We find in the Upaniṣads an advance on the Śaṁhita mythology, Brāhmaṇa hair-splitting, and even Āraṇyaka theology, though all these stages are to be met with. The authors of the Upaniṣads transform the past they handle, and the changes they effect in the Vedic religion indicate the boldness of the heart that beats only for freedom. The aim of the Upaniṣads is not so much to reach philosophical truth as to bring peace and freedom to the anxious human spirit. Tentative solutions of metaphysical questions are put forth in the form of dialogues and disputations, though the Upaniṣads are essentially the outpourings or poetic deliverances of philosophically tempered minds in the face of the facts of life. They express the restlessness and striving of the human mind to grasp the true nature of reality. Not being systematic philosophy, or the production of a single author, or even of the same age, they contain much that is inconsistent and unscientific;
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1. Bloomfield: The Religion of the Veda, p. 51.
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but if that were all, we cannot justify the study of the Upaniṣads. They set forth fundamental conceptions which are sound and satisfactory, and these constitute the means by which their own innocent errors, which through exclusive emphasis have been exaggerated into fallacious philosophies, can be corrected. Notwithstanding the variety of authorship and the period of time covered by the composition of these half-poetical and half-philosophical treatises, there is a unity of purpose, a vivid sense of spiritual reality in them all, which becomes clear and distinct as we descend the stream of time. They reveal to us the wealth of the reflective religious mind of the times. In the domain of intuitive philosophy, their achievement is a considerable one. Nothing that went before them for compass and power, for suggestiveness and satisfaction, can stand comparison with them. Their philosophy and religion have satisfied some of the greatest thinkers and intensely spiritual souls. We do not agree with Gough’s estimate that “there is little that is spiritual in all this,” or that “this empty intellectual conception, void of spirituality, is the highest form that the Indian mind is capable of.” Professor J.S. Mackenzie, with truer insight, says that “the earliest attempt at a constructive theory of the cosmos, and certainly one of the most interesting and remarkable, is that which is set forth in the Upaniṣads.”1
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II
THE TEACHING OF THE UPANIṢADS
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It is not easy to decide what the Upaniṣads teach. Modern students of the Upaniṣads read them in the light of this or that preconceived theory. Men are so little accustomed to trusting their own judgment that they take refuge in authority and tradition. Though these are safe enough guides for conduct and life, truth requires insight and judgment as well. A large mass of opinion inclines today to the view of Śaṁkara, who in his commentaries on the Upaniṣads,
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1. E.R.E., vol. viii., p.597; see also Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upaniṣads, p. 2.
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Adi Shankaracharya and his disciples, a work by Raja Ravi Varma, around the mid-25th Buddhist century or early 20th century (1904 CE).
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara, accessed October 22, 2023.1.
the Bhagavad Gītā and the Vedānta Sūtras, has elaborated a highly subtle system of non-dualistic metaphysics. Another is equally vehement that Śaṁkara has not said the last word on the subject, and that a philosophy of love and devotion is the logical outcome of the teaching of the Upaniṣads. Different commentators, starting with particular beliefs, force their views into the Upaniṣads and strain their language so as to make it consistent with their own special doctrines. When disputes arise, all schools turn to the Upaniṣads. Thanks to the obscurity as well as the richness, the mystic haze as well as the suggestive quality of the Upaniṣads, the interpreters have been able to use them in the interests of their own religion and philosophy. The Upaniṣads had no set theory of philosophy or dogmatic scheme of theology to propound. They hint at the truth in life, but not as yet in science or philosophy. So numerous are their guesses at God, that almost anybody may seek in them what he wants and find what he seeks, and every school of dogmatics may congratulate itself on finding its own doctrine in the sayings of the Upaniṣads. In the history of thought, it has often happened that a philosophy has been victimized by a traditional interpretation that became established at an early date and has thereafter prevented critics and commentators from placing it in its proper perspective. The system of the Upaniṣads has not escaped this fate. Western interpreters have followed this or that commentator. Gough follows Śaṁkara’s interpretation. In his Preface to the Philosophy of the Upaniṣads, he writes: “The greatest expositor of the philosophy of the Upaniṣads is Śaṁkara or Śaṁkarācārya. The teaching of Śaṁkara himself is the natural and the legitimate interpretation of the philosophy of the Upaniṣads.”1 Max Müller adopts the same standpoint. “We must remember that the orthodox view of the Vedānta is not what we should call evolution, but illusion. Evolution of the Brahmana or pariṇāma is heterodox; illusion or vivarta is orthodox Vedānta. ...To put it metaphorically, the world according to the orthodox Vedāntin does not proceed from Brahman as a tree from a germ,
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1. P. viii
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But as a mirage from the rays of the sun.”1 Deussen accepts the same view. We shall try to ascertain the meaning which the authors of the Upaniṣads intended, and not what later commentators attributed to them. The latter gives us an approximately close idea of how the Upaniṣads were interpreted in later times, but not necessarily a true insight into the philosophic synthesis which the ancient seekers had. But the problem is, do the thoughts of the Upaniṣads hang together? Could all of them be traced to certain commonly acknowledged principles about the general make-up of the world? We are not so bold as to answer this question in the affirmative. These writings contain too many hidden ideas, too many possible meanings, too rich a mine of fancies and conjectures, that we can easily understand how different systems can draw their inspiration from the same source. The Upaniṣads do not contain any philosophic synthesis as such, of the type of the system of Aristotle or of Kant or of Śaṁkara. They have consistency of intuition rather than of logic, and there are certain fundamental ideas which, so to say, form the first sketch of a philosophic system. Out of these ideas, a coherent and consistent doctrine might be developed. It is, however, difficult to be confident that one’s working up of elements which knew neither method nor arrangement is the correct one, on account of the obscurity of many passages. Yet with the higher ideals of philosophic exposition in view, we shall consider the Upaniṣad ideas of the universe and of man’s place in it.
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III
NUMBER AND DATE OF THE UPANIṢADS
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The Upaniṣads are generally accounted to be 108 in number, of which about ten are the chief, on which Śaṁkara has commented. These are the oldest and the most authoritative. We cannot assign any exact date to them. The earliest of them are certainly pre-Buddhistic, and a few of them are after Buddha. It is likely that they were composed between the completion of the Vedic hymns and the rise of Buddhism (that is, the sixth century B.C.)
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1. S.B.E., vol. xv., p. xxvii.
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The accepted dates for the early Upaniṣads are 1000 B.C. to 300 B.C. Some of the later Upaniṣads on which Śaṁkara has commented are post-Buddhistic and belong to about 400 or 300 B.C. The oldest Upaniṣads are those in prose. These are non-sectarian. The Aitareya, the Kauṣītaki, the Taittirīya, the Chāndogya, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, and the part of the Kena are the early ones, while verses 1-13 of the Kena, and iv. 8-21 of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka form the transition to the metrical Upaniṣads and may be put down as later additions. The Kaṭhopaniṣad is later still. We find in it elements of the Sāṁkhya and the Yoga systems.1 It also quotes freely from the other Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā.2 The Māṇḍūkya is the latest of the pre-sectarian Upaniṣads. The Atharva-Veda Upaniṣads are also of later growth. Maitrāyaṇī Upaniṣad has elements in it of both the Sāṁkhya and the Yoga systems. The Śvetāśvatara was composed during a period when several philosophical theories were fermenting. It shows in many passages an acquaintance with the technical terms of the orthodox systems and mentions many of their prominent doctrines. It seems to be interested in presenting a theistic syncretism of the Vedānta, the Sāṁkhya, and the Yoga. There is more of pure speculation present in the early prose Upaniṣads, while in the later ones there is more of religious worship and devotion.3
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1. See ii. 18-19; ii. 6. 10 and 11.
2. See i. 2. 5; and Muṇḍaka, ii 8; i. 2-7, and Gītā, ii. 29; ii. 18-19, and ii. 19-20 and ii. 23, and Muṇḍaka, iii. 2-3, Gītā, i. 53. Some scholars are inclined to the view that the Kaṭha Upaniṣad is older than the Muṇḍaka and the Gītā.
3. Deussen arranges the Upaniṣads in the following order: -
1. Ancient prose Upaniṣads: Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Kauṣītaki, Kena (partly in prose).
2. Verse Upaniṣads; Īśa, Kaṭha, Muṇḍaka, and Śvetāśvatara.
3. Later prose: Praśna and Maitrāyaṇī.
All these, excepting the Maitrāyaṇī, are called the classical Upaniṣads.
About the Maitrāyaṇī, Professor Macdonell writes: Its many quotations from the other Upaniṣads, the occurrence of several later words, the developed Sāṁkhya doctrine presupposed by it, distinct references to the anti-Vedic heretical schools, all combine to render the late character of this work undoubted. It is, in fact, a summing up of the old Upaniṣadic doctrines with an admixture of ideas derived from the Sāṁkhya system and from Buddhism” (Sanskrit Literature, p.230).
Nṛsṁhottaratāpanīya is one of the twelve Upaniṣads explained by Vidyāraṇya in his “Sarvopaniṣadarthānubhūtiprakāśa.”
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In presenting the philosophy of the Upaniṣads, we shall take our stand mainly on the pre-Buddhistic ones and strengthen our views as derived from them by those of the post-Buddhistic ones. The main Upaniṣads for our purposes are the Chāndogya and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, the Taittirīya and the Aitareya, the Kauṣītaki and the Kena; the Īśa and the Māṇḍūkya come next.
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IV
THE THINKERS OF THE UPANIṢADS
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Unfortunately, we know very little of the lives of the great thinkers whose reflections are embodied in the Upaniṣads. So careless were they of personal fame and so anxious for the spread of truth, that they fathered their views on the honored deities and heroes of the Vedic period. Prajāpati and Indra, Nārada and Sanātkumāra figure as dialecticians. When the history of the great thinkers of the Upaniṣad period with their distinctive contributions comes to be written, the following names, if we leave aside the mythical ones, will stand out: Mahidāsa Aitareya, Raikva, Śāṇḍilya, Satyakāma Jābāla, Jaivali, Uddālaka, Śvetaketu, Bhāradvāja, Gārgyāyana, Pratardana, Bālāki, Ajātaśatru, Varuṇa, Yājñavalkya, Gārgī, and Maitreyī.1
A picture of the great sage Mahidāsa Aitareya, developed on June 16, 2026.
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शाण्डिल्य - Śāṇḍilya, source: www.reddit.com, access date: June 17, 2026.1.
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V
THE HYMNS OF THE ṚG-VEDA AND THE UPANIṢADS
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In view of the distinctive character of their contents, the Upaniṣads are regarded as a class of literature independent of the Vedic hymns and the Brāhmaṇas. The simple faith in the gods of the hymns was, as we saw, displaced by the mechanical sacerdotalism of the Brāhmaṇas. The Upaniṣads feel that the faith that ends in a church is not enough. They attempt to moralize the religion of the Vedas without disturbing its form.
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1. The interested reader will find a lucid account of these thinkers and their views in the excellent work of my (S. Radhakrishnan) friend and colleague, Dr. Barua, Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy.
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The advance of the Upaniṣads on the Vedas consists in an increased emphasis on the monistic suggestions of the Vedic hymns, a protest against the externalism of the Vedic practices, and an indifference to the sacredness of the Veda.
Amid all the confused ferment of Vedic devotions, a certain principle of unity and comprehension was asserting itself. In some hymns, the conception of a single central power was actually formulated. The Upaniṣads carry out this tendency. They recognize only one spirit, almighty, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, self-existent, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the world. He is the light, lord, and life of the universe, one without a second, and the sole object of worship and adoration. The half-gods of the Veda die, and the true God arrives. “How many gods are there really, O Yajñavalkya?” “One,” he said.1 “Now answer us a further question: Agni, Vāyu, Āditya, Kāla (time), which is breath (Prāṇa), Anna (food), Brahmā, Rudra, Viṣṇu. Thus do some mediate on him, some on another. Say which of these is the best for us?” And he said to them: “These are but the chief manifestations of the highest, the immortal, the incorporeal Brahman. … Brahman, indeed, is all this, and a man may meditate on, worship, or discard also those which are its manifestations.”2 The visible infinite (objective) and the invisible infinite (subjective) are taken up into the spiritual whole.
The polytheistic conceptions were too deeply rooted in the Indian consciousness to be easily overthrown. The many gods were subordinated to the One. Without Brahman, Agni cannot burn a blade of grass, Vāyu cannot blow a whip of straw. “For fear of him, the winds, the clouds, and death perform their office.”3 Sometimes the many gods are made parts of one whole. The five householders led by Uddālaka approach king Aśvapati, who asked each of them,
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1. Brh. Up., iii. 9.1.
2. Maitrāyaṇī Upaniṣad, iv. 5-6; see also Muṇḍaka, i. 1. 1; Taittirīya, i. 5; Bṛh., i. 4. 6; see also i. 4. 7; i. 4. 10.
3. Tait. Up.
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Whom do you meditate on as the Self? The first answered heaven; the second, the sun; the third, air; the fourth, ether; the fifth water; and the king replies that each of them worshipped only a part of the truth. (The Translation will start from here.) Heaven is the head, the sun the eye, the air the breath, the ether the trunk, the water the bladder, and the earth the feet of the central reality, which is pictured as the world-soul. Compromise between the philosophic faith of the few and the fancied superstition of the crowds is the only possible reconciliation; we cannot abolish the old forms, for that would be to ignore the fundamental nature of humanity, as well as the patent differences, in the moral and intellectual states of believers who were not capable of acquiring at once the highest wisdom. Another factor also determined the attitude of the Upaniṣads. Their aim was not science or philosophy, but right living. They wished to liberate the spirit from the trammels of the flesh, that it might enjoy communion with God. Intellectual discipline was subsidiary to holiness of life. Besides, there was the feeling of reverence for the past. The Vedic seers were the ancients of blessed memory, whose doctrines it was impious to attack. In this way the Upaniṣads sought to square a growing idealistic philosophy with the dogmas of a settled theology.
The sources of man’s spiritual insight are two-fold: objective and subjective—the wonders of the world without and the stress of the human soul. In the Vedas, the vast order and movement of nature engage attention. Their gods represent cosmic forces. In the Upaniṣads, we return to explore the depths of the inner world. “The self-existent pierced the openings of the senses so that they turn outwards; therefore, man looks outward, not inward into himself; some wise man, however, with his eyes closed and wishing for immortality, saw the self behind.”1 From the outward physical fact, attention shifts to the inner immortal self situated at the back of the mind, as it were. We need not look at the sky for the bright light; the glorious fire is within the soul. The soul of man is the keyhole to the landscape of the whole universe, the Ākāśa within the heart,
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1. Kaṭha Up., iv. i.
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the limpid lake which mirrors the truth. The altered outlook brought about a consequential change. Not the so-called gods, but the true living God, the Ātman, has to be worshipped. God’s dwelling-place is the heart of man. “Brahmaṇaḥ kośo’si,”1 Thou art the sheath of Brahman. “Whosoever worships another deity, in such a manner as he is another, another ‘I am,’ does not know.”2 The inner immortal self and the great cosmic power are one and the same. Brahman is the Ātman, and the Ātman is Brahman. The one supreme power through which the inmost self in each man’s heart.3 The Upaniṣads do not uphold the theory of grace in the same spirit as the Vedas do. We do not appeal to the Vedic gods, who were the sources of material prosperity for the increase of happiness, but only offer prayers for deliverance from sorrow.
The emphasis on sorrow is sometimes interpreted as indicating an extravagant pessimism on the part of the Indian ṛṣis. It is not so. The religion of the Vedas was certainly more joyous, but it was a lower form of religion, in which thought never penetrated beneath the husk of things. It was a religion expressing man's delight in being in a world full of pleasures. The gods were feared and also trusted. Life on earth was simple and sweet innocence. The spiritual longing of the soul rebukes light-hearted joyousness and provokes reflection on the purpose of man’s existence. Discontent with the actual is the necessary precondition of every moral change and spiritual rebirth. The pessimism of the Upaniṣads is the condition of all philosophy. Discontent prevails to enable man to affect an escape from it.
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1. Tait. Up.
2. Brh. Up., i. 4. 10.
3. See Chāndogya, iii. 14. Cf. Augustine: “I asked the earth for God, and it answered me, ‘I am not He’; I asked the sea and the depths and the creeping things, and they answered, ‘We are not the God, seek thou above us.’ I asked the breezy gales, and the airy universe, and all its denizens replied, ‘Anaximenes is mistaken, I am not God’; I asked the heaven, sun, moon, stars, ‘Neither are we,’ say they, ‘the God whom thou seekest’; and I asked unto all things which stand about the gateways of my flesh (the senses), ‘Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He; tell me something of Him.’ And they cried with a loud voice, ‘He made us.’” The search goes on until the inward self is questioned, when the answer is “Thy God is unto thee, even the life of thy life.” (Confessions, x. chap. 6).
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If there is no way of escape, if no deliverance is sought after, then dissatisfaction is mischievous. The pessimism of the Upaniṣads has not developed to such an extent as to suppress all endeavor and generate inertia. There was enough faith in life to support all genuine search for truth. In the words of Barth: “The Upaniṣads are much more instinct with the spirit of speculative daring than the sense of suffering and weariness.”1 “Within the limits of the Upaniṣads, there are indeed few explicit references to the misery of the life caught in the ceaseless cycle of death and birth. And its authors are saved from pessimism by the joy they feel at the message of redemption they proclaim.”2 The formulation of the theory of saṁsāra or rebirth is no proof that the Upaniṣads are pessimistic. Life on Earth is the means of self-perfection. We have to undergo the discipline of saṁsāra in our efforts towards the higher joy and the complete possession of spiritual perfection, a step in the passage to the infinite. It is the time for preparing the soul for eternity. Life is no empty dream, and the world is no delirium of spirit. In the later versions of rebirth in Indian thought, we miss this ennobling ideal, and birth becomes the result of an error of the soul and saṁsāra a dragging chain.
At the stage of life represented by the Brāhmaṇas, the simple religion of the Vedic hymns was one of sacrifices. Man’s relations with the gods were mechanical, a question of give and take, profit and loss. The revival of spirituality was the need of an age immersed in formalism. In the Upaniṣads, we find a return to the fresh springs of spiritual life. They declare that the soul will not obtain salvation by the performance of sacrifices. It can be obtained only through a truly religious life, grounded in insight into the heart of the universe. Perfection is inward and spiritual, not outward and mechanical. We cannot make a man clean by washing his shirt.
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1. Religions of India, p.84.
2. Cave: Redemption, Hindu and Christian, p.64.
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A consciousness of the identity of one’s own soul with the great All-soul is the essence of a truly spiritual life. The uselessness of ritual and the futility of sacrifices as means to salvation are brought out. God is to be honored not by spiritual worship but by external ceremony. We cannot save ourselves by praising God. We cannot impress Him with sacrifices. The authors of the Upaniṣads had a sufficient sense of history to know that their protest would prove ineffective if it demanded a revolution in things. They therefore ask only for a change in the spirit. They reinterpret sacrifices and allegorize them. In some passages,1 we are asked to meditate on the horse-sacrifice.2 This meditative effort helps us to realize the meaning of the sacrifice. By giving detailed descriptions of the kind of plank, the nature of the wood, etc., they show that they are not indifferent to the sacrificial religion. While adhering to the forms they try to refine them. They say that all sacrifices are for the sake of realizing the self of man. Life itself is a sacrifice. “The true sacrifice is man; his consecration.… In his eating and drinking and in his pleasures, he keeps a holly festival, and in his laughter and feasting and marrying he sings hymns of praise. Self-discipline, generosity, straightforwardness, ahiṁsā,3 and truth in speech, these are his payments, and the bath of purification when the sacrifice is over is death.”4 We are told how do we live. Sacrifice is made to mean not feasting but renunciation. Make every action, every feeling and every thought an offering to God. Let your life be one sacrament or yajña. Sometimes we are told that the sacrifices are necessary as preparations for the higher path.
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1. Bṛh. Up., i. I. 2.
2. Aśvamedha.
3. Innocence.
4. Chān. Up., iii. Cf. Isaiah Iviii. 6-7: “Is not this fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” See Plato: Euthyphron, 14. E; Laws, 906, D. Jowett’s Edition.
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Nobody can tread the higher road without fulfilling the requirements of the lower. Sacrifices are necessary for the unenlightened, though they alone will not do. They give us admission to the world of the fathers, which after a temporary sojourn in the moon leads back to a new earthly existence. Ceremonialism is contrasted with spiritual worship.1 There are occasions when the sacrificial and priestly religion strikes them as superficial, and then they give vent to all their irony. They describe a procession of dogs to march like a procession of the priests, each holding the tail of the other in front and saying, “Om! Let us eat. Om, let us drink… etc.”2 Thus the rigid ritual of the Brāhmaṇas, which gave little comfort to the weak heart of man, was held in check in the Upaniṣads.
The attitude of the Upaniṣads is not favorable to the sacredness of the Vedas. Like the rationalistic thinkers of a later day, they adopt a double attitude towards Vedic authority. They consider the Veda to be of supernatural origin, as when they say, “Just as when a fire is laid with damp wood, clouds of smoke spread all around, so in truth from this great being, has been breathed forth the Ṛg-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sāma-Veda, the hymns of the Atharvas and the Añgirasas, the narratives, the histories, the sciences, the mystical problems, the poems, the proverbs, and the expositions—all these have been breathed forth from Him.”3 It is also recognized that the Vedic knowledge is much inferior to the true divine insight,4 and will not liberate us. Nārada said: “I know the Ṛg-Veda, Sir, the Yajur, the Sāma-Veda, with all these, I know only the Mantras and the sacred books, I do not know the Self.”5 The Muṇḍaka Upaniṣads says: “Two kinds of knowledge must be known, the higher and the lower. The lower knowledge is that which the Ṛg, Sāma, Atharva Veda, Ceremonial, Grammar give… but the higher knowledge is that by which the indestructible Brahman is apprehended.”6
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1. See also Chān. Up., i. I, 10.
2. Ibid., i. 12, 4. 5.
3. Bṛh. Up., ii. 4. 10.
4. See Chāndogya. V. 3. 10, Bṛh., 3. 5. I; iv. 4. 21; vi. 2. 1. Kauṣītaki, i.; Tait., ii. 4; Kaṭha, ii. 23.
5. Chān. Up., vii. 2.
6. Muṇḍaka, i. 1. 4-5; Maitrāyana, vi. 21.
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VI
THE PROBLEMS DISCUSSED IN THE UPANIṢADS
The central theme of the Upaniṣads is the problem of philosophy. It is the search for what is true. Dissatisfaction with things and second causes suggests the questions, which we read at the beginning of the Śvetāśvatara: “Whence are we born, where do we live, and whither do we go? O, ye who know Brahman, tell us at whose command we abide here whether in pain or in pleasure. Should time or nature, or necessity or chance, or the elements be considered to be the cause, or he who is called Puruṣa, the man that is the Supreme spirit?” In the Kena Upaniṣads the pupil asks, “At whose wish does the mind sent forth proceed on its errand? At whose command does the first breath go forth, at whose wish do we utter this speech? What god directs the eye or the ear?”1 The thinker did not take experience to be an inexplicable datum, as common ensemble does. They wondered whether the report of the senses could be taken as final. Are the mental faculties by which we acquire experience self-existent, or are they themselves effects of something mightier still, which lies behind them? How can we consider physical objects, effects and products as they are, to be quite as real as their causes? There must be something ultimate at the back of it all, a self-existent, in the field of morals we find that we cannot get true happiness from the finite. The pleasures of the world are transient, being cut off by old age and death. Only the infinite gives durable happiness. In religion we cry for eternal life. All these forces upon us the conviction of a timeless being, a spiritual reality, the object of philosophical quest, the fulfillment of our desires, and the goal of religion. The seers of the Upaniṣads try to lead us to this centra reality which is infinite existence (sat), absolute truth (cit), and pure delight (ānanda).
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1. i. 1,
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The prayer of every human heart is “Lead me from the unreal to the real, lead me from darkness to light, lead me from death to immortality.”1
We shall deal with the philosophy of the Upaniṣads under the two heads of metaphysics and ethics. We shall present their views of ultimate reality, the nature of the world, and the problem of creation under metaphysics, and their analysis of the individual, his destiny, his ideal, the relation of karma to freedom, the highest conception of mukti or release, and doctrine of rebirth under ethics.
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VII
THE NATURE OF REALITY
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In solving the question of the nature of ultimate reality, the Upaniṣads thinkers seek to supplement the objective vision of the Vedic seers by a subjective one. The highest conception reached in the Vedic hymns was that of the one reality (Ekaṁ Sat), which realizes itself in all the variety of existence.
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1. Ashton mā sad gamaya, tamara mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ-gamaya. Bṛh. Up., i. 3. 27.
2. viii. 3-12.
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