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Use of italics

Sanskrit words have been quoted freely in italics enclosed in parentheses

(a) to aid the special student in his search for the exact shade of meaning by giving the original of which the word or phrase immediately preceding is a translation;

(b) to render evident to the eye the play on words or the etymological explanation that frequently occurs in the exposition. or argumentation of the Upanishads (cf. Chand. 1. 2. 10-12, p. 179).

Nouns and adjectives are usually given in their uninflected stemform; occasionally, however, an inflected form is used for the sake of clearness (as at Chand. 8. 3. 3, p. 265).

Transliteration of Sanskrit words

The transliteration of Sanskrit words in italics follows the current usage of Western Oriental scholars (except that anusvāra is represented by m instead of by the customary m). In roman type, as part of the English translation, however, proper names (as of divinities, persons, texts, and ceremonies) are given in a slightly less technical transliteration, with some concession to popular usage; the vowel is represented by 'ri' (except in 'Rig,' 'Rig-Veda'), and the sibilant by 'sh.'

Headings in heavy-faced type

The headings in heavy-faced type have been inserted by the translator to summarize the contents of the ensuing sections and to interpret, as far as possible in a few words, the development of thought in the text.

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AVTr.. Atharva-Veda Translation, by Whitney and Lanman, in the Harvard Oriental Series, vols. 7 and 8, Cambridge, Mass., 1905.

B.. the recension of Kaush. published in the Biblio

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theca Indica.

Bhagavad-Gītā.

Böhtlingk and Roth's great Sanskrit Dictionary, 7 vols., St. Petersburg, 1855-1875.

Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad.

Böhtlingk's shorter Sanskrit Dictionary, 7 parts,
St. Petersburg, 1879-1889.

Chandogya Upanishad.

commentator, commentators.

edited, edition.

Journal of the American Oriental Society.

Kāṇva recension of Brih.

Kaushitaki Upanishad.

(loco citato), at the place cited.

Madhyamdina recension of Brih.

Mahabharata.

Mahānārāyaṇa Upanishad.

Mänd. Māṇḍūkya Upanishad.

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AN OUTLINE OF THE PHILOSOPHY

OF THE UPANISHADS

CHAPTER I

THE PLACE OF THE UPANISHADS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

ALMOST Contemporaneous with that remarkable period of active philosophic and religious thought the world over, about the sixth century B.C., when Pythagoras, Confucius, Buddha, and Zoroaster were thinking out new philosophies and inaugurating great religions, there was taking place, in the land of India, a quiet movement which has exercised a continuous influence upon the entire subsequent philosophic thought of that country and which has also been making itself felt in the West.

The Aryan invaders of Hindustan, after having conquered the territory and gained an undisputed foothold, betook themselves to the consideration of those mighty problems which thrust themselves upon every serious, thoughtful person-the problems of the meaning of life and the world and the great unseen powers. They cast about on this side and on that for explanation. Thus we find, for example, in the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad (1. 1):—

'What is the cause? Brahma? Whence are we born? Whereby do we live? And on what are we established? Overruled by whom, in pains and pleasures,

Do we live our various conditions, O ye theologians?'

In childlike manner, like the early Greek cosmologists, they accepted now one thing and now another as the primary material out of which the whole world is made. Yet, again like the early Greek philosophers and also with the subtlety and directness of childlike insight, they discerned the underlying unity of all being. Out of this penetrating intuition those early Indian thinkers elaborated a system of pantheism which has proved most fascinating to their descendants. If there is

any one intellectual tenet, which, explicitly or implicitly, is held by the people of India, furnishing a fundamental presupposition of all their thinking, it is this doctrine of pantheism.

The beginnings of this all-pervading form of theorizing are recorded in the Upanishads. In these ancient documents are found the earliest serious attempts at construing the world of experience as a rational whole. Furthermore, they have continued to be the generally accepted authoritative statements with which every subsequent orthodox philosophic formulation has had to show itself in accord, or at least not in discord. Even the materialistic Cārvākas, who denied the Vedas, a future life, and almost every sacred doctrine of the orthodox Brahmans, avowed respect for these Upanishads. That interesting later epitome of the Vedanta, the Vedānta-sāra,1 shows how these Cārvākas and the adherents of the Buddhistic theory and also of the ritualistic Pūrva-mīmāmsā and of the logical Nyāya appealed to the Upanishads in support of their varying theories. Even the dualistic Sänkhya philosophers claimed to find scripture authority in the Upanishads.2 For the orthodox Vedanta, of course, the Upanishads, with Bādarayana's Vedānta-Sutras and Sankara's Commentary on them, have been the very text-books.

Not only have they been thus of historical importance in the past development of philosophy in India, but they are of present-day influence. To every Indian Brahman today the Upanishads are what the New Testament is to the Christian.'3 Max Müller calls attention to the fact that there are more new editions published of the Upanishads and Sankara in India than of Descartes and Spinoza in Europe. Especially now,

in the admitted inadequacy of the existing degraded form of popular Hinduism, the educated Hindus are turning to their old Scriptures and are finding there much which they con

1 Translated by Col. Jacob in his Manual of Hindu Pantheism, London, 1891, pp. 76-78. Text published by him in Bombay, 1894, and by Böhtlingk in his Sanskrit-Chrestomathie.

* See the Sarva-darśana-saṁgraha, a later summary of the various philosophers, translated by Cowell and Gough, p. 227 (2nd ed., London, 1894).

3 Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, tr. by Geden, p. viii, Edinburgh, 1906.

4 Max Müller, Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy, p. 39.

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