though not referable, are evidently quotations, since they are not grammatically construable in the sentence, but contain a thought which seems to be commented upon in the words immediately following.

Not only are the Upanishads thus heterogeneous in point of structure, but they also contain passages which set forth the dualistic Sankhya philosophy, which has been the chief antagonist of the monistic Vedānta. Of the earlier Upanishads the Chandogya, in 6. 4, explains all existing objects as a composition of three elements, a reduction which has an analogue in the Sankhya with its three qualities. In Katha 4. 7, the prakṛti or 'Nature' of the Sānkhya is described. In Katha 3. 10-13, and similarly in 6. 7-8, there is a gradation of psychical principles in the order of their emanation from the Unmanifest (avyakta) which agrees closely with the Sankhya order; but a difference is added when that Unmanifest, instead of being left as the ultimate, is subordinated to the Person of the world-ground. Somewhat similar are the genealogies of Mund. 1. 1. 8; 2. 1. 3; and Praśna 6. 4. In Praśna 4. 8 is a combined Sankhya and Vedanta list, the major part of which, up to citta, 'thought and what can be thought,' is Sankhyan. The term buddhi, intellect,' is an important Sankhyan word. It is noticeable that it does not occur until the Katha, where other Sankhyan similarities are first prominent and where this word is found four times.

In the Svetāśvatara the Sankhya is mentioned by name in the last chapter, and the statement is made that it reasons in search of the same object as is there being expounded. The references in this Upanishad to the Sankhya are unmistakable. The enumerations of 1. 4-5 are distinctly non-Vedāntic and quite Sankhyan. The passage at 6. 1, where svabhava, 'the nature of things,' evidently means prakṛti, the Nature' of the Sankhya, denounces that theory as the utterance of deluded men. Similarly 1. 3 contradicts the Sankhyan doctrine in placing the gunas, or 'qualities,' in God and in attributing to him 'self-power.' But more numerous are the instances where the Vedanta theory is interpreted in Sänkhyan terms, as in 4. 10, where the prakṛti of the Sankhya is identified with the māyā of the Vedānta. The passage 4. 5, where the explana

tion of experience is sensually analogized, is thoroughly Sankhyan. The relation of the Vedanta to the Sankhya has not yet been satisfactorily made out. Perhaps, as Professor Cowell maintained, the Svetāśvatara Upanishad is the most direct attempt to reconcile the Sankhya and the Vedanta.' The Maitri is even more evidently pervaded by Sankhyan influences, especially the explicit references to the gunas, or 'qualities,' with the enumeration of their effects (3. 5) and the explanation of their origin (5. 2).

Even with due allowance made for a supposititious period when the terms of philosophy may have existed without distinction of systems, such as are known afterwards as Vedanta and Sankhya, it is nevertheless improbable that so complete a Sankhyan vocabulary as meets us in the Svetāśvatara and the Maitri Upanishads could belong to such a period. They seem rather to belong to a period when systems were not only recognized as such, but as antagonistic. These remarks have made it clear that the Upanishads are no homogeneous products, cogently presenting a philosophic theory, but that they are compilations from different sources recording the guesses at truth' of the early Indians. A single, well articulated system cannot be deduced from them; but underlying all their expatiations, contradictions, and unordered matter there is a general basis of a developing pantheism which will now be placed in exposition.

CHAPTER III

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT THE CONCEPTION OF
A UNITARY WORLD-GROUND

AMONG the early Indians, as among the early Greeks, an explanation of the beginnings of the world, its original substance, and its construction, formed the first and most interesting subject of philosophical speculation. In the Vedas such speculation had gone on to some extent and had produced the

1 In his notes to Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, 1. 257, London, 1873. But see more especially Professor Hopkins, JAOS. 22. 380–387.

famous Creation Hymn, RV. 10. 129, as well as others (such as RV. 10. 121; 10. 81; 10. 72; 10. 90) in which the origin of the world was conjectured under architectural, generative, and sacrificial analogies. In the Brāhmaṇas speculation continued further along the same lines. When the period of the Upanishads arrived, the same theme had not grown old-and when will it? The quotation from Śvet. 1. I already cited (page 1) shows how this theme was still discussed and indicates the alternatives that were offered late in the period. But among the early Upanishads these first crude cosmogonic theories had not yet been displaced.

Prominent among these is one which was advanced among the early Greeks by Thales and which was also a widely prevailing Semitic idea, namely, that the original stuff of the world was Water. Thus in Brih. 5. 5 we find it stated that 'in the beginning this world was just Water.' 'It is just Water solidified that is this earth, that is the atmosphere, that is the sky, that is gods and men, that is animals and birds, grass and trees, beasts, together with worms, flies, and ants; all these are just Water solidified' (Chand. 7. 10. 1). Gārgi in Bṛih. 3. 6. 1 opens a discussion with the philosopher Yājñavalkya by asking for an explanation of the popular theory that 'all this world is woven, warp and woof, on water.'

In the later Katha a more philosophic theory of the worldground was added on to this older theory that water was the primal entity: '[Atman], who was born of old from the waters' (4.6). Somewhat similar combinations of the earlier and later theories are made in Ait. I. 1. 3, where Atman, after creating the waters, 'from the waters drew forth and shaped a person,' from whose members the different parts of the world and of man emanated; and in Kaush. 1. 7, where Brahma declares 'the waters, verily, indeed, are my world.'

In a little more philosophic fashion Space also was posited as the ultimate ground of the world. At Chand. 1. 8-9 three men are represented as having a discussion over the origin (or 'what it goes to,' gati) of the Saman, 'Chant,' of the sacrificial ritual. One of the group traced it back to sound, to breath, to food, to water, to yonder world. When pressed as to what 'yonder world goes back to,' he replied: 'One should not lead

beyond the heavenly world. We establish the Saman upon the heavenly world, for the Saman is praised as heaven.' The second member of the group taunted the first that his Sāman had no foundation, and when challenged himself to declare the origin of that world, replied 'this world'; but he was immediately brought to the limit of his knowledge as regards the origin of this world. One should not lead beyond the world-support. We establish the Saman upon the world as a support, for the Sāman is praised as a support.' Then the third member put in his taunt: 'Your Saman comes to an end,' said he. It is noticeable that he, who was the only one of the three not a Brahman, or professional philosopher, was able to explain: 'Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these; space is the final goal.'

With still greater abstraction the origin of the world is. traced back, as in the early Greek speculations and as in RV. 10. 72. 2-3 and AV. 17. 1. 19, to Non-being (a-sad).

'In the beginning, verily, this [world] was non-existent. Therefrom, verily, Being was produced.' (Tait. 2. 7.)

In Chand. 3. 19 the same theory is combined with another theory, which is found among the Greeks and which was popular among the Indians, continuing even after the time of Manu, namely, that of the cosmic egg. 'In the beginning this world was merely non-being (a-sad). It was existent. It developed. It turned into an egg. It lay for the period of a year. It was split asunder. One of the two eggshell-parts became silver, one gold. That which was of silver is this earth. That which was of gold is the sky. What was the outer membrane is the mountains. What was the inner membrane is cloud and mist. What were the veins are the rivers. What was the fluid within is the ocean.'

This theory of the Rig-Veda, of the Atharva-Veda, of the Taittiriya, and of the early part of the Chandogya is expressly referred to and combated at Chand. 6. 2. 'In the beginning, my dear, this world was just Being, one only, without a second. To be sure, some people say: "In the beginning this world was just Non-being, one only, without a second; from that

Non-being Being was produced." But verily, my dear, whence could this be? How from Non-being could Being be produced? On the contrary, my dear, in the beginning this world was Being, one only, without a second. It bethought itself: "Would that I were many! Let me procreate myself!" It emitted heat.' Similarly the heat procreated water, and the water food. Out of these three elements, after they had been infused by the original existent with name and form (i.e. a principle of individuation), all physical objects and also the organic and psychical nature of man were composed.

Still more abstract than the space-theory, but connected with it, is the cosmological speculation offered by Yājñavalkya to Gārgi, who confronted him with two supposedly unanswerable questions. That which is above the sky, that which is beneath the earth, that which is between these two, sky and earth, that which people call the past and the present and the future -across what is that woven, warp and woof?' 'Across space,' was Yajnavalkya's reply. 'Across what then, pray, is space woven?' 'That, O Gārgī, Brahmans call the Imperishable,' answers Yajnavalkya, but he does not attempt to describe this, since it is beyond all earthly distinctions. However, with a directness and a grand simplicity that call to mind the Hebrew account of the creation by the mandatory word of the Divine Being, there follows an account of the governances of the world by that world-ground. 'Verily, O Gārgi, at the command of that Imperishable the sun and moon stand apart. Verily, O Gārgi, at the command of that Imperishable the earth and the sky stand apart. Verily, O Gārgi, at the command of that Imperishable the moments, the hours, the days, the nights, the fortnights, the months, the seasons, and the years stand apart. Verily, O Gārgī, at the command of that Imperishable some rivers flow from the snowy mountains to the east, others to the west, in whatever direction each flows' (Bṛih. 3. 8. 3-9).

These searchings for the origin and explanation of the world of phenomena, first in a phenomenal entity like water and space, and then in a super-phenomenal entity like non-being, being, or the Imperishable, had even in the Rig- and Atharva