Vedas reached the conception of a necessarily unitary basis of the world and even the beginnings of monism. Thus :'Brahmanaspati like a smith. Did forge together all things here.' (RV. 10. 72. 2.) Viśvakarman (literally, the 'All-maker'), the one God, established all things (RV. 10. 81). From the sacrificial dismemberment of Purusha, the World-Person, all things were formed (RV. 10. 90). Again, in RV. 10. 121. I:— In the beginning arose Hiranyagarbha, The earth's begetter, who created heaven.' So also in RV. 10. 129. 1, 2, the Creation Hymn :- So also RV. 1. 164. 6:— 'I, unknowing, ignorant, here Ask the wise sages for the sake of knowledge: A glimpse into monism is seen in RV. 1. 164. 46:— Him who is the One existent, sages name variously.' Various, indeed, were the conjectures regarding the worldground. Four-Brahmaṇaspati, Viśvakarman, Purusha, and Hiranyagarbha-besides the indefinite That One, have just been cited from the Rig-Veda. Another, Prajapati (literally 'Lord of creatures') began to rise towards the end of the Vedic period, increased in prominence through the Brahmanic, and continued on into the Upanishadic. But the conception which is the ground-work of the Vedanta, which overthrew or absorbed into itself all other conceptions of the world-ground, was that of Brahma. Emerging in the Brāhmaṇas, it obtained in the Upanishads a fundamental position which it never lost. Indeed, the philosophy of the Upanishads is sometimes called Brahma-ism from its central concept. CHAPTER IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION As the early cosmologies started with one thing and another, but always one particular thing, posited as the primal entity, so in Brih. 1. 4. 10-11 and again in Maitri 6. 17 we find the statement: 'Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahma.' And as in the old cosmologies, especially in the Rig-Veda and in the Brahmanas, so also in the Upanishads procreation was adopted as the specific analogy for world-production. Thus: "He desired: "Would that I were many! Let me procreate myself!" He performed austerity. Having performed austerity, he created this whole world, whatever there is here' (Tait. 2. 6). It should be noticed that consciousness, which was absent in the water- and space-cosmologies, is here posited for the production of the world; also that the creation of the world, as in the Purusha Hymn, RV. 10. 90, and all through the Brāhmaṇas, is an act of religious significance accompanied by ceremonial rites. This last fact is not unnatural when the situation is considered. Every undertaking of importance had to be preceded by sacrifices and austerities in order to render it auspicious. The greater the importance of the affair, such as beginning a war or going on a journey, the greater was the need of abundant sacrifice. And if sacrifice was so essential and efficacious for human affairs, would it not be equally necessary and efficacious for so enormous an undertaking as the creation of the world? These considerations probably had the greater weight in view of the meaning and historical importance of the word brahma, which now and henceforth was to be employed as the designation of the world-ground. In the Rig-Veda brahma seems to have meant first' hymn,' 'prayer,' 'sacred knowledge,' 'magic formula.' In this very sense it is used in the Upanishads, e. g. Tait. 3. 10. 4, as well as in compounds such as brahmavat, 'possessed of magic formulas,' and brahma-varcasa, superiority in sacred knowledge.' It also signified the power that was inherent in the hymns, prayers, sacred formulas, and sacred knowledge. This latter. meaning it was that induced the application of the word to the world-ground—a power that created and pervaded and upheld the totality of the universe. Yet how difficult it was to preserve the penetrating philosophical insight which discerned that efficiency, that power, that brahma underlying the world-an insight which dared to take the word from its religious connection and to infuse into it a philosophical connotation-will be shown in the recorded attempts to grasp that stupendous idea, all of which fell back, because of figurative thinking, into the old cosmologies which this very Brahma-theory itself was intended to transcend. a The unknown character of this newly discovered Being and the idea that only by its will do even the gods perform their functions, is indicated in a legend contained in the Kena Upanishad. Brahma appeared to the gods, but they did not understand who it was. They deputed Agni, the god of fire, to ascertain its identity. He, vaunting of his power to burn, was challenged to burn straw, but was baffled. Upon his unsuccessful return to the gods, Vāyu, the god of wind, was sent on the same mission. He, boasting of his power to blow anything away, was likewise challenged to blow a straw away and was likewise baffled. To Indra, the next delegate, a beautiful woman, allegorized by the commentator as Wisdom, explained that the incognito was Brahma, through whose power the gods were exalted and enjoyed greatness. In Brih. 3. 9. 1-9 Yājñavalkya was pressed and further pressed by Sakalya to state the real number of the gods. Unwillingly he reduced, in seven steps, the popular number of 3306 gods to one, and that one was Brahma, the only God. But apart from legend and apart from religion it was difficult for the ordinary person to understand who or what this Brahma was. Gārgi, one of the two women in the Upanishads who philosophize, takes up the old water-cosmology and asks Yajnavalkya, the most prominent philosopher of the Upanishads (Bṛih. 3. 6): 'On what, pray, is the water woven, warp and woof?' He replies, 'The atmosphere-worlds.' On being asked again, ‘On what then, pray, are the atmosphere-worlds woven, warp and woof?' he says, 'The Gandharva-world [or world of spirits].' The regressus has been entered, and Yajnavalkya plays somewhat the part of Locke's 'poor Indian [i. e. American Indian] philosopher' with his tortoise, and elephant, and so forth, as the world's last standingground. Here he takes Gārgī back to the worlds of the sun upon which the Gandharva-worlds are woven, and then in turn to the worlds of the moon, the worlds of the stars, the worlds of the gods, the worlds of Indra, the worlds of Prajapati, the worlds of Brahma. On what then, pray, are the worlds of Brahma woven, warp and woof?' 'Gārgi, do not question too much, lest your head fall off. In truth you are questioning too much about a divinity about which further questions cannot be asked. Gārgi, do not over-question.' Thereupon Gārgi ceased to question. · Brahma The abundance It is a remnant of the old space-cosmology joined with the Brahma-theory when in Bṛih. 5. 1 it is stated that Brahma is ether the ether primeval, the ether that blows.' A little more is added when it is said that 'Brahma is life. is joy. Brahma is the void' (Chand. 4. 10. 5). and variousness of being in that world-ground which must also be the ground of the physical and of the mental life of persons is approached in Tait. 3, where the instruction is successively given that Brahma is food, breath, mind, understanding, and bliss, since out of each of those, as from the world-ground, things are born, by those they live, unto those they enter on departing hence. There are four other passages where attempts are expressly made to define Brahma. In Brih. 2. I the renowned Brahman Gargya Bālāki came to Ajataśatru, king of Benares, and volunteered to tell him of Brahma. The wealthy king, in emulation of the lavish Janaka, offered a thousand cows for such an exposition. Gārgya explained that he venerated the person in the sun as Brahma. 'Talk not to me about such a Brahma,' Ajātaśatru protested. He venerated as Brahma the Supreme Head and King of all beings. Then Gārgya said that he also venerated the person in the moon as Brahma. Ajātaśatru again protested against the inadequacy of such a conception of Brahma. He venerated It as the great white-robed king Soma (i.e. the person vivifying the moon). Again Gargya gave another definition of Brahma, namely, as the person in the lightning; and again Ajātaśatru condemned his statement as inadequate by declaring that he venerated as Brahma the Brilliant One, the principle of brilliancy, not only in the lightning but in all brilliant things. So the two converse back and forth, Gārgya successfully giving new definitions and Ajātaśatru declaring their inadequacy with a broader conception which included and went beyond Gārgya's, and at the same time deducing a practical benefit to any who held such a conception. Gargya's conception of Brahma as the person in space was supplemented by the conception of Brahma as the Full, the non-active; the person in the wind, by Indra, the terrible, and the unconquered army; the person in the fire, by the Vanquisher; the person in water, by the Counterpart (of all phenomenal objects); the person in the mirror, by the Shining One; the sound which follows after one, by Life; the person in the quarters of heaven, by the Inseparable Companion; the person consisting of shadow, by Death; the person in the body, by the Embodied One-in all, twelve1 conceptions of Brahma, which exhaust Gārgya Bālāki's speculation on the subject. He, the challenger, the professional philosopher, then requests instruction from his vanquisher, who, it may be noticed again, was not a Brahman, but a Kshatriya (i. e. a man belonging to the second caste). Ajātaśatru called attention to the anomaly of a Brahman's coming to a Kshatriya for instruction, but consented to make him know clearly this comparatively new and not fully comprehended conception of Brahma. 'He, verily, O Bālāki, who is the maker of all these persons [whom you have mentioned in succession], of whom, 1 In Kaush. 4, which is evidently another version of the same dialogue, there are sixteen conceptions, 'the person in the quarters of heaven' being omitted from the Brihad-Aranyaka list and there being added the person in thunder, in the echo, the conscious self by whom a sleeping person moves about in dreams, the person in the right eye, and the person in the left eye-conceptions which are supplemented respectively by the soul of sound, the inseparable companion, Yama (king of the dead), the soul of name, of fire, of light, and the soul of truth, of lightning, of splendor. |