INTRODUCTION HE "Upanishads" are reckoned to be from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy in number. The date TH of the earliest of them is about B.C. 600; that is an age anterior to the rise of Buddha. They consist of various disquisitions on the nature of man, the Supreme Being, the human soul, and immortality. They are part of Sanscrit Brahmanic literature, and have the authority of revealed, in contradistinction to traditional truth. We see in these books the struggle of the human mind to attain to a knowledge of God and the destiny of man. The result is the formulation of a definite theosophy, in which we find the Brahman in his meditation trusting to the intuitions of his own spirit, the promptings of his own reason, or the combinations of his own fancy, for a revelation of the truth. The result is given us in these wonderful books. We call them wonderful, because the unaided mind of man never attained, in any other literature, to a profounder insight into spiritual things. The Western reader may find in an "Upanishad " many things that seem to him trifling and absurd, many things obscure and apparently meaningless. It is very easy to ridicule this kind of literature. But as a matter of fact these ancient writings well repay study, as the most astounding productions of the human intellect. In them we see the human mind wrestling with the greatest thoughts that had ever yet dawned upon it, and trying to grasp and to measure the mighty vision before which it was humbled to the dust. The seer, in order to communicate to the world the result of his meditations, seems to catch at every symbol and every word hallowed by familiar usage, in order to set out in concrete shape the color and dimensions of mystic verities; he is employing an old language for the expression of new truths; he is putting new wine into old wine-skins, which burst and the wine is spilt; words fail, and the meaning is lost. It is not lost, however, to those who will try to study the "Upan ishads" from within, and not from without: who will try to put himself in the attitude of those earnest and patient explorers who brought so much light into the human life of the East, and so much joy and tranquillity to the perturbed spirit of their fellow-men. Those who thus study these ancient writings will find in them the fundamental principles of a definite theology, and, more wonderful still, the beginnings of that which became afterwards known to the Greeks, and has been known ever since, as metaphysics: that is, scientific transcendentalism. This much will be apparent to anyone who will read and study the "Kaushitaki-Upanishad," which is one of the most wonderful of the religious books of the East. Laying aside the doctrine of metempsychosis and the idea of reincarnation, there is something sublime and inspiring in the imagery with which the destiny of the soul after death is described, while in the metaphysical subtlety of this book we find an argument against materialism which is just as fresh now as when it was first stated. E. W. K THE UPANISHADS KAUSHITAKI - UPANISHAD THE COUCH OF BRAHMAN ITRA GANGYAYANI, wishing to perform a sacrifice, chose Aruni Uddâlaka, to be his chief priest. But Aruni sent his son, Svetaketu, and said: "Perform the sacrifice for him." When Svetaketu had arrived, Kitra asked him: "Son of Gautama, is there a hidden place in the world where you are able to place me, or is it the other way, and are you going to place me in the world to which that other way leads?" 1 He answered and said: "I do not know this. But, let me ask the master." Having approached his father, he asked: "Thus has Kitra asked me; how shall I answer?" Aruni said: "I also do not know this. Only after having learnt the proper portion of the Veda in Kitra's own dwelling, shall we obtain what others give us, i.e., knowledge. Come, we will both go." 1 The question put by Kitra to Svetaketu is very obscure, and was probably from the first intended to be obscure in its very wording. Kitra wished to ask, doubtless, concerning the future life. That future life is reached by two roads; one leading to the world of Brahman (the conditioned), beyond which there lies one other stage only, represented by knowledge of, and identity with the unconditioned Brahman; the other leading to the world of the fathers, and from thence, after the reward of good works has been consumed, back to a new round of mundane existence. There is a third road for creatures which live and die, worms, insects, and creeping things, but they are of little conse quence. Now it is quite clear that the knowledge which King Kitra possesses, and which Svetaketu does not possess, is that of the two roads after death, sometimes called the right and the left, or the southern and northern roads. The northern or left road, called also the path of the Devas, passes on from light and day to the bright half of the moon; the southern or right road, called also the path of the fathers, passes on from smoke and night to the dark half of the moon. Both roads therefore meet in the moon, but diverge afterwards. While the northern road passes by the six months when the sun moves towards the north, through the sun, moon, and the lightning to the world of Brahman, the southern passes by the six months when the sun moves towards the south, to the world of the fathers, the ether, and the moon. The great difference, however, between the two roads is, that while those who travel on the former do not return again to a new life on earth, but reach in the end a true knowl edge of the unconditioned Brahman, those who pass on to the world of the fathers and the moon return to earth to be born again and again. The specu lations on the fate of the soul after death seem to have been peculiar to the royal families of India, while the Brahmans dwelt more on what may be called the shorter cut, a knowledge of Brahman as the true Self. To know, with them, was to be, and, after the dissolution of the body, they looked forward to immediate emancipation, without any further wanderings. |