Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1hing of the Upanishads, is implied in them everywhere, and enunciated more or less distinctly in INTRODUCTION. CXVU more than one place, has in recent times been advocated with much force by Mr. Gough in the ninth chapter of his Philosophy of the Upanishads. In his Materiaux, &c. M. Paul Regnaud remarks that 'the doctrine of Maya, although implied in the teaching of the Upanishads, could hardly become clear and explicit before the system had reached a stage of development necessitating a choice between admitting two co-existent eternal principles (which became the basis of the Sankhya philosophy), and accepting the predominance of the intel- lectual principle, which in the end necessarily led to the negation of the opposite principle.' — To the two alterna- tives here referred to as possible we, however, have to add a third one, viz. that form of the Vedanta of wrhich the theory of the Bhagavatas or Ram&nu^as is the most eminent type, and according to which Brahman carries within its own nature an element from which the material universe originates; an element which indeed is not an in- dependent entity like the pradhana of the Sankhyas, but which at the same time is not an unreal Maya but quite as real as any other part of Brahman's nature. That a doctrine of this character actually developed itself on the basis of the Upa- nishads, is a circumstance which we clearly must not lose sight of, when attempting to determine what the Upanishads them- selves are teaching concerning the character of the world. In enquiring whether the Upanishads maintain the Maya doctrine or not, we must proceed with the same caution as regards other parts of the system, i. e. we must refrain from using unhesitatingly, and without careful consideration of the merits of each individual case, the teaching — direct or inferred — of any one passage to the end of determining the drift of the teaching of other passages. We may admit that some passages, notably of the Brzhadara^yaka, contain at any rate the germ of the later developed Maya doctrine1, and thus render it quite intelligible that a system like Sankara's 1 It is well known that, with the exception of the 6veta\yvatara and Maitra- yaniya, none of the chief Upanishads exhibits the word ' mayl' The term indeed occurs in one place in the Brz'hadara/zyaka ; but that passage is a quotation from the Rik Sa/^hita in which maya means 'creative power.' Cp. P. Regnaud, La Maya, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3 (1885). CXVlii VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
2indeed occurs in one place in the Brz'hadara/zyaka ; but that passage is a quotation from the Rik Sa/^hita in which maya means 'creative power.' Cp. P. Regnaud, La Maya, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3 (1885). CXVlii VEDANTA-S^TRAS. should evolve itself, among others, out of the Upanishads ; but that affords no valid reason for interpreting Maya into other texts which give a very satisfactory sense without that doctrine, or are even clearly repugnant to it. This remark applies in the very first place to all the accounts of the creation of the physical universe. There, if anywhere, the illusional character of the world should have been hinted at, at least, had that theory been held by the authors of those accounts ; but not a word to that effect is met with any- where. The most important of those accounts — the one given in the sixth chapter of the KMndogya, Upanishad — forms no exception. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the 'sending forth' of the elements from the primitive Sat, which is there described at length, was by the writer of that passage meant to represent a vivarta rather than a pari;zama, that the process of the origination of the physical universe has to be conceived as anything else but a real manifestation of real powers hidden in the primeval Self. The introductory words, addressed to 6Vetaketu by Uddalaka, which are generally appealed to as intimating the unreal character of the evolution about to be described, do not, if viewed impartially, intimate any such thing 1. For what is capable of being proved, and mani- festly meant to be proved, by the illustrative instances of the lump of clay and the nugget of gold, through which there are known all things made of clay and gold ? Merely that this whole world has Brahman for its causal substance, just as clay is the causal matter of every earthen pot, and gold of every golden ornament, but not that the process through which any causal substance becomes an effect is an unreal one. We — including Uddalaka — may surely say that all earthen pots are in reality nothing but earth — the earthen pot being merely a special modification (vikara) of clay which has a name of its own — without thereby com- mitting ourselves to the doctrine that the change of form, which a lump of clay undergoes when being fashioned into a pot, is not real but a mere baseless illusion. In the same light we have to view numerous other passages 1 As is demonstrated very satisfactorily by Ramanu^a. INTRODUCTION.
3that the change of form, which a lump of clay undergoes when being fashioned into a pot, is not real but a mere baseless illusion. In the same light we have to view numerous other passages 1 As is demonstrated very satisfactorily by Ramanu^a. INTRODUCTION. CX1X which set forth the successive emanations proceeding from the first principle. When, for instance, we meet in the Ka/k Up. I, 3, 10, in the serial enumeration of the forms of exist- ence intervening between the gross material world and the highest Self (the Person), with the ' avyakrzta,' the Unde- veloped, immediately below the purusha ; and when again the Mundaka, Up. II, i, 2, speaks of the ' high Imperishable' higher than which is the heavenly Person ; there is no reason whatever to see in that ' Undeveloped ' and that 'high Imperishable' anything but that real element in Brahman from which, as in the Ramanu^a system, the material universe springs by a process of real development. We must of course render it quite clear to ourselves in what sense the terms ' real ' and ' unreal ' have to be understood. The Upanishads no doubt teach emphatically that the material world does not owe its existence to any principle independent from the Lord like the pradhana of the Sankhyas ; the world is nothing but a manifestation of the Lord's wonderful power, and hence is unsubstantial, if we take the term ' substance' in its strict sense. And, again, everything material is immeasurably inferior in nature to the highest spiritual principle from which it has emanated, and which it now hides from the individual soul. But neither unsubstantiality nor inferiority of the kind mentioned constitutes unreality in the sense in which the Maya of 5ankara is unreal. According to the latter the whole world is nothing but an erroneous appearance, as unreal as the snake, for which a piece of rope is mistaken by the belated traveller, and disappearing just as the imagined snake does as soon as the light of true knowledge has risen. But this is certainly not the impression left on the mind by a comprehensive review of the Upanishads which dwells on their general scope, and does not confine itself to the undue urging of what may be implied in some detached passages. The Upanishads do not call upon us to look upon the whole world as a baseless illusion to be destroyed by knowledge ; the great error which they admonish us to relinquish is rather that things have a separate individual existence, and are not tied together by the bond of being all of them effects CXX VEDANTA-SUTRAS. of Brahman, or Brahman itself.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1hing of the Upanishads, is implied in them everywhere, and enunciated more or less distinctly in INTRODUCTION. CXVU more than one place, has in recent times been advocated with much force by Mr. Gough in the ninth chapter of his Philosophy of the Upanishads. In his Materiaux, &c. M. Paul Regnaud remarks that 'the doctrine of Maya, although implied in the teaching of the Upanishads, could hardly become clear and explicit before the system had reached a stage of development necessitating a choice between admitting two co-existent eternal principles (which became the basis of the Sankhya philosophy), and accepting the predominance of the intel- lectual principle, which in the end necessarily led to the negation of the opposite principle.' — To the two alterna- tives here referred to as possible we, however, have to add a third one, viz. that form of the Vedanta of wrhich the theory of the Bhagavatas or Ram&nu^as is the most eminent type, and according to which Brahman carries within its own nature an element from which the material universe originates; an element which indeed is not an in- dependent entity like the pradhana of the Sankhyas, but which at the same time is not an unreal Maya but quite as real as any other part of Brahman's nature. That a doctrine of this character actually developed itself on the basis of the Upa- nishads, is a circumstance which we clearly must not lose sight of, when attempting to determine what the Upanishads them- selves are teaching concerning the character of the world. In enquiring whether the Upanishads maintain the Maya doctrine or not, we must proceed with the same caution as regards other parts of the system, i. e. we must refrain from using unhesitatingly, and without careful consideration of the merits of each individual case, the teaching — direct or inferred — of any one passage to the end of determining the drift of the teaching of other passages. We may admit that some passages, notably of the Brzhadara^yaka, contain at any rate the germ of the later developed Maya doctrine1, and thus render it quite intelligible that a system like Sankara's 1 It is well known that, with the exception of the 6veta\yvatara and Maitra- yaniya, none of the chief Upanishads exhibits the word ' mayl' The term indeed occurs in one place in the Brz'hadara/zyaka ; but that passage is a quotation from the Rik Sa/^hita in which maya means 'creative power.' Cp. P. Regnaud, La Maya, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3 (1885). CXVlii VEDANTA-S^TRAS.
2indeed occurs in one place in the Brz'hadara/zyaka ; but that passage is a quotation from the Rik Sa/^hita in which maya means 'creative power.' Cp. P. Regnaud, La Maya, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3 (1885). CXVlii VEDANTA-S^TRAS. should evolve itself, among others, out of the Upanishads ; but that affords no valid reason for interpreting Maya into other texts which give a very satisfactory sense without that doctrine, or are even clearly repugnant to it. This remark applies in the very first place to all the accounts of the creation of the physical universe. There, if anywhere, the illusional character of the world should have been hinted at, at least, had that theory been held by the authors of those accounts ; but not a word to that effect is met with any- where. The most important of those accounts — the one given in the sixth chapter of the KMndogya, Upanishad — forms no exception. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the 'sending forth' of the elements from the primitive Sat, which is there described at length, was by the writer of that passage meant to represent a vivarta rather than a pari;zama, that the process of the origination of the physical universe has to be conceived as anything else but a real manifestation of real powers hidden in the primeval Self. The introductory words, addressed to 6Vetaketu by Uddalaka, which are generally appealed to as intimating the unreal character of the evolution about to be described, do not, if viewed impartially, intimate any such thing 1. For what is capable of being proved, and mani- festly meant to be proved, by the illustrative instances of the lump of clay and the nugget of gold, through which there are known all things made of clay and gold ? Merely that this whole world has Brahman for its causal substance, just as clay is the causal matter of every earthen pot, and gold of every golden ornament, but not that the process through which any causal substance becomes an effect is an unreal one. We — including Uddalaka — may surely say that all earthen pots are in reality nothing but earth — the earthen pot being merely a special modification (vikara) of clay which has a name of its own — without thereby com- mitting ourselves to the doctrine that the change of form, which a lump of clay undergoes when being fashioned into a pot, is not real but a mere baseless illusion. In the same light we have to view numerous other passages 1 As is demonstrated very satisfactorily by Ramanu^a. INTRODUCTION.
3that the change of form, which a lump of clay undergoes when being fashioned into a pot, is not real but a mere baseless illusion. In the same light we have to view numerous other passages 1 As is demonstrated very satisfactorily by Ramanu^a. INTRODUCTION. CX1X which set forth the successive emanations proceeding from the first principle. When, for instance, we meet in the Ka/k Up. I, 3, 10, in the serial enumeration of the forms of exist- ence intervening between the gross material world and the highest Self (the Person), with the ' avyakrzta,' the Unde- veloped, immediately below the purusha ; and when again the Mundaka, Up. II, i, 2, speaks of the ' high Imperishable' higher than which is the heavenly Person ; there is no reason whatever to see in that ' Undeveloped ' and that 'high Imperishable' anything but that real element in Brahman from which, as in the Ramanu^a system, the material universe springs by a process of real development. We must of course render it quite clear to ourselves in what sense the terms ' real ' and ' unreal ' have to be understood. The Upanishads no doubt teach emphatically that the material world does not owe its existence to any principle independent from the Lord like the pradhana of the Sankhyas ; the world is nothing but a manifestation of the Lord's wonderful power, and hence is unsubstantial, if we take the term ' substance' in its strict sense. And, again, everything material is immeasurably inferior in nature to the highest spiritual principle from which it has emanated, and which it now hides from the individual soul. But neither unsubstantiality nor inferiority of the kind mentioned constitutes unreality in the sense in which the Maya of 5ankara is unreal. According to the latter the whole world is nothing but an erroneous appearance, as unreal as the snake, for which a piece of rope is mistaken by the belated traveller, and disappearing just as the imagined snake does as soon as the light of true knowledge has risen. But this is certainly not the impression left on the mind by a comprehensive review of the Upanishads which dwells on their general scope, and does not confine itself to the undue urging of what may be implied in some detached passages. The Upanishads do not call upon us to look upon the whole world as a baseless illusion to be destroyed by knowledge ; the great error which they admonish us to relinquish is rather that things have a separate individual existence, and are not tied together by the bond of being all of them effects CXX VEDANTA-SUTRAS. of Brahman, or Brahman itself.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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