CWTVKS Volume 3

ON THE UPANISHADS

The Upanishads are known as the Vedanta, the concluding section close, anta, of the Vedas. They are the last word, the crown and summit of the Vedas in their entirety handed down from mouth to mouth for ages and held in high esteem by the votaries of the Vedic lore. An attempt at a study of the Upanishads, to be correct and fruitful, however general, must proceed with a correct evaluation of the nature and import of the Vedas inasmuch as the Upanishads purport to present the conclusion, the secret truth and essentials of the main body of the Vedas. All are not agreed on the meaning and significance of the Vedas proper nor on the relative importance of each of the constituent parts of the Veda, VIZ. the Mantras, hymns of seers recorded in the Samhitas (collections), the Brahmanas, prose treatises dealing largely with the technique and course of the rituals enjoined by them, Aranyakas which are the penultimate portions of the Brahmanas dealing in a general way with philosophical truths and finally the Upanishads where we find flights of high philosophical thought side by side with records of deep spiritual experience indeed, some of these important texts are part of the Aranyakas.

Orthodox Vedists hold the view that the Veda consisting of the Mantra and the Brahmana, provides man with the one sure means for achieving the goal of life, to attain all that is desirable and to ward off all that is unwelcome and harmful. The Veda is the source of Dharma. Knowledge of this Dharma can be got from the Vedas alone and it is in the form of injunctions. The observance of such Dharma achieves the ends of life and works out the good of man here on earth in this life and elsewhere beyond, after death. To adhere to this Dharma one must faithfully perform all the ritual sanctioned and enjoined by the Vedic authority. Thus the Vedic Dharma is sustained by its observance. Therefore, Karma, Works (rituals) is the meaning and purpose of the Veda. The Brahman as naturally come to occupy the main part in the Vedas inasmuch as they lay down the forms and procedure and minutiae of the Ritual. Of course the Mantras are there and they have their use too. They are meant to be recited and used as directed during the rituals; they subserve the rituals. As for the Upanishads, they are after all particular portions of the Aranyakas or are themselves part of the Brahmanas. They are the last remnants of the commanded Rituals (vidhi-sesa). They are in the nature of appendices to the Brahmanas and do not have an independent existence as such.

But this position of Mimamsakas formulated and established by Jaimini is not accepted by all. There are others who oppose this assertion. Some seek to establish the position that the Veda provides an equal basis for both Ritual and Knowledge. The Veda consists of two sections, kandas, the one of the ritual, karma kanda, and the other of knowledge, jnana kanda. The Brahmanas comprise the former, the Karmakanda, and the Upanishads constitute the other, Jnanakanda. The Karmakanda lays down rituals for reaping fruits of enjoyment in this and other worlds; the other shows the Knowledge which leads man to the Supreme Object of life which is not temporal like the fruits of the former, but is eternal and the highest end possible for him. Hence the Veda establishes Dharma by means of the Brahmanas and Knowledge of the Brahman by means of the Upanishads. Badarayana who collected, systematised and gave a definite shape to the floating speculations and perceptions forming this Jnanakanda in his Vedanta Darshana is the chief protagonist of this movement.

We need not concern ourselves here with the merits of the respective standpoints. For our purpose it is enough if we note certain facts which are evident on a careful perusal of the Vedas. The Mantras are not mere poetical compositions left for posterity by poets and authors. They are the seeings of Rishis, which they got as a result of their tapas and gave expression to in inspired words which we find embodied in the compilations called Samhitas. These hymns are found in all the four Samhitas—the Rik, the Yajus, the Sama and the Atharva Samhitas. These perceptions are perceptions of deep spiritual truths and occult phenomena observed in the realm of their inner life by the Rishis. The Brahmanas however put such interpretations on these Mantras as are convenient for their avowed ritualistic purposes and proceed to use them therefor. The Upanishads occasionally mention these Mantras but to use them is not their main occupation. They are concerned with establishing the Supreme Truth. And in the line of this their endeavour, they may and do refer to these Mantras by way of illustration to find support for their own conclusions, comment on them whenever necessary and make a rightful use of them for purposes of propagation of spiritual knowledge to their disciples and truth seekers. And that is possible because the Mantras have a definitely spiritual content and their true significance rarely turns out to be other than spiritual, occult and mystic. That is why such an able commentator like Sayana who has commented on the four Samhitas — a gigantic task in itself — though set out to comment on the hymns for purposes of the ritual, finds it difficult to proceed in that line when he comes across certain hymns which are manifestly spiritual in import and is constrained to admit that there is spiritual knowledge in some hymns, as for instance while dealing with the hymn of Dirghatamas (I.164): “Thus are these (riks) and others ahead to be commented upon in the spiritual sense. . . still, we do not proceed in the matter as it is not of use to our purpose i.e. for the purpose of rituals.” Naturally, for those to whom Karma is supreme and there is nothing besides Karma’, karmanah anyat nasti, such portions are devoid of excellence and even much sense for the simple reason that they carry no utility for purposes of the external rituals. The spiritual is indeed a far cry for those to whom Ritual is the sole refuge.

There is however a general measure of agreement regarding the nature and purport of the closing portions of the Vedas viz. the Upanishads. To ascertain the Truth is the one keynote, of all the Upanishads. But the sages of the Upanishads did not proceed in their search for Truth in the modern intellectual way. Sages like Yajnavalkya may strike the casual reader as having set about their quest with the aid of reason and intellect alone. But it was not so. Reason had a place, quite an important one, but the main road-builder was their power of tapas, the inner discipline of the soul, mind and body and the inner vision which came naturally to a mind purified and prepared by tapas. And their ultimate standard of confirmation was experience and direct perception, the mantra drsti of the Vedic Rishis. To that they referred as the confirming authority. So, frequently do we come across in the Upanishads statements like: "That is said by the Rik’, ’That is uttered by the Rishis’, ’So also says the verse’ ‘ Here are the Mantras’, ’Concerning this the Rishi said ’. . Lines such as these simply show how the Upanishads drew support from the quotation of the Mantras and the authority of the Rishis to strengthen and confirm the conclusions that they quite often arrived at independently. Riks of Vamadeva, Dirghatamas and others come in for frequent citation viz., hamsah sucisat, aham manura-bhavam,, dva suparna etc.

There are more than a hundred treatises that go by the name of the Upanishad. There is even a recent one entitled the allopanisad! The ancient Upanishads however are only twelve or thirteen. The authenticity of the ten well-known Upanishads and also of the Kousitaki and the sevetasvetara is enhanced by reason of their forming the subject matter of the famous Badarayana Sutras and most of them are commented upon by Acharya Shankara, the first among the later Acharyas. Of these the Brihadaranyaka, Chhandogya, Aitareya and Kaushitaki are the Upanishads of the Brahmanas; only the Ish opanishad forms a direct part of the Vajasaneyi Samhita. The rest of the major Upanishads are, according to tradition, as authentic as the above mentioned ones.

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Not all the Upanish ads proceed on identical lines and even in the same Upanishad it is not always one line that is sketched. Indeed all the statements in the Upanishads find their reconciliation in the ultimate Brahman. Yet, there are to be found scattered in the different Upanishads statements which form the bases, the starting points for the later mutually opposing philosophies like Dualism, Monism, Samkhya and Yoga etc. Thus: “Here one sees as if it is dual ”, yatra dvaitamiva pasyati, a line with obvious advaitic import in the Brihadaranyaka;“ Two unborn, sovereign and not sovereign’ dvau ajau isavanisau, in the Svetasvatara, explaining the dual nature of the Atman; “ The one unborn, white, red and black" ajam ekam lohita sukla krisna. . .touching upon the gunas, in the Svetasvatara; “But beyond the threefold Prakriti is He”, prakrteh parastu sah in the Katha, are instances to the point. To our mind these statements appear to be contradictory, cancelling each other. But we cannot presume to detract or dismiss them as such by our modern intellectual standards because the origin of these declarations lies not in mental reasonings and inferences about them, but it lies beyond the range of the senses, in the perception of the seers and what is more, because they have worn well for ages and could be verified by competent seekers with the necessary equipment.

What then is the supreme Object to be known as laid down in the Vedanta ? It is the Brahman. Its svarupa, nature and character to the seeker is Satya, Jnana and Anantam, Truth, Knowledge and Endless (Imperishable). That is the Existence, One-without-second, the Brahman from which flow all this that is born, in which all this stays and to which all this returns. That becomes the self of all beings. Even in the Brahmasutras, a later work of the Sutra period in the famous ubhayalinga topic (Brahman with the double sign) we learn that the all-powerful and all-knowing Brahman is endowed with attributes and is also devoid of attributes (saguna and nirguna). Union with the Lord of All is possible for man. A man of knowledge on leaving this body does not simply die. Either by reason of the fructification of the merits of his action in the past, punya, or by the conjoint resultant action of his Karma and Jnana, he has developed an individuality which transcends the body and acquired for himself a freedom of movement and action and with that he ascends the other planes of existence, the other worlds above the earth, like the steps of a staircase and attains in the order of liberation, union with the saguna Brahman. But this is not the only kind of liberation possible. There is what is called the instantaneous liberation, sadyo-mukti. “He attains to immortality even from here”, ihaiva tisthan amrtattvam eti. He is a mukta even while in this body, living, jivan-mukta. The Self the atman is self-existent and free from all attributes. Starting from this immediate perception within himself the seeker arrives at a realisation, a Knowledge, and a life lived in that Knowledge, that the Nirguna Brahman — the Brahman without attributes is the sole Truth, the sole Knowledge, the One, the Immortal.

But one can attain to such a state of liberation, to a state of readiness of the being to receive such liberation only as a result of strenuous endeavours during one’s life-time. There are special disciplines leading to special realisations and they are pointed out in the Upanishads. If their actual working details have not been described, it is because they are too sacred to be communicated to anyone except by the Guru to his accepted disciple of proved competence. They are called the sadhanas, vidyas. Well known among them, to name a few, are the Udgitha Vidya, Shandilya Vidya, Samvarga Vidya etc. Of these the Dahara Vidya is by far the most important one for through it is one enabled, to feel and contact and realise the Dynamic Purusha seated within oneself, in the heart, and to one who has thus gained his atman, the knowledge of the Brahman comes as a matter of course.

Success in the sadhana cannot be achieved as a result of personal effort alone. Knowledge of the Brahman cannot be won by means of the intellect however sharp or learning however wide. It is the Grace of the Ishwara that gives the secret of the sadhana initially and also effects the culminating release. That is why it is said, "He whom the self chooses, by him alone is He to be attained ” yam eva esa vrnute tasya esa labhyah. And this Grace is always resplendent, glistening and active in the person who has realised the true svarupa of his Self. He is the Guru, the Acharya who is capable of reaching his realisation to others, who can lift up his disciples, in the measure of their self-giving, to his particular realisation. “One having an acharya indeed knows ”, acaryavan puruso veda.

The sad-gati, the state of freedom from life of Ignorance is not a thing, as we have pointed out earlier, to be got at only after one leaves this body. If it has not been achieved or prepared for here, it cannot be got at hereafter. “ If he knows It here, then alone there is the Truth for him”, iha cet avedid atha satyam asti; if he does not know It (here) there is indeed a great loss, "na cet iha avedid mahati vinastih.

What is the nature of the fulfilment, the sad-gati aspired for by the seeker? The answer to this question is beautifully epitomised in the Upanishadic prayer:

Lead me from falsehood to Truth, asato ma sad gamaya,

Lead me from darkness to Light, tamaso ma jyotir gama ya,

Lead me from death to Immortality, mrtyor ma amrtam gamaya.