The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
This Upanishad contains some rather striking passages: "Whatever man
attains, he desires to go beyond it; if he should reach heaven itself
he would desire to go beyond it" (2. 3. 3. 1). "_Brahma_ is the A,
thither goes the ego" (2. 3. 8. 7). "A is the whole of Speech, and
Speech is Truth, and Truth is Spirit" (2. 3. 6. 5-14).[16] "The Spirit
brooded over the water, and form (matter) was born" (2. 4. 3. 1 ff.);
so physically water is the origin of all things" (2. 1. 8. 1).[17]
"Whatever belongs to the father belongs to the son, whatever belongs
to the son belongs to the father" (_ib_.). "Man has three births: he
is born of his mother, reborn in the person of his son, and finds his
highest birth in death" (2. 5).
In the exposition of these two Upanishads one gets at once the sum of
them all. The methods, the illustrations, even the doctrines, differ
in detail; but in the chief end and object of the Upanishads, and in
the principle of knowledge as a means of attaining _brahma_, they are
united. This it is that causes the refutation of the Vedic 'being from
not-being.' It is even said in the [=A]itareya that the gods
worshipped breath (the spirit) as being and so became gods (great);
while devils worshipped spirit as not-being, and hence became
(inferior) devils (2. 1. 8. 6).
It was noticed above that a king instructed priests. This interchange
of the rôles of the two castes is not unique. In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki
Upanishad (4. 19), occurs another instance of a warrior teaching a
Brahman. This, with the familiar illustration of a Gandh[=a]ra
(Kandahar) man, the song of the Kurus, and the absence of Brahmanic
literature as such in the list of works, cited vii. 1, would indicate
that the Ch[=a]ndogya was at least as old as the Br[=a]hmana
literature.[18]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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