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They would describe the wind and adore him and say

"In what place was he born, and from whence comes he? The vital breath of gods, the world's great offspring, The God where'er he will moves at his pleasure: His rushing sound we hear--what his appearance, no one."

It was the forces of nature and her manifestations, on earth here, the atmosphere around and above us, or in the Heaven beyond the vault of the sky that excited the devotion and imagination of the Vedic poets. Thus with the exception of a few abstract gods of whom we shall presently speak and some dual divinities, the gods may be roughly classified as the terrestrial, atmospheric, and celestial.

Polytheism, Henotheism and Monotheism.

The plurality of the Vedic gods may lead a superficial enquirer to think the faith of the Vedic people polytheistic. But an intelligent reader will find here neither polytheism nor monotheism but a simple primitive stage of belief to which both of these may be said to owe their origin. The gods here do not preserve their proper places as in a polytheistic faith, but each one of them shrinks into insignificance or shines as supreme according as it is the object of adoration or not. The Vedic poets were the children of nature. Every natural phenomenon excited their wonder, admiration or veneration. The poet is struck with wonder that "the rough red cow gives soft white milk." The appearance or the setting of the sun sends a thrill into the minds of the Vedic sage and with wonder-gazing eyes he exclaims:

"Undropped beneath, not fastened firm, how comes it That downward turned he falls not downward? The guide of his ascending path,--who saw it?"

The sages wonder how "the sparkling waters of all rivers flow into one ocean without ever filling it." The minds of the Vedic

growing belief in the unity of the gods each of whom might be regarded as a type of the divine ." But whether we call it Henotheism or the mere temporary exaggeration of the powers of the deity in question, it is evident that this stage can neither be properly called polytheistic nor monotheistic, but one which had a tendency towards them both, although it was not sufficiently developed to be identified with either of them. The tendency towards extreme exaggeration could be called a monotheistic bias in germ, whereas the correlation of different deities as independent of one another and yet existing side by side was a tendency towards polytheism.

Growth of a Monotheistic tendency; Praj?pati, Vis'vakarma.

In the beginning rose Hira@nyagarbha, Born as the only lord of all existence. This earth he settled firm and heaven established: What god shall we adore with our oblations? Who gives us breath, who gives us strength, whose bidding All creatures must obey, the bright gods even; Whose shade is death, whose shadow life immortal: What god shall we adore with our oblations? Who by his might alone became the monarch Of all that breathes, of all that wakes or slumbers, Of all, both man and beast, the lord eternal: What god shall we adore with our oblations? Whose might and majesty these snowy mountains, The ocean and the distant stream exhibit; Whose arms extended are these spreading regions: What god shall we adore with our oblations? Who made the heavens bright, the earth enduring, Who fixed the firmament, the heaven of heavens; Who measured out the air's extended spaces: What god shall we adore with our oblations?

Similar attributes are also ascribed to the deity Vis'vakarma . He is said to be father and procreator of all beings, though himself uncreated. He generated the primitive waters. It is to him that the sage says,

Brahma.

The conception of Brahman which has been the highest glory for the Ved?nta philosophy of later days had hardly emerged in the @Rg-Veda from the associations of the sacrificial mind. The meanings that S?ya@na the celebrated commentator of the Vedas gives of the word as collected by Haug are: food, food offering, the chant of the s?ma-singer, magical formula or text, duly completed ceremonies, the chant and sacrificial gift together, the recitation of the hot@r priest, great. Roth says that it also means "the devotion which manifests itself as longing and satisfaction of the soul and reaches forth to the gods." But it is only in the S'atapatha Br?hma@na that the conception of Brahman has acquired a great significance as the supreme principle which is the moving force behind the gods. Thus the S'atapatha says, "Verily in the beginning this was the Brahman . It created the gods; and, having created the gods, it made them ascend these worlds: Agni this world, V?yu the air, and S?rya the sky.... Then the Brahman itself went up to the sphere beyond. Having gone up to the sphere beyond, it considered, 'How can I descend again into these worlds?' It then descended again by means of these two, Form and Name. Whatever has a name, that is name; and that again which has no name and which one knows by its form, 'this is form,' that is form: as far as there are Form and Name so far, indeed, extends this . These indeed are the two great forces of Brahman; and, verily, he who knows these two great forces of Brahman becomes himself a great force . In another place Brahman is said to be the ultimate thing in the Universe and is identified with Praj?pati, Puru@sa and Pr?@na

. In another place Brahman is described as being the Svayambh? performing austerities, who offered his own self in the creatures and the creatures in his own self, and thus compassed supremacy, sovereignty and lordship over all creatures . The conception of the supreme man in the @Rg-Veda also supposes that the supreme man pervades the world with only a fourth part of Himself, whereas the remaining three parts transcend to a region beyond. He is at once the present, past and future .

Sacrifice; the First Rudiments of the Law of Karma.

It will however be wrong to suppose that these monotheistic tendencies were gradually supplanting the polytheistic sacrifices. On the other hand, the complications of ritualism were gradually growing in their elaborate details. The direct result of this growth contributed however to relegate the gods to a relatively unimportant position, and to raise the dignity of the magical characteristics of the sacrifice as an institution which could give the desired fruits of themselves. The offerings at a sacrifice were not dictated by a devotion with which we are familiar under Christian or Vai@s@nava influence. The sacrifice taken as a whole is conceived as Haug notes "to be a kind of machinery in which every piece must tally with the other," the slightest discrepancy in the performance of even a minute ritualistic detail, say in the pouring of the melted butter on the fire, or the proper placing of utensils employed in the sacrifice, or even the misplacing of a mere straw contrary to the injunctions was sufficient to spoil the whole sacrifice with whatsoever earnestness it might be performed. Even if a word was mispronounced the most dreadful results might follow. Thus when Tva@s@t@r performed a sacrifice for the production of a demon who would be able to kill his enemy Indra, owing to the mistaken accent of a single word the object was reversed and the demon produced was killed by Indra. But if the sacrifice could be duly performed down to the minutest detail, there was no power which could arrest or delay the fruition of the object. Thus the objects of a sacrifice were fulfilled not by the grace of the gods, but as a natural result of the sacrifice. The performance of the rituals invariably produced certain mystic or magical results by virtue of which the object desired

Cosmogony--Mythological and philosophical.

The cosmogony of the @Rg-Veda may be looked at from two aspects, the mythological and the philosophical. The mythological aspect has in general two currents, as Professor Macdonell says, "The one regards the universe as the result of mechanical production, the work of carpenter's and joiner's skill; the other represents it as the result of natural generation ." Thus in the @Rg-Veda we find that the poet in one place says, "what was the wood and what was the tree out of which they built heaven and earth ?" The answer given to this question in Taittir?ya-Br?hma@na is "Brahman the wood and Brahman the tree from which the heaven and earth were made ." Heaven and Earth are sometimes described as having been supported with posts . They are also sometimes spoken of as universal parents, and parentage is sometimes attributed to Aditi and Dak@sa.

Under this philosophical aspect the semi-pantheistic Man-hymn attracts our notice. The supreme man as we have already noticed above is there said to be the whole universe, whatever has been and shall be; he is the lord of immortality who has become diffused everywhere among things animate and inanimate, and all beings came out of him; from his navel came the atmosphere; from his head arose the sky; from his feet came the earth; from his ear the four quarters. Again there are other hymns in which the Sun is called the soul of all that is movable and all that is immovable . There are also statements to the effect that the Being is one, though it is called by many names by the sages . The supreme being is sometimes extolled as the supreme Lord of the world called the golden egg . In some passages it is said "Brahma@naspati blew forth these births like a blacksmith. In the earliest age of the gods, the existent sprang from the non-existent. In the first age of the gods, the existent sprang from the non-existent: thereafter the regions sprang, thereafter, from Utt?napada ." The most remarkable and sublime hymn in which the first germs of philosophic speculation

The earliest commentary on this is probably a passage in the S'atapatha Br?hma@na which says that "in the beginning this was as it were neither non-existent nor existent; in the beginning this was as it were, existed and did not exist: there was then only that Mind. Wherefore it has been declared by the Rishi , 'There was then neither the non-existent nor the existent' for Mind was, as it were, neither existent nor non-existent. This Mind when created, wished to become manifest,--more defined, more substantial: it sought after a self ; it practised austerity: it acquired consistency ." In the Atharva-Veda also we find it stated that all forms of the universe were comprehended within the god Skambha .

Thus we find that even in the period of the Vedas there sprang forth such a philosophic yearning, at least among some who could

question whether this universe was at all a creation or not, which could think of the origin of the world as being enveloped in the mystery of a primal non-differentiation of being and non-being; and which could think that it was the primal One which by its inherent fervour gave rise to the desire of a creation as the first manifestation of the germ of mind, from which the universe sprang forth through a series of mysterious gradual processes. In the Br?hma@nas, however, we find that the cosmogonic view generally requires the agency of a creator, who is not however always the starting point, and we find that the theory of evolution is combined with the theory of creation, so that Praj?pati is sometimes spoken of as the creator while at other times the creator is said to have floated in the primeval water as a cosmic golden egg.

Eschatology; the Doctrine of ?tman.

There seems to be a belief in the Vedas that the soul could be separated from the body in states of swoon, and that it could exist after death, though we do not find there any trace of the doctrine of transmigration in a developed form. In the S'atapatha Br?hma@na it is said that those who do not perform rites with correct knowledge are born again after death and suffer death again. In a hymn of the @Rg-Veda the soul of a man apparently unconscious is invited to come back to him from the trees, herbs, the sky, the sun, etc. In many of the hymns there is also the belief in the existence of another world, where the highest material joys are attained as a result of the performance of the sacrifices and also in a hell of darkness underneath where the evil-doers are punished. In the S'atapatha Br?hma@na we find that the dead pass between two fires which burn the evil-doers, but let the good go by ; it is also said there that everyone is born again after death, is weighed in a balance, and receives reward or punishment according as his works are good or bad. It is easy to see that scattered ideas like these with regard to the destiny of the soul of man according to the sacrifice that he performs or other good or bad deeds form the first rudiments of the later doctrine of metempsychosis. The idea that man enjoys or suffers, either in another world or by being born in this world according to his good or bad deeds, is the first beginning of the moral idea, though in the Brahmanic days the good deeds were

Conclusion.

Looking at the advancement of thought in the @Rg-Veda we find first that a fabric of thought was gradually growing which not only looked upon the universe as a correlation of parts or a

The place of the Upani@sads in Vedic literature.

Though it is generally held that the Upani@sads are usually attached as appendices to the ?ra@nyakas which are again attached to the Br?hma@nas, yet it cannot be said that their distinction as separate treatises is always observed. Thus we find in some cases that subjects which we should expect to be discussed in a Br?hma@na are introduced into the ?ra@nyakas and the ?ra@nyaka materials are sometimes fused into the great bulk of Upani@sad teaching. This shows that these three literatures gradually grew up in one

process of development and they were probably regarded as parts of one literature, in spite of the differences in their subject-matter. Deussen supposes that the principle of this division was to be found in this, that the Br?hma@nas were intended for the householders, the ?ra@nyakas for those who in their old age withdrew into the solitude of the forests and the Upani@sads for those who renounced the world to attain ultimate salvation by meditation. Whatever might be said about these literary classifications the ancient philosophers of India looked upon the Upani@sads as being of an entirely different type from the rest of the Vedic literature as dictating the path of knowledge as opposed to the path of works which forms the content of the latter. It is not out of place here to mention that the orthodox Hindu view holds that whatever may be written in the Veda is to be interpreted as commandments to perform certain actions or prohibitions against committing certain others . Even the stories or episodes are to be so interpreted that the real objects of their insertion might appear as only to praise the performance of the commandments and to blame the commission of the prohibitions. No person has any right to argue why any particular Vedic commandment is to be followed, for no reason can ever discover that, and it is only because reason fails to find out why a certain Vedic act leads to a certain effect that the Vedas have been revealed as commandments and prohibitions to show the true path of happiness. The Vedic teaching belongs therefore to that of the Karma-m?rga or the performance of Vedic duties of sacrifice, etc. The Upani@sads however do not require the performance of any action, but only reveal the ultimate truth and reality, a knowledge of which at once emancipates a man. Readers of Hindu philosophy are aware that there is a very strong controversy on this point between the adherents of the Ved?nta and those of the Veda. For the latter seek in analogy to the other parts of the Vedic literature to establish the principle that the Upani@sads should not be regarded as an exception, but that they should also be so interpreted that they might also be held out as commending the performance of duties; but the former dissociate the Upani@sads from the rest of the Vedic literature and assert that they do not make the slightest reference to any Vedic duties, but only delineate the ultimate reality which reveals the highest knowledge in the minds of the deserving.

S'a@nkara the most eminent exponent of the Upani@sads holds that they are meant for such superior men who are already above worldly or heavenly prosperities, and for whom the Vedic duties have ceased to have any attraction. Wheresoever there may be such a deserving person, be he a student, a householder or an ascetic, for him the Upani@sads have been revealed for his ultimate emancipation and the true knowledge. Those who perform the Vedic duties belong to a stage inferior to those who no longer care for the fruits of the Vedic duties but are eager for final emancipation, and it is the latter who alone are fit to hear the Upani@sads .

The names of the Upani@sads; Non-Brahmanic influence.

The Upani@sads are also known by another name Ved?nta, as they are believed to be the last portions of the Vedas ; it is by this name that the philosophy of the Upani@sads, the Ved?nta philosophy, is so familiar to us. A modern student knows that in language the Upani@sads approach the classical Sanskrit; the ideas preached also show that they are the culmination of the intellectual achievement of a great epoch. As they thus formed the concluding parts of the Vedas they retained their Vedic names which they took from the name of the different schools or branches among which the Vedas were studied . Thus the Upani@sads attached to the Br?hma@nas of the Aitareya and Kau@s?taki schools are called respectively Aitareya and Kau@s?taki Upani@sads. Those of the T?@n@dins and Talavak?ras of the S?ma-veda are called the Ch?ndogya and Talavak?ra Upani@sads. Those of the Taittir?ya school of the Yajurveda

form the Taittir?ya and Mah?n?raya@na, of the Ka@tha school the K?@thaka, of the Maitr?ya@n? school the Maitr?ya@n?. The B@rhad?ra@nyaka Upani@sad forms part of the S'atapatha Br?hma@na of the V?jasaneyi schools. The ?s'? Upani@sad also belongs to the latter school. But the school to which the S'vet?s'vatara belongs cannot be traced, and has probably been lost. The presumption with regard to these Upani@sads is that they represent the enlightened views of the particular schools among which they flourished, and under whose names they passed. A large number of Upani@sads of a comparatively later age were attached to the Atharva-Veda, most of which were named not according to the Vedic schools but according to the subject-matter with which they dealt .

It may not be out of place here to mention that from the frequent episodes in the Upani@sads in which the Brahmins are described as having gone to the K@sattriyas for the highest knowledge of philosophy, as well as from the disparateness of the Upani@sad teachings from that of the general doctrines of the Br?hma@nas and from the allusions to the existence of philosophical speculations amongst the people in P?li works, it may be inferred that among the K@sattriyas in general there existed earnest philosophic enquiries which must be regarded as having exerted an important influence in the formation of the Upani@sad doctrines. There is thus some probability in the supposition that though the Upani@sads are found directly incorporated with the Br?hma@nas it was not the production of the growth of Brahmanic dogmas alone, but that non-Brahmanic thought as well must have either set the Upani@sad doctrines afoot, or have rendered fruitful assistance to their formulation and cultivation, though they achieved their culmination in the hands of the Brahmins.

Br?hma@nas and the Early Upani@sads.

The passage of the Indian mind from the Br?hmanic to the Upani@sad thought is probably the most remarkable event in the history of philosophic thought. We know that in the later Vedic hymns some monotheistic conceptions of great excellence were developed, but these differ in their nature from the absolutism of the Upani@sads as much as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican

systems in astronomy. The direct translation of Vis'vakarman or Hira@nyagarbha into the ?tman and the Brahman of the Upani@sads seems to me to be very improbable, though I am quite willing to admit that these conceptions were swallowed up by the ?tman doctrine when it had developed to a proper extent. Throughout the earlier Upani@sads no mention is to be found of Vis'vakarman, Hira@nyagarbha or Brahma@naspati and no reference of such a nature is to be found as can justify us in connecting the Upani@sad ideas with those conceptions . The word puru@sa no doubt occurs frequently in the Upani@sads, but the sense and the association that come along with it are widely different from that of the puru@sa of the Puru@sas?kta of the @Rg-Veda.

says "Purusha has a thousand heads...a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. On every side enveloping the earth he transcended by a space of ten fingers....He formed those aerial creatures, and the animals, both wild and tame ," etc. Even that famous hymn which begins with "There was then neither being nor non-being, there was no air nor sky above" ends with saying "From whence this creation came into being, whether it was created or not--he who is in the highest sky, its ruler, probably knows or does not know."

In the Upani@sads however, the position is entirely changed, and the centre of interest there is not in a creator from outside but in the self: the natural development of the monotheistic position of the Vedas could have grown into some form of developed theism, but not into the doctrine that the self was the only reality and that everything else was far below it. There is no relation here of the worshipper and the worshipped and no prayers are offered to it, but the whole quest is of the highest truth, and the true self of man is discovered as the greatest reality. This change of philosophical position seems to me to be a matter of great interest. This change of the mind from the objective to the subjective does not carry with it in the Upani@sads any elaborate philosophical discussions, or subtle analysis of mind. It comes there as a matter of direct perception, and the conviction with which the truth has been grasped cannot fail to impress the readers. That out of the apparently meaningless speculations of the Br?hma@nas this doctrine could have developed, might indeed appear to be too improbable to be believed.

On the strength of the stories of B?l?ki Ga'rgya and Aj?tas'atru , S'vetaketu and Prav?ha@na Jaibali and ?ru@ni and As'vapati Kaikeya Garbe thinks "that it can be proven that the Brahman's profoundest wisdom, the doctrine of All-one, which has exercised an unmistakable influence on the intellectual life even of our time, did not have its origin in the circle of Brahmans at all " and that "it took its rise in the ranks of the warrior caste ." This if true would of course lead the development of the Upani@sads away from the influence of the Veda, Br?hma@nas and the ?ra@nyakas. But do the facts prove this? Let us briefly examine the evidences that Garbe himself

." Does this not imply that in the natural order of things a Brahmin always taught the knowledge of Brahman to the K@sattriyas, and that it was unusual to find a Brahmin asking a K@sattriya about the true knowledge of Brahman? At the beginning of the conversation, Aj?tas'atru had promised to pay B?l?ki one thousand coins if he could tell him about Brahman, since all people used to run to Janaka to speak about Brahman . The second story of S'vetaketu and Prav?ha@na Jaibali seems to be fairly conclusive with regard to the fact that the transmigration doctrines, the way of the gods and the way of the fathers had originated among the K@sattriyas, but it is without any relevancy with regard to the origin of the superior knowledge of Brahman as the true self.

The third story of ?ru@ni and As'vapati Kaikeya is hardly more convincing, for here five Brahmins wishing to know what the Brahman and the self were, went to Udd?laka ?ru@ni; but as he did not know sufficiently about it he accompanied them to the K@sattriya king As'vapati Kaikeya who was studying the subject. But As'vapati ends the conversation by giving them certain instructions about the fire doctrine and the import of its sacrifices. He does not say anything about the true self as Brahman. We ought also to consider that there are only the few exceptional cases where K@sattriya kings were instructing the Brahmins. But in all other cases the Brahmins were discussing and instructing the ?tman knowledge. I am thus led to think that Garbe owing to his bitterness of feeling against the Brahmins as expressed in the earlier part of the essay had been too hasty in his judgment. The opinion of Garbe seems to have been shared to some extent by Winternitz also, and the references given by him to the Upani@sad passages are also the same as we

just examined . The truth seems to me to be this, that the K@sattriyas and even some women took interest in the religio-philosophical quest manifested in the Upani@sads. The enquirers were so eager that either in receiving the instruction of Brahman or in imparting it to others, they had no considerations of sex and birth ; and there seems to be no definite evidence for thinking that the Upani@sad philosophy originated among the K@sattriyas or that the germs of its growth could not be traced in the Br?hma@nas and the ?ra@nyakas which were the productions of the Brahmins.

The change of the Br?hma@na into the ?ra@nyaka thought is signified by a transference of values from the actual sacrifices to their symbolic representations and meditations which were regarded as being productive of various earthly benefits. Thus we find in the B@rhad?ra@nyaka that instead of a horse sacrifice the visible universe is to be conceived as a horse and meditated upon as such. The dawn is the head of the horse, the sun is the eye, wind is its life, fire is its mouth and the year is its soul, and so on. What is the horse that grazes in the field and to what good can its sacrifice lead? This moving universe is the horse which is most significant to the mind, and the meditation of it as such is the most suitable substitute of the sacrifice of the horse, the mere animal. Thought-activity as meditation, is here taking the place of an external worship in the form of sacrifices. The material substances and the most elaborate and accurate sacrificial rituals lost their value and bare meditations took their place. Side by side with the ritualistic sacrifices of the generality of the Brahmins, was springing up a system where thinking and symbolic meditations were taking the place of gross matter and action involved in sacrifices. These symbols were not only chosen from the external world as the sun, the wind, etc., from the body of man, his various vital functions and the senses, but even arbitrary alphabets were taken up and it was believed that the meditation of these as the highest and the greatest was productive of great beneficial results. Sacrifice in itself was losing value in the eyes of these men and diverse mystical significances and imports were beginning to be considered as their real truth .

"magical force" and "great," transition between which is rather easy. Even when the sacrifices began to be replaced by meditations, the old belief in the power of the sacrifices still remained, and as a result of that we find that in many passages of the Upani@sads people are thinking of meditating upon this great force "Brahman" as being identified with diverse symbols, natural objects, parts and functions of the body.

When the main interest of sacrifice was transferred from its actual performance in the external world to certain forms of meditation, we find that the understanding of particular allegories of sacrifice having a relation to particular kinds of bodily functions was regarded as Brahman, without a knowledge of which nothing could be obtained. The fact that these allegorical interpretations of the Pa?c?gnividy? are so much referred to in the Upani@sads as a secret doctrine, shows that some people came to think that the real efficacy of sacrifices depended upon such meditations. When the sages rose to the culminating conception, that he is really ignorant who thinks the gods to be different from him, they thought that as each man was nourished by many beasts, so the gods were nourished by each man, and as it is unpleasant for a man if any of his beasts are taken away, so it is unpleasant for the gods that men should know this great truth. .

In the Kena we find it indicated that all the powers of the gods such as that of Agni to burn, V?yu to blow, depended upon Brahman, and that it is through Brahman that all the gods and all the senses of man could work. The whole process of Upani@sad thought shows that the magic power of sacrifices as associated with @Rta was being abstracted from the sacrifices and conceived as the supreme power. There are many stories in the Upani@sads of the search after the nature of this great power the Brahman, which was at first only imperfectly realized. They identified it with the dominating power of the natural objects of wonder, the sun, the moon, etc. with bodily and mental functions and with various symbolical representations, and deluded themselves for a time with the idea that these were satisfactory. But as these were gradually found inadequate, they came to the final solution, and the doctrine of the inner self of man as being the highest truth the Brahman originated.

The meaning of the word Upani@sad.

The composition and growth of diverse Upani@sads.

The oldest Upani@sads are written in prose. Next to these we have some in verses very similar to those that are to be found in classical Sanskrit. As is easy to see, the older the Upani@sad the more archaic is it in its language. The earliest Upani@sads have an almost mysterious forcefulness in their expressions at least to Indian ears. They are simple, pithy and penetrate to the heart. We can read and read them over again without getting tired. The lines are always as fresh as ever. As such they have a charm apart from the value of the ideas they intend to convey. The word Upani@sad was used, as we have seen, in the sense of "secret doctrine or instruction"; the Upani@sad teachings were also intended to be conveyed in strictest secrecy to earnest enquirers of high morals and superior self-restraint for the purpose of achieving

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