Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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Though asceticism resembles the sacrifice in being a means by which man
can obtain his wishes whether religious or profane, it differs in being
comparatively easy. Irksome as it may be, it demands merely strength of
will and not a scientific training in ritual and Vedic texts. Hence in
this sphere the supremacy of the Brahman could be challenged by other
castes and an instructive legend relates how Rama slew a Sudra whom he
surprised in the act of performing austerities. The lowest castes can by
this process acquire a position which makes them equal to the
highest[164].

Of the non-Brahmanic sects, the Jains set the highest value on Tapas,
but chiefly as a purification of the soul and a means of obtaining an
unearthly state of pure knowledge[165]. In theory the Buddha rejected
it; he taught a middle way, rejecting alike self-indulgence and
self-mortification. But even Pali Buddhism admits such practices as the
Dhutangas and the more extravagant sects, for instance in Tibet, allow
monks to entomb themselves in dark cells. According to our standards
even the ordinary religious life of both Hindus and Buddhists is
severely ascetic. It is assumed as a _sine qua non_ that strict chastity
must be observed, nourishment be taken only to support life and not for
pleasure, that all gratification coming from the senses must be avoided
and the mind kept under rigid discipline. This discipline receives
systematic treatment in the Yoga school of philosophy but it is really
common to all varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism; all agree that the
body must be subdued by physical training before the mind can apprehend
the higher truths. The only question is how far asceticism is directly
instrumental in giving higher knowledge. If some texts speak slightingly
of it, we must remember that the life of a hermit dwelling in the woods
without possessions or desires might not be regarded by a Hindu as
_tapas_ though we should certainly regard it as asceticism. It is also
agreed that supernatural powers can be acquired by special forms of
asceticism. These powers are sometimes treated as mere magic and
spiritually worthless but their reality is not questioned.

2

We have now said something of two aspects of Indian religion--ritual and
asceticism--and must pass on to the third, namely, knowledge or
philosophy. Its importance was recognized by the severest ritualists.
They admitted it as a supplement and crown to the life of ceremonial
observances and in the public estimation it came to be reputed an
alternative or superior road to salvation. Respect and desire for
knowledge are even more intimately a part of Hindu mentality than a
proclivity to asceticism or ritual. The sacrifice itself must be
understood as well as offered. He who _knows_ the meaning of this or
that observance obtains his desires[166].

Nor did the Brahmans resent criticism and discussion. India has always
loved theological argument: it is the national passion. The early
Upanishads relate without disapproval how kings such as Ajatasatru of
Kasi, Pravahana Jaivali and Asvapati Kaikeya imparted to learned
Brahmans philosophical and theological knowledge previously unknown to
them[167] and even women like Gargi and Maitreyi took part in
theological discussions. Obviously knowledge in the sense of
philosophical speculation commended itself to religiously disposed
persons in the non-sacerdotal castes for the same reason as asceticism.
Whatever difficulties it might offer, it was more accessible than the
learning which could be acquired only under a Brahman teacher, although
the Brahmans in the interests of the sacerdotal caste maintained that
philosophy like ritual was a secret to be imparted, not a result to be
won by independent thought.

Again and again the Upanishads insist that the more profound doctrines
must not be communicated to any but a son or an accredited pupil and
also that no one can think them out for himself[168], yet the older ones
admit in such stories as those mentioned that the impulse towards
speculation came in early periods, as it did in the time of the Buddha,
largely from outside the priestly clans and was adopted rather than
initiated by them. But in justice to the Brahmans we must admit that
they have rarely--or at any rate much less frequently than other
sacerdotal corporations--shown hostility to new ideas and then chiefly
when such ideas (like those of Buddhism) implied that the rites by which
they gained their living were worthless. Otherwise they showed great
pliancy and receptivity, for they combined Vedic rites and mythology
with such systems as the Sankhya and Advaita philosophies, both of which
really render superfluous everything which is usually called religion
since, though their language is decorous, they teach that he who _knows_
the truth about the universe is thereby saved.

The best opinion of India has always felt that the way of knowledge or
Jnana was the true way. The favourite thesis of the Brahmans was that a
man should devote his youth to study, his maturity to the duties and
ceremonies of a householder, and his age to more sublime speculations.
But at all periods the idea that it was possible to know God and the
universe was allied to the idea that all ceremonies as well as all
worldly effort and indeed all active morality are superfluous[169]. All
alike are unessential and trivial, and merit the attention only of those
who know nothing higher. Human feelings and interests qualified and
contradicted this negative and unearthly view of religion, but still
popular sentiment as well as philosophic thought during the whole period
of which we know something of them in India tended to regard the highest
life as consisting in rapt contemplation or insight accompanied by the
suppression of desire and by disengagement from mundane ties and
interests. But knowledge in Indian theology implies more intensity than
we attach to the word and even some admixture of volition. The knowledge
of Brahman is not an understanding of pantheistic doctrines such as may
be obtained by reading _The Sacred Books of the East_ in an easy chair
but a realization (in all senses) of personal identity with the
universal spirit, in the light of which all material attachments and
fetters fall away.

The earlier philosophical speculations of the Brahmans are chiefly found
in the treatises called Upanishads. The teaching contained in these
works is habitually presented as something secret[170] or esoteric and
does not, like Buddhism or Jainism, profess to be a gospel for all. Also
the teaching is not systematized and has never been unified by a
personality like the Buddha. It grew up in the various _parishads_, or
communities of learned Brahmans, and perhaps flourished most in north
western India[171]. There is of course a common substratum of ideas but
they appear in different versions: we have the teaching of Yajnavalkya,
of Uddalaka Aruni and other masters and each teaching has some
individuality. They are merely reported as words of the wise without an
attempt to harmonize them. There are many apparent inconsistencies due
to the use of divergent metaphors to indicate different aspects of the
indescribable, and some real inconsistencies due to the existence of
different schools. Hence, attempts whether Indian or European to give a
harmonious summary of this ancient doctrine are likely to be erroneous.

There are a great number of Upanishads, composed at various dates and
not all equally revered. They represent different orders of ideas and
some of the later are distinctly sectarian. Collections of 45, 52 and 60
are mentioned, and the Muktika Upanishad gives a list of 108. This is
the number currently accepted in India at the present day. But
Schrader[172] describes many Upanishads existing in MS. in addition to
this list and points out that though they may be modern there is no
ground for calling them spurious. According to Indian ideas there is no
_a priori_ objection to the appearance now or in the future of new
Upanishads[173]. All revelation is eternal and self-existent but it can
manifest itself at its own good time.

Many of the more modern Upanishads appear to be the compositions of
single authors and may be called tracts or poems in the ordinary
European sense. But the older ones, unless they are very short, are
clearly not the attempts of an individual to express his creed but
collections of such philosophical sayings and narratives as a particular
school thought fit to include in its version of the scriptures. There
was so to speak a body of philosophic folk-lore portions of which each
school selected and elaborated as it thought best. Thus an apologue
proving that the breath is the essential vital constituent of a human
being is found in five ancient Upanishads[174]. The Chandogya and
Brihad-Aranyaka both contain an almost identical narrative of how the
priest Aruni was puzzled and instructed by a king and a similar story is
found at the beginning of the Kausihtaki[175]. The two Upanishads last
mentioned also contain two dialogues in which king Ajatasatru explains
the fate of the soul after death and which differ in little except that
one is rather fuller than the other[176]. So too several well-known
stanzas and also quotations from the Veda used with special applications
are found in more than one Upanishad[177].

The older Upanishads[178] are connected with the other parts of the
Vedic canon and sometimes form an appendix to a Brahmana so that the
topics discussed change gradually from ritual to philosophy[179]. It
would be excessive to say that this arrangement gives the genesis of
speculation in ancient India, for some hymns of the Rig Veda are purely
philosophic, but it illustrates a lengthy phase of Brahmanic thought in
which speculation could not disengage itself from ritual and was also
hampered by physical ideas. The Upanishads often receive such epithets
as transcendental and idealistic but in many passages--perhaps in the
majority--they labour with imperfect success to separate the spiritual
and material. The self or spirit is sometimes identified in man with the
breath, in nature with air, ether or space. At other times it is
described as dwelling in the heart and about the size of the thumb but
capable of becoming smaller, travelling through the veins and showing
itself in the pupil: capable also of becoming infinitely large and one
with the world soul. But when thought finds its wings and soars above
these material fancies, the teaching of the Upanishads shares with
Buddhism the glory of being the finest product of the Indian intellect.

In India the religious life has always been regarded as a journey and a
search after truth. Even the most orthodox and priestly programme admits
this. There comes a time when observances are felt to be vain and the
soul demands knowledge of the essence of things. And though later
dogmatism asserts that this knowledge is given by revelation, yet a note
of genuine enquiry and speculation is struck in the Vedas and is never
entirely silenced throughout the long procession of Indian writers. In
well-known words the Vedas ask[180] "Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice? ... Who is he who is the Creator and sustainer of
the Universe ... whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death?"
or, in even more daring phrases[181], "The Gods were subsequent to the
creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it sprang? He who in
the highest heaven is the overseer of this universe, he knows or even he
does not know." These profound enquiries, which have probably no
parallel in the contemporary literature of other nations, are as time
goes on supplemented though perhaps not enlarged by many others, nor
does confidence fail that there is an answer--the Truth, which when known
is the goal of life. A European is inclined to ask what use can be made
of the truth, but for the Hindus divine knowledge is an end and a state,
not a means. It is not thought of as something which may be used to
improve the world or for any other purpose whatever. For use and purpose
imply that the thing utilized is subservient and inferior to an end,
whereas divine knowledge is the culmination and meaning of the universe,
or, from another point of view, the annihilation of both the external
world and individuality. Hence the Hindu does not expect of his saints
philanthropy or activity of any sort.

As already indicated, the characteristic (though not the only) answer of
India to these questionings is that nothing really exists except God or,
better, except Brahman. The soul is identical with Brahman. The external
world which we perceive is not real in the same sense: it is in some way
or other an evolution of Brahman or even mere illusion. This doctrine is
not universal: it is for instance severely criticized and rejected by
the older forms of Buddhism but its hold on the Indian temperament is
seen by its reappearance in later Buddhism where by an astounding
transformation the Buddha is identified with the universal spirit.
Though the form in which I have quoted the doctrine above is an epitome
of the Vedanta, it is hardly correct historically to give it as an
epitome of the older Upanishads. Their teaching is less complete and
uncompromising, more veiled, tentative and allusive, and sometimes
cumbered by material notions. But it is obviously the precursor of the
Vedanta and the devout Vedantist can justify his system from it.

3

Instead of attempting to summarize the Upanishads it may be well to
quote one or two celebrated passages. One is from the
Brihad-Aranyaka[182] and relates how Yajnavalkya, when about to retire
to the forest as an ascetic, wished to divide his property between his
two wives, Katyayani "who possessed only such knowledge as women
possess" and Maitreyi "who was conversant with Brahman." The latter
asked her husband whether she would be immortal if she owned the whole
world. "No," he replied, "like the life of the rich would be thy life
but there is no hope of immortality." Maitreyi said that she had no need
of what would not make her immortal. Yajnavalkya proceeded to explain to
her his doctrine of the Atman, the self or essence, the spirit present
in man as well as in the universe. "Not for the husband's sake is the
husband dear but for the sake of the Atman. Not for the wife's sake is
the wife dear but for the sake of the Atman. Not for their own sake are
sons, wealth, Brahmans, warriors, worlds, gods, Vedas and all things
dear, but for the sake of the Atman. The Atman is to be seen, to be
heard, to be perceived, to be marked: by him who has seen and known the
Atman all the universe is known.... He who looks for Brahmans, warriors,
worlds, gods or Vedas anywhere but in the Atman, loses them all...."

"As all waters have their meeting place in the sea, all touch in the
skin, all tastes in the tongue, all odours in the nose, all colours in
the eye, all sounds in the ear, all percepts in the mind, all knowledge
in the heart, all actions in the hands....As a lump of salt has no
inside nor outside and is nothing but taste, so has this Atman neither
inside nor outside and is nothing but knowledge. Having risen from out
these elements it (the human soul) vanishes with them. When it has
departed (after death) there is no more consciousness." Here Maitreyi
professes herself bewildered but Yajnavalkya continues "I say nothing
bewildering. Verily, beloved, that Atman is imperishable and
indestructible. When there is as it were duality, then one sees the
other, one tastes the other, one salutes the other, one hears the other,
one touches the other, one knows the other. But when the Atman only is
all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another? How can
we know him by whose power we know all this? That Atman is to be
described by no, no (neti, neti). He is incomprehensible for he cannot
be comprehended, indestructible for he cannot be destroyed, unattached
for he does not attach himself: he knows no bonds, no suffering, no
decay. How, O beloved, can one know the knower?" And having so spoken,
Yajnavalkya went away into the forest. In another verse of the same work
it is declared that "This great unborn Atman (or Self) undecaying,
undying, immortal, fearless, is indeed Brahman."

It is interesting that this doctrine, evidently regarded as the
quintessence of Yajnavalkya's knowledge, should be imparted to a woman.
It is not easy to translate. Atman, of course, means self and is so
rendered by Max Mueller in this passage, but it seems to me that this
rendering jars on the English ear for it inevitably suggests the
individual self and selfishness, whereas Atman means the universal
spirit which is Self, because it is the highest (or only) Reality and
Being, not definable in terms of anything else. Nothing, says
Yajnavalkya, has any value, meaning, or indeed reality except in
relation to this Self[183]. The whole world including the Vedas and
religion is an emanation from him. The passage at which Maitreyi
expresses her bewilderment is obscure, but the reply is more definite.
The Self is indestructible but still it is incorrect to speak of the
soul having knowledge and perception after death, for knowledge and
perception imply duality, a subject and an object. But when the human
soul and the universal Atman are one, there is no duality and no human
expression can be correctly used about the Atman. Whatever you say of
it, the answer must be _neti, neti_, it is not like that[184]; that is
to say, the ordinary language used about the individual soul is not
applicable to the Atman or to the human soul when regarded as identical
with it.

This identity is stated more precisely in another passage[185] where
first occurs the celebrated formula Tat tvam asi, That art Thou, or Thou
art It[186], _i.e._ the human soul is the Atman and hence there is no
real distinction between souls. Like Yajniavalkya's teaching, the
statement of this doctrine takes the form of an intimate conversation,
this time between a Brahman, Uddalaka Aruni, and his son Svetaketu who
is twenty-four years of age and having just finished his studentship is
very well satisfied with himself. His father remarks on his conceit and
says "Have you ever asked your teachers for that instruction by which
the unheard becomes heard, the unperceived perceived and the unknown
known?" Svetaketu enquires what this instruction is and his father
replies, "As by one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, and
the change[187] is a mere matter of words, nothing but a name, the truth
being that all is clay, and as by one piece of copper or by one pair of
nail-scissors all that is made of copper or iron can be known, so is
that instruction." That is to say, it would seem, the reality is One:
all diversity and multiplicity is secondary and superficial, merely a
matter of words. "In the beginning," continues the father, "there was
only that which is, one without a second. Others say in the beginning
there was that only which is not (non-existence), one without a second,
and from that which is not, that which is was born. But how could that
which is be born of that which is not[188]? No, only that which is was
in the beginning, one only without a second. It thought, may I be many:
may I have offspring. It sent forth fire." Here follows a cosmogony and
an explanation of the constitution of animate beings, and then the
father continues--"All creatures have their root in the Real, dwell in
the Real and rest in the Real. That subtle being by which this universe
subsists, it is the Real, it is the Atman, and thou, Svetaketu, art It."
Many illustrations of the relations of the Atman and the universe
follow. For instance, if the life (sap) leaves a tree, it withers and
dies. So "this body withers and dies when the life has left it: the life
dies not." In the fruit of the Banyan (fig-tree) are minute seeds
innumerable. But the imperceptible subtle essence in each seed is the
whole Banyan. Each example adduced concludes with the same formula, Thou
art that subtle essence, and as in the Brihad-Aranyaka salt is used as a
metaphor. "'Place this salt in water and then come to me in the
morning.' The son did so and in the morning the father said 'Bring me
the salt.' The son looked for it but found it not, for of course it was
melted. The father said, 'Taste from the surface of the water. How is
it?' The son replied, 'It is salt.' 'Taste from the middle. How is it?'
'It is salt.' 'Taste from the bottom, how is it?' 'It is salt.' ... The
father said, 'Here also in this body you do not perceive the Real, but
there it is. That subtle being by which this universe subsists, it is
the Real, it is the Atman and thou, Svetaketu, art It.'"

The writers of these passages have not quite reached Sankara's point of
view, that the Atman is all and the whole universe mere illusion or
Maya. Their thought still tends to regard the universe as something
drawn forth from the Atman and then pervaded by it. But still the main
features of the later Advaita, or philosophy of no duality, are there.
All the universe has grown forth from the Atman: there is no real
difference in things, just as all gold is gold whatever it is made into.
The soul is identical with this Atman and after death may be one with it
in a union excluding all duality even of perceiver and perceived.

A similar union occurs in sleep. This idea is important for it is
closely connected with another belief which has had far-reaching
consequences on thought and practice in India, the belief namely that
the soul can attain without death and as the result of mental discipline
to union[189] with Brahman. This idea is common in Hinduism and though
Buddhism rejects the notion of union with the supreme spirit yet it
attaches importance to meditation and makes Samadhi or rapture the crown
of the perfect life. In this, as in other matters, the teaching of the
Upanishads is manifold and unsystematic compared with later doctrines.
The older passages ascribe to the soul three states corresponding to the
bodily conditions of waking, dream-sleep, and deep dreamless sleep, and
the Brihad-Aranyaka affirms of the last (IV. 3. 32): "This is the Brahma
world. This is his highest world, this is his highest bliss. All other
creatures live on a small portion of that bliss." But even in some
Upanishads of the second stratum (Mandukya, Maitrayana) we find added a
fourth state, Caturtha or more commonly Turiya, in which the bliss
attainable in deep sleep is accompanied by consciousness[190]. This
theory and various practices founded on it develop rapidly.

4

The explanation of dreamless sleep as supreme bliss and Yajnavalkya's
statement that the soul after death cannot be said to know or feel, may
suggest that union with Brahman is another name for annihilation. But
that is not the doctrine of the Upanishads though a European perhaps
might say that the consciousness contemplated is so different from
ordinary human consciousness that it should not bear the same name. In
another passage[191] Yajnavalkya himself explains "when he does not
know, yet he is knowing though he does not know. For knowing is
inseparable from the knower, because it cannot perish. But there is no
second, nothing else different from him that he could know." A common
formula for Brahman in the later philosophy is Saccidananda, Being,
Thought and Joy[192]. This is a just summary of the earlier teaching. We
have already seen how the Atman is recognized as the only Reality. Its
intellectual character is equally clearly affirmed. Thus the
Brihad-Aranyaka (III. 7. 23) says: "There is no seer beside him, no
hearer beside him, no perceiver beside him, no knower beside him. This
is thy Self, the ruler within, the immortal. Everything distinct from
him is subject to pain." This idea that pain and fear exist only as far
as a man makes a distinction between his own self and the real Self is
eloquently developed in the division of the Taittiriya Upanishad called
the Chapter of Bliss. "He who knows Brahman" it declares, "which exists,
which is conscious, which is without end, as hidden in the depth of the
heart, and in farthest space, he enjoys all blessings, in communion with
the omniscient Brahman.... He who knows the bliss (anandam) of that
Brahman from which all speech and mind turn away unable to reach it, he
never fears[193]."

Bliss is obtainable by union with Brahman, and the road to such union is
knowledge of Brahman. That knowledge is often represented as acquired by
tapas or asceticism, but this, though repeatedly enjoined as necessary,
seems to be regarded (in the nobler expositions at least) as an
indispensable schooling rather than as efficacious by its own virtue.
Sometimes the topic is treated in an almost Buddhist spirit of
reasonableness and depreciation of self-mortification for its own sake.
Thus Yajnavalkya says to Gargi[194]: "Whoever without knowing the
imperishable one offers oblations in this world, sacrifices, and
practises asceticism even for a thousand years, his work will perish."
And in a remarkable scene described in the Chandogya Upanishad, the
three sacred fires decide to instruct a student who is exhausted by
austerities, and tell him that Brahman is life, bliss and space[195].