THREE LECTURES VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY O;i;fot:{> HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY U THREE LECTURES Vedanta Philosophy DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION IN MARCH, J 894 F. MAX MULLER, K.M. w MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE university) LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST i6'h STREET 1894 VdAff S^fftf- UNIVERSITY .£aufornia^ TABLE OF CONTENTS FIRST LECTURE. Origin of the Yedanta Philosophy. The Importance of Philosophy i What is important and what is merely curious . . 2 The Importance of the Vedanta-Philosophy ... 6 Opinions of the Vedanta by Schopenhauer, Sir W. Jones, Victor Cousin, F. Schlegel 8 The Vedanta, both Philosophy and Religion . . .11 The Upanishads as Vedanta 15 The Four Stages of Life 18 -Relation of the Soul (Atman) to Brahman (the Parama- atman) ......... 20 Unsystematic Character of the Upanishads . . .22 Growth of Religious and Philosophic Thought before the Upanishads . . . . . ■ -25 Belief in one God 27 Two Forms of the Vedanta 29 The Upanishads treated as Revealed, not as Historical Books .32 Moral Preparation for the Study of the Vedanta . . 36 ' Mistrust in the Evidence of the Senses .... 40 Metaphorical Language of the LTpanishads ... 42 Tabic of Contents. SECOND LECTURE. The Soul and God. PAGE Extracts from the Upanishads . . . . -47 I. From the Ka//za Upanishad . . . -47 II. From the Maitrayawa Upanishad • • ■ 55 6'ankara's Analysis of Subject and Object . . . 6i The Inheritance of the Vedanta . . . . -71 No Esoteric Vedanta 72 Relation between the Higher Brahman and the Lower Brahman 82 -Relation between the Higher Atman and the Living Atman 87 Different Views of the Soul in Indian Philosophy . . 89 The Upadhis as the cause of difference between the Soul and God 92 The Psychology of the Vedanta 94 Our Mind is not our Self (Atman) 97 The Upadhis due to Avidya 97 Nescience (Avidya) destroyed by Knowledge (Vidya) . 100 How the Soul can be one with God . . . .102 THIRD LECTURE. Similarities and Differences between Indian AND European Philosophy. Strangeness of Eastern Philosophy General Interest of Indian Philosophy . Critical Treatment of Oriental Literature The Sacred Syllable Om Whatever was Old became Sacred . 108 no 1 12 115 117 Table of Contents. vii Books for the Study of the Vedanta Coincidences. Spinoza's ' Substantia The Meanings of Real . The Nature of Avidya and IMaya Colebrooke on Maya Sir W. Jones on the Vedanta The Two Brahmans are One The Germs of the Vedanta in the Upanishads The Knowledge of Brahman ..... Names and Forms the Objects of Brahman's Knowledge Thought and Language Inseparable Coincidences between Names and Forms and the Greek Logos Speech as a Creative Power in the Veda Similarity with the Old Testament Wisdom Did Brahman mean Word ? . Brahman derived from the same Root as Verhum and Word .... Names and Forms the Connecting-link between Brahman and the World The Gods of other Religions Names and Forms the Product of Avidya The Vedanta in Practical Life The Ethics of the Vedanta KThe Doctrine of Karman Pre-existence of the Soul Recapitulation ..... ii8 123 126 128 129 131 132 135 138 140 141 142 .144 146 147 149 151 154 158 161 162 165 167 170 (university THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY LECTURE I. Origin of the Vedanta Philosophy. The Importance of Philosophy. I AM fully aware of the difficulties which I shall have to encounter in trying to enlist your interest, nay, if possible, your sympathy, for an ancient system of Indian Philosophy, the Vedanta Philo- sophy. It is no easy task, even within the walls of this scientific Institution, to obtain a hearing for a mere system of philosophy, whether new or old. The world is too busy to listen to purely theoretical speculations ; it wants exciting experi- ments and, if possible, tangible results. And yet I remember one who ought to be well known to all of you in this place, I remember our dear friend Tyndall, rejoicing over a new theory, ^ i B The Veddnta Philosophy. because, as he said, ' Thank God, it will not produce any practical results ; no one will ever be able to take out a patent and make money by it.' Leibniz, I suppose, took no patent for his Differential Calculus, nor Sir Isaac Newton for his theory of gravitation. Trusting in that spirit of Tyndall's, which has been so long the presiding spirit of this busy laboratory of thought, I hope that there may be some friends and admirers of his left within these walls, who are willing to listen to mere speculations, — speculations which will never produce any tangible results, in the ordinary sense of the word, for which certainly no one can take out a patent, or hope, if he had secured it, to make any money by it; — and yet these speculations are bound up with the highest and dearest interests of our life. What is important and what is merely curious. The system of philosophy for which I venture to claim your attention is chiefly concerned with the Soul and its relation to God. It comes to us from India, and is probably more than two thousand years old. Now the soul is not a Origin of the Veddiifa. popular subject in these days. Even if its exist- ence is not denied altogether, it has long- been ranged among subjects on which ' it is folly to be wise.' However, if I were to claim your attention for a Greek or German system of philosophy, if I were to tell you what Plato or Kant have said about the soul, it is just possible that their sayings might at least be considered as acrious. But I must say at once that this would not satisfy me at all. I look upon that word curious as a lazy and most objectionable word. If a man says, ' Yes, that is very curious,' what does he mean ? What he really means is this, — ' Yes, that is very curious, but no more.' But why no more ? Not because it is of no importance in itself, but simply because in the pigeon-holes of his own mind, there is no place as yet ready to receive it ; simply because the chords of his mind are not attuned to it, and do not vibrate in harmony with it; simply because he has no real sympathy with it. To a well-stored mind and to a well-arranged intellect there ought to be nothing that is simply curious ; nay it has been truly said that almost every great discovery, B 2 The Veddnta Philosophy. all real progress in human knowledge is due to those who could discover behind what to the world at large seemed merely curious, something really important, something pregnant with results. The electric spark of the lightning has been curious as long as the world exists ; it seems but yesterday that it has become really important. If my object were simply to amuse you I could place before you a very large collection of soul- curios, tell you ever so many curious things about the soul, sayings collected from uncivilized and from civilized races. There are, first of all, the names of the soul, and some of them, no doubt, full of interest. Among the names applied to the soul, some mean breath, others heart, others midriff, others blood, others the pupil of the eye, all showing that they were meant for something connected with the body, something supposed to have its abode in the eye, in the heart, in the blood or the breath, yet different from every one of these coarse material objects. Other names are purely metaphorical, as when the soul was called a bird, not because it was believed to be a bird, caged in the body, but because it seemed Origin of the Veddnta. winged in its flights of thought and fancy; or when it was called a shadow, not because it was believed to be the actual shadow which the body throws on a wall (though this is held by some philosophers), but because it was like a shadow, something perceptible, yet immaterial and not to be grasped. Of course, after the soul had once been likened to and called a shadow, every kind of supersti- tion followed, till people persuaded themselves that a dead body can no longer throw a shadow. Again, when the soul had once been conceived and named, its name, in Greek >|rux'7, was trans- ferred to a butterfly, probably because the butterfly emerged winged from the prison of the chrysalis. And here, too, superstition soon stepped in and represented pictorially the soul of the departed as issuing from his mouth in the shape of a butterfly. There is hardly a tribe, however uncivilized and barbarous, which has not a name for soul, that is for something different from the body, yet closely allied to it and hard at work within it. It was but lately that I received from the Bishop of North Caledonia a new metaphor for soul. The Zimshian Indians have a word UNIVERSITY The Veddnta Philosophy. which means both soul and fragrance. When questioned by the Bishop on the subject, the Indians repHed : ' Is not a man's soul to his body what the fragrance is to the flower ? ' This, no doubt, is as good a metaphor as any, and it may fairly claim a place by the side of Plato's metaphor in the ' Phaedo,' where he compares the soul to the harmonious music that can be drawn from a lyre. If I wished to excite your interest in a collec- tion of such curios, I might place before you ever so many names, ever so many metaphors, ever so many sayings with reference to the soul. Nay, if looked upon as contributions to a study of the evolution of the human mind, as documents for the history of human wisdom or human folly, such curious sayings might even claim a certain scientific value, as giving us an insight into the ancient workshop of the human intellect. The Importance of the Vedanta Philosophy. But I may say at once that I shall not be satisfied with metaphors, however poetical or beautiful, and that in placing before you an Origin of the Veddnta. outline of the Veddnta Philosophy I have far higher objects in view. I wish to claim the sympathy not only of your mind, but of your heart for the profoundest thoughts of Indian thinkers about the soul. After all, I doubt whether the soul has really lost with all of us that charm which it exercised on ancient thinkers. We still say, ' What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? ' And how can we even claim to have a soul to lose, if we do not know what we mean by soul. But if it seem strange to you that the old Indian philosophers should have known more about the soul than Greek or Mediaeval or modern philosophers, let us remember that how- ever much the telescopes for observing the stars of heaven have been improved, the observatories of the soul have remained much the same, for I cannot convince myself that the observations now made in the so-called physico-psychological laboratories of Germany, however interesting to physiologists, would have proved of much help to our Vedanta philosophers. The rest and peace which are required for deep thought or for ac- 8 The Veddnta Philosophy. curate observation of the movements of the soul, were more easily found in the silent forests of India than in the noisy streets of our so-called centres of civilization. Opinions of the Vedanta by Schopenhauer, Sir W. Jones, Victor Cousin, P. Schlegel. Anyhow, let me tell you that a philosopher so thoroughly acquainted with all the historical systems of philosophy as Schopenhauer, and certainly not a man given to deal in extravagant praise of any philosophy but his own, delivered his opinion of the Vedanta Philosophy, as con- tained in the Upanishads, in the following words : ' In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.' If these words of Schopenhauer's required any endorsement, I should willingly give it as the result of my own experience during a long life devoted to the study of many philoso- phies and many religions. If philosophy is meant to be a preparation for a happy death, or Euthanasia, I know of no better preparation for it than the Vedanta Philosophy. Origin of the Veddnta. Nor is Schopenhauer by any means the only authority who speaks in such rapturous terms of the ancient philosophy of India, more particularly of the Vedanta Philosophy, Sir William Jones, no mean authority as an oriental as well as a classical scholar, remarks ' that it is impossible to read the Vedanta or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India.' (Works, Calcutta ed., i. pp. 20, 125, 127.) It is not quite clear whether Sir William Jones meant that the ancient Greek philosophers borrowed their philosophy from India. If he did, he would find few adherents in our time, because a wider study of mankind has taught us that what was possible in one country, was possible in another also. But the fact remains nevertheless that the similarities between these two streams of philosophical thought in India and in Greece are very startling, nay sometimes most perplexing. Victor Cousin, the greatest among the historians of philosophy in France, when lecturing at Paris The Veddnta Philosophy. in the years 1828 and 1829 on the history of modern philosophy, before an audience, we are told, of two thousand gentlemen, spoke in the following terms : ' When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East, above all, those of India which are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy.' (Vol. i. p. 32.) German philosophers have always been the most ardent admirers of Sanskrit literature, and more particularly, of Sanskrit philosophy. One of the earliest students of Sanskrit, the true discoverer of the existence of an Indo-European family of speech, Frederick Schlegel, in his work on Indian Language, Literature, and Philosophy (p. 471), remarks: 'It cannot be denied that the Yearly Indians possessed a knowledge of the true jpod ; all their writings are replete with senti- Origin of the Veddnta. ments and expressions, noble, clear, and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverentially ex- pressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their God.' And again : ' Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason, as it is set forth by Greek philosophers, appears, in comparison with the abundant light and vigour of Oriental idealism, like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun — faltering and feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished.' And with regard more especially to the Vedanta Philosophy, he says : ' The divine origin of man is continually inculcated to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and reincorporation with divinity as the one primary object of every action and exertion ^' The Vedanta, both Philosophy and Religion. What distinguishes the Vedanta Philosophy from all other philosophies is that it is at the same ' See Mana/zsukharama Suryarama, ViHrasagara, p. 5. UNIVERSITT 12 The Veddnta Philosophy. time a religion and a philosophy. With us the prevailing opinion seems to be that religion and philosophy are not only different, but that they are antagonistic. It is true that there are con- stant attempts made to reconcile philosophy and religion. We can hardly open a Review without seeing a new Eirenicon between Science and Religion. We read not only of a Science of Reliction, but even of a Reliorion of Science. But these very attempts, whether successful or not, show at all events that there has been a divorce between the two. And why ? Philosophy as well as religion is striving after truth ; then why should there be any antagonism between them ? It has often been said that religion places all truth before us with authority, while philosophy appeals to the spirit of truth, that is, to our own private judgment, and leaves us perfectly free to accept or reject the doctrines of others. But such an . opinion betrays a strange ignorance of the history of religions. The founder of every new religion possessed at first no greater authority than the founder of a new school of philosophy. Many of them were scorned, persecuted, and even put Origin of the Veddnta. to death, and their last appeal was always, what it ought to be — an appeal to the spirit of truth within us, and not to twelve legions of angels, nor, as in later times, to the decrees of Councils, to Papal Bulls, or to the written letter of a sacred book. Nowhere, however, do we find what we find in India, where philosophy is looked upon as the natural outcome of religion ; nay, as its most precious flower and fragrance. Whether religion leads to philosophy, or philosophy to religion, in India the two are inseparable, and they would never have been separated with us, if the fear of men had not been greater than the fear of God or of Truth. While in other countries the few who had most deeply pondered on their religion and most fully entered into the spirit of its founder, were liable to be called heretics by the ignorant many, nay were actually punished for the good work they had done in purifying religion from that crust of superstition that will always gather around it; in India the few were honoured and revered, even by those who could not yet follow them into the purer atmosphere of free and unfettered thought. Nor was there in India 14 The Veddnta Philosophy. any necessity for honest thinkers to screen their doctrines behind the name of Esoteric ReHgion. If rehgion is to become esoteric in order to be allowed to live, as it often is with us, what is the use of it ? Why should religious convictions ever fear the light of day ? And, what is even more creditable to the ancient believers and philoso- phers of India, they never, in the exalted position which was allowed to them on account of their superior knowledge and sanctity, looked down with disdain on those who had not yet risen to their own height. They recognised the previous stages of submissive studentship and active citizen- ship as essential steps towards the freedom which they themselves enjoyed ; nay, they admitted no one to their companionship who had not passed through these stages of passive obedience and practical usefulness. Three things they preached to them as with a voice of thunder: Damyata, Subdue yourselves, subdue the passions of the senses, of pride and selfwill ; Datta, Give, be liberal and charitable to your neighbours ; and Da- yadhvam, Have pity on those who deserve your pity, or, as we should say, ' Love your neighbours Origin of the Vedcinta. 15 as yourselves.' These three commands, each be- ginning with the syllable Da, were called the three Da's, and had to be fulfilled before any higher light was to be hoped for (Br/had Ara;^yaka Upanishad V, 2), before the highest goal of the Veda, the Vedanta, could be reached. The Upanishads as Vedanta. (Vedanta means the end of the Veda, whether we take it in the sense of the final portion, or the final object of the Veda~^' Now the Veda, as you know, is the old Bible of the Brahmans, and whatever sects and systems may have sprung up within their religion during the three thousand years of its existence, they all, with the exception of course of Buddhism, agree in recognising the Veda as the highest authority on all religious questions.) The Vedanta philosophy thus recog- nises by its very name its dependence on the Veda, and the oneness of religion and philosophy. If we take the word in its widest sense, Veda, as you know, means knowledge, but it has become the special name of the Hindu Bible, and that Bible consists of three portions, the Sawhitas, 1 6 The Veddnta Philosophy. or collections of metrical prayers and hymns of praise, the Brahma;/ as, or prose treatises on the sacrifices, and the Ara/^yakas, books intended for the dwellers in the forest, the most important portion of which is formed by the Upanishads. These Upanishads are philosophical treatises, and their fundamental principle might seem with us to be subversive of all religion. In these Upanishads the whole ritual and sacrificial system of the Veda is not only ignored, but directly rejected as useless, nay as mischievous. The ancient gods of the Veda are no longer recog- nised. And yet these Upanishads are looked upon as perfectly orthodox, nay as the highest consummation of the Brahmanic religion. This was brought about by the recognition of a very simple fact which nearly all other religions seem to have ignored. It was recognised in India from very early times that the religion of a man cannot be and ought not to be the same as that of a child ; and again, that with the growth of the mind, the religious ideas of an old man must differ from those of an active man of the world. It is useless to attempt to deny such Origin of the Veddnfa. 1 7 facts. We know them all from the time when we first emerge from the happy unconsciousness of a child's faith, and have to struggle with im- portant facts that press upon us from all sides, from histor}-, from science, and from a knowledge of the world and of ourselves. After recovering from these struggles man generally takes his stand on certain convictions which he believes that he can honestl\- hold and honestly defend. There are certain questions which he thinks are settled once for all and never to be opened again ; there are certain arguments to which he will not even listen, because, though he has no answer to them, he does not mean to yield to them. But when the evening of life draws near and softens the lights and shades of conflicting opinions, when to agree with the spirit of truth within becomes far dearer to a man than to agree with the majority of the world without, these old questions appeal to him once more, like long-forgotten friends ; he learns to bear with those from whom formerly he differed ; and while he is willing to part with all that is non-essential — and most religious dif- ferences seem to arise from non-essentials — he c 1 8 The Vedmita Philosophy. clings all the more firmly to the few strong and solid planks that are left to carry him into the harbour, no longer very distant from his sight. It is hardly credible how completely all other religions have overlooked these simple facts, how they have tried to force on the old and wise the food that was meant for babes, and how they have thereby alienated and lost their best and strongest friends. It is therefore a lesson, all the more worth learning from history, that one religion at least, and one of the most ancient, most powerful, and most widely spread religions, has recognised this fact without the slightest hesitation. The Four Stages of Life. According to the ancient canons of the Brah- manic faith, each man has to pass through three or four stages. The first is that of discipline, which lasts from childhood to the age of man- hood. During these years the young man is sent away from home to the house of a teacher or Guru, whom he is to obey implicitly, and to serve in every way, and who in return has to teach him all that is necessary for life, and more Origin of the Veddnta. particularly the Veda and what pertains to his religious duties. During all that time the pupil is supposed to be a mere passive recipient, a learner and believer. Then follows the second stage, the stage of manhood, during which a man has to marry, to rear a family, and perform all those duties which are prescribed for a householder in the Veda and the Law-books. During these two periods no doubt is ever hinted as to the truth of their religion, or the binding form of the law which everybody has to obey. But with the third period, which begins when a man's hair has turned white, and he has seen the children of his children, a new life opens, during which the father of the family may leave his home and his village and retire into the forest with or without his wife. During that period he is absolved from the necessity of per- forming any sacrifices, though he may or must undergo certain self-denials and penances, some of them extremely painful. He is then allowed to meditate with perfect freedom on the great problems of life and death. And for that pur- c 2 'f^ OFTHF '^ UKlVEi^SITT, 20 The Veddnta Philosophy pose he is expected to study the Upanishads, contained in the Ara/^yakas or Forest-books, or rather, as books did not yet exist, he is expected to learn their doctrines from the mouth of a quaHfied teacher. In these Upanishads not only are all sacrificial duties rejected, but the very gods to whom the ancient prayers of the Veda were addressed, are put aside to make room for the One Supreme Being, called Brahman'. Relation of the Soul (Atman) to Brahman (the Parama- atm an ), The same Upanishads had then to explain the true relation between that Brahman, the Supreme Being, and the soul of man. (The soul of man was called Atman, literally the self, also 6^ivatman, the living self ;j and after the sub- stantial unity of the living or individual self with the Supreme Being or Brahman had been dis- covered, that Brahman was called the Highest Self or Parama-atman. These terms Brahman 1 Brahman as a neuter is paroxytone, as a masculine oxytone, Brahman. Origin of tlic Vcddnta. 2 1 and Atman, 6"ivatman and Paramatman have to be carefully remembered in order to under- stand the Vedanta philosophy. Self, you will perceive, is a far more abstract name than soul, but it is meant to express what other nations have expressed by less abstract terms, such as sold, auima, i^^XV or rrv^vfia. Every one of these names has still something" left of its original predicative power, such as moving or breathing, while atman, self, before it was chosen as a name for soul, had become a mere pronoun, free from any metaphorical taint, and asserting nothing beyond existence or self-existence. These terms were not new technical terms coined by philosophers. Some of them are very old terms which occur in the oldest Vedic com- positions, in the hymns, the Brahma?/as, and finally in the Upanishads. The etymological, that is the original, mean- ing of Brahman is doubtful, and it would take up too much of our time at present, were I to attempt to examine all the explanations of it which have been proposed by Indian and European scholars. I hope to return to it 22 The Veddnta Philosophy. afterwards \ For the present I can onl}' say that Brahman seems to me to have meant originally what bursts forth or breaks forth, whether in the shape of thought and word, or in the shape of creative power or physical force. The etymology of atman also is difficult, and this very difficulty shows that both these words, brahman and atman, are very ancient, and, from the point of view of historical Sanskrit, belong to a prehistoric layer of Sanskrit. But whatever was the etymological meaning of atman, whether breath or anything else, it had, in the Veda already, become a mere pronoun ; it meant self, just like the Latin ipse, and it was after it meant ipse, that it was used to express the ipseitas of man, the essence or soul of man, and likewise of God. Unsystematic Character of the Upanishads. We can watch the growth of these thoughts in the Upanishads, and their more systematic treatment in the Vedanta-sutras. When we read ^ See infi-a, p. 149. Origin of the Veddnta. 23 the Upanishads, the impression they leave on our mind is that the}' are sudden intuitions or inspirations, which sprang up here and there, and were collected afterwards. And yet there is system in all these dreams, there is a common background to all these visions. There is even an abundance of technical terms used by different speakers so exactly in the same sense, that one feels certain that behind all these lightning-flashes of religious and philosophical thought there is a distant past, a dark background of which we shall never know the beginning. There are words, there are phrases, there are whole lines and verses which recur in different Upanishads, and which must have been drawn from a common treasury ; but we receive no hint as to who col- lected that treasury, or where it was hidden, and yet accessible to the sages of the Upanishads. This name of Upanishad means etymolo- gically ' sitting near a person,' the French sdance or session, and these Upanishads may represent to us the outcome of ' sittings ' or ' gatherings ' which took place under the shelter of mighty trees in the forests, where old saees and their 24 The Veddnta Philosophy. disciples met together and poured out what they had gathered during days and nights spent in quiet solitude and meditation, When we speak of forests, we must not think of a wilderness. In India the forest near the village was like a happy retreat, cool and silent, with flowers and birds, with bowers and huts. Think what their life must have been in these forests, with few cares and fewer ambitions ! What should they think and talk about, if not how they came to be where they were, and what they were, and what they would be hereafter. The form of dialogue is very common in these works, and they also contain the discussions of a larger number of sages, who are so terribly earnest in their endeavours after truth that they willingly offer their heads to their adversaries, if they can prove them wrong. But while there is a complete absence of systematic teaching in these Upanishads, they offer us once more the valuable spectacle not only of what it is now the fashion to call evolu- tion, but of real historical growth. Origin of the Vcddjita. 2 5 Growth of Religious and Philosophic Thought before the Upanishads. There are indeed a few traces left of a previous growth in the spiritual life of the Brahmans, and we must dwell for a moment on these antecedents of the Upanishads, in order to understand the point from whence the Vedanta philosophers started. I have often pointed out that the real importance, nay the unique character of the Veda will always be, not so much its purely chrono- logical antiquity, great though it be, as the opportunity which it affords us of watching the active process of the fermentation of early thought. We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelation of Deity, the first expressions of surprise and suspicion, the first discovery that behind this visible and perishable world there must be some- thing invisible, imperishable, eternal or divine. No one who has read the hymns of the Rig-veda can doubt any longer as to what was the origin of the earliest Aryan religion and mythology. Nearly all the leading deities of the Veda bear the unmistakable traces of their physical character. 26 The Veddnta Philosophy. Their very names tell us that they were in the beginning names of the great phenomena of nature, of fire, water, rain and storm, of sun and moon, of heaven and earth. Afterwards, we can see how these so-called deities and heroes became the centres of mythological traditions, wherever the Aryan speakers settled, whether in Asia or in Europe. This is a result gained once for all, and this light has shed its rays far beyond the Vedic mythology and religion, and lightened up the darkest corners in the history of the mythological and religious thoughts of the other Aryan nations, nay of nations unconnected by their language with the speakers of Aryan speech. In the same way the growth of the divine idea is laid bare in the Veda as it is no- where else. We see before our eyes who the bright powers of heaven and earth were that became the Devas, the Bright ones, or the Gods, the deities of other countries. We see how these individual and dramatic deities ceased to satisfy their early worshippers, and we find the incipient reasoners postulating One God behind all the Origin of the Veddnta. 27 deities of the earliest pantheon. As early a writer as Yaska about 500 b. c. has formed to himself a systematic theolog}', and represents all the Vedic deities as really three, those like the Fire, whose place is on earth, those like Indra, whose place is in the air, and those like the Sun, whose place is in the sky ; nay he declares that it is owing- to the greatness of the deity that the one Divine Self is celebrated as if it were many ^ Belief in one God. We see, however, in the ancient hymns already, say 1500 B.C., Incipient traces of this yearning after one God. The gods, though separate individualities, are not represented as limited by other gods, but each god is for the time being implored as supreme, a phase of religious thought, which has been described by the name of Henotheism, as distinguished from the ordinary ^ The same ideas are well summed up in one of the Upani- shads (B;Vh. Ar. Up. Ill, 9), where we are told that there were at first more than three thousand and three hundred gods, but that they were reduced to 33, to 6, to 3, to 2, to i^, and at last to one, which One is the breath of life, the Self, and his name is That. 28 The Veddnta Philosophy. Polytheism. Thus one of the Vedic gods, Indra, the god of the air, is called Vi^vakarman, the Maker of all things, while the Sun (Savitar) is invoked as Pra^apati, the Lord of all living beings. In some places this One as a neuter, is called the great Divinity of all the gods, mahat devanam asuratvam ekam (R.V. Ill, 55, i). These were indeed giant strides, and we can watch them clearly in different parts of the Veda, from the simplest invocations of the unknown agents behind sun and moon, heaven and earth, to the discovery of the One God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Lord and Father, and lastly to the faith in one Divine Essence (Brahman), of which the Father or Maker of all things is what they call the pratika or face, or manifestation or, as we should say, the persona, the mask, the person. This was the final outcome of relioious thought, beginning with a most natural faith in invisible powers or agents behind the starding drama of nature, and ending with a belief in One Great Power, the unknown, or rather the unseen God, worshipped, though ignorantly worshipped, through Origin of the Veddnta. 29 many years by the poets of the Vedic age. It was this treasure of ancient reHgioiis thought which the sages of the Upanishads inherited from their forefathers, and we shall now have to see what use they made of it, and how they discovered at last the true relation between what we call the Divine or the Infinite, as seen objectively in nature, and the Divine or the Infinite as perceived subjectively in the soul of man. We shall then be better able to understand how they erected on this ancient foundation what was at the same time the most sublime philosophy and the most satisfying religion, the Vedanta. Two Forms of the Vedanta. When we speak of Vedanta philosoph)- we must distinguish between two forms in which we possess it. We possess it in an unsystematic form, nay as a kind of wild growth in the Upanishads, and we have it once more, carefully elaborated, and fully systematized in the Vedanta-sutras. These Sutras are ascribed to Badaraya;ea \ This Vyasa Baclaraya;/a can hardly be, as Weber and others The Veddnta Philosophy. whose date, as usual, is disputed. They do not form a book, in our sense of the word, for they are really no more than headings containing the quintessence of the Vedanta philosophy. By themselves they would be completely unintelli- gible, but if learnt by heart, as they were and still are, they would no doubt form a very useful thread through the labyrinth of the Vedanta. By the side of these Sutras, however, there must always have existed a body of oral teaching, and it was probably this traditional teaching which was gathered up at last by 5ahkara, the famous teacher of the Vedanta, in his so-called com- mentary or Bhash)a on the Sutras. That Bhashya, however, so far from being a mere commentary, may in fact be regarded as the real bod)- of the Vedanta doctrines, to which the Sutras form no more than a useful index. Yet these Sutras must soon have acquired an independent authority, for supposed, the same as the Vyasa Dvaipayana, the reputed author of the Mahabharata. The character of their works is different, and so are their names. Badaraya;/a, the author of the Brahma- sutras, is generally referred to about 400 a.d., though without very conclusive evidence. Origin of tJic Vcdduta. they were interpreted in different ways by different philosophers, by 6'ankara, by Ramanu<^a ', Madhva, Vallabha, and others, who became the founders of different Vedanta- sects, all appealing to the Sutras as their highest authority. The most extraordinary feature of this Vedanta philosophy consists, as I remarked before, in its being an independent system of philosophy, yet ' We are told in the Sarvadarjana-sangraha (p. 80, transl. Cowell) that Ramanu^a, who Hved in the twelfth century, found the previous commentary composed by Bodhayana too prolix, and therefore composed his own. Ramanu^a says so himself in his -Sribhashya, and informs us that other teachers before him had done the same (Ved.-siJtras, transl. Thibaut, vol. i, p. xxi). If the V/7ttikara against whom some of ^ahkara's remarks are said to be intended is the same Bodhayana, his date would be previous at least to 700 a.d. 2 In some cases the different expositors of the Vedanta-sutras do actual violence to the text. Thus in I, i, 15 the text of the Sutras is Vikara-.fabdan na iti X'en na pra/J'uryat. This is meant to show that the suffix maya in anandamaya does not necessarily convey the idea of change or degree, which would not be applicable to Brahman, but that it conveys the idea of abundance (pra/^urya). But Vallabha explains pra-^uryat not as an ablative but as a compound pra/('urya-at, i. e. going towards or reaching abundance, because this material world itself is Brahman, which has attained to the condition of abundance. ( Sha^/darj-ana-z^intanika III, p. 39.) The Veddnta Philosophy. entirely dependent on the Upanishads, a part of the Veda, nay chiefly occupied with proving that all its doctrines, to the very minutest points, are derived from the revealed doctrines of the Upanishads, if onl}- properly understood, that they are in perfect harmony with revelation, and that there are no contradictions whatever between the various Upanishads themselves. Upanishads treated as Revealed, not as Historical Books. It was necessary to do this, for the Upanishads were believed to be divine revelation, and this belief was so firml)- established that even the boldest philosophers in India had to reconcile their own doctrines with those of their ancient inspired teachers. This is done with the most extraordinary ingenuity and a perseverance worthy of a better cause'. To us the Upanishads have, ' Thus in the commentary on Ved.-sutras II, i, 1 1, we read : ' In matters to be known from Scripture mere reasoning is not to be relied on for the following reason also. As the thoughts of men are altogether unfettered, reasoning which disreorards Origin of the Veddnta. of course, a totally different interest. We watch in them the historical growth of philosophical the holy texts, and rests on individual opinion only, has no proper foundation. We see how arguments, which some clever men had excogitated with great pains, are shown, by people still more ingenious, to be fallacious, and how the arguments of the latter again are refuted in their turn by other men ; so that, on account of the diversity of men's opinions, it is impossible to accept mere reasoning as having a sure foundation. Nor can we get over this difficulty by accepting as well-founded the reason- ing of some person of recognised mental eminence, may he be Kapila or anybody else ; since we observe that even men of the most undoubted mental eminence, such as Kapila, Ka«ada, and other founders of philosophical schools, have contradicted one another.' It is true that this line of reasoning is objected to because in reasoning against reasoning, we implicitly admit the authority of reason. But in the end -.S'afikara holds that ' the true nature of the cause of the world, on which final emancipa- tion depends, cannot, on account of its excessive abstruseness, even be thought of without the help of the holy texts.' ' The Veda,' he adds, ' which is eternal and the source of knowledge, may be allowed to have for its object firmly established things, and hence the perfection of that knowledge which is founded on the Veda cannot be denied by any of the logicians of the past, present, or future. We have thus established the perfection of this our knowledge which reposes on the Upanishads.' See also II, i, 27: 'As the Pura«a says: "Do not apply reasoning to what is unthinkable ! The mark of the unthink- able is that it is above all material causes." Therefore the cognition of what is supersensuous is based on the holy texts D ^ or THE ^ XTNI VERSITY 34 The Veddnta Philosophy. thought, and are not offended therefore by the variety of their opinions. On the contrary, we expect to find variety, and are even pleased when we find independent thought and apparent con- tradictions between individual teachers, although the general tendency of all is the same. Thus •we find side by side such utterances as ' In the beginning there was Brahman,' ' In the beginning there was Self,' ' In the beginning there was water,' ' In the beginning there w^as nothing.' ' In the beginning there was something,' or to translate these two sentences more correctly into the language of our European philosophy, ' In the beginning there was the [ly] 6V,' and ' In the only. But — our opponent will say — even the holy texts cannot make us understand what is contradictory. Brahman, you say, which is without parts undergoes a change, but not the entire Brahman. If Brahman is without parts, it does either not change at all, or it changes in its entirety. If, on the other hand, it is said that it changes partly and persists partly, a break is effected in its nature, and from that it follows that it consists of parts, &c.' Here 6'ankara admits a real difficulty, but he explains it away by showing that the break in Brahman is the result of Avidya (nescience) only. The sam.e reasoning is applied in II, I, 31 and elsewhere. Origin of tJie Vcddnta. 35 beginning there was to 6v! We meet even in the Upanishads themselves with discussions pro- voked by these contradictory statements and intended to reconcile them, as when we read in the ^//and. Up. VI, 27, 'But how could that which is, be born of that which is not ? No, my son, that only which is, was in the beginning, one only, without a second \' But while in the Upanishads these various guesses at truth seem thrown out at haphazard, they were afterwards woven together with wonderful patience and in- genuity.- The uniform purpose running through all of them, was clearly brought out, and a system of philosophy was erected out of such diverse materials, which is not only perfectly coherent, but quite clear and distinct on almost every point of doctrine. Though here and there the Sutras admit of divergent interpretations, no doubt is left on any important point of ^'ahkara's philo- sophy ; which is more than can be said of any system of philosophy from the days of Plato to the days of Kant. ' See Taitt. Up. II, 7, Sacred Books of the East, xv, p. 58. ^ See Vedanta-siitras I, 4, 14-15. D 2 The Veda lit a Philosophy. Moral Preparation for the Study of the Vedanta. The study of philosophy in India was not only an integral part of the religion of the Brahmans, but it was based from the very beginning on a moral foundation. We saw already that no one was admitted to the study of the Upanishads who had not been properly initiated and introduced by a qualified teacher, and who had not fulfilled the duties, both civil and religious, incumbent on a householder. But even that was not enough. No one was supposed to be fit for true philo- sophical speculation who had not completely subdued his passions. The sea must no longer be swept by storms, if it is to reflect the light of the sun in all its divine calmness and purity. Hence, even the hermit in the forest was expected to be an ascetic, and to endure severe penances as a help for extinguishing all the passions that might disturb his peace. And it was not only the body that had to be subdued and hardened against all external disturbances such as heat and cold, hung^er and thirst. Six thinos had to Origin of the Veddnta. 37 be acquired by the mind, namely tranquillity ^ restraint, self-denial, long-suffering, collectedness, and faith. It has been thought- that this c^uiet- ness is hardly the best outfit for a philoso- pher, who, according to our views of philosophy, is to pile Ossa on Pelion in order to storm the fortress of truth and to conquer new realms in earth and heaven. But we must remember that the object of the Vedanta was to show that we have really nothing to conquer but ourselves, that we possess everything within us, and that nothing is required but to shut our eyes and our hearts against the illusion of the world in order to find ourselves richer than heaven and earth. Even faith, .