less conspicuous in other countries, but in India it is habitually assumed that the study of what we call metaphysics or theology

as early, for it is mentioned in the Rig Veda[163], and it lasts longer, for it is a part of contemporary Hinduism just as much as prayer or worshi

ld correspondingly increased results. The many singular phenomena connected with Indian asceticism have been imperfectly investigated but a psychological examination would probably find that subjective results (such as visions and the feeling of flying through the air) are really produced by the discipline recommended and there may be elements of much greater value in the various systems of meditation. But this is only the beginning of Tapas. To the idea that the soul when freed from earthly desires is best able to comprehend the divine is superadded another idea, namely that self-mortification is a process of productive labour akin to intellectual toil. Just as the whole world is supposed to be permeated by a mysterious principle which can

ands 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 l

ndus 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 tr

ted 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

gical knowledge previously unknown to them[167] and even women like Garg? and Maitrey? 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. Whate

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 wor

rfluous[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

ddha. 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 Yaj?avalkya, of Uddalaka ru?i and other masters and each teaching has some individuality. They are merely reported as words of

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 g

re 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 B?ihad-ra?yaka both contain an almost identical narrative of how the priest ru?i was puzzled and instructed by a king and a simila

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 d

ho 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 th

his 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

mmortal 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." Maitrey? said that she had no need of what would not make her immortal. Yaj?avalkya proceeded to explain to her his doctrine of the tman, 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 tman. Not fo

r death) there is no more consciousness." Here Maitrey? professes herself bewildered but Yaj?avalkya continues "I say nothing bewildering. Verily, beloved, that tman 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 tman only is all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another? How can we know him by whose power we k

only) Reality and Being, not definable in terms of anything else. Nothing, says Yaj?avalkya, 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 Maitrey? 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

r 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 tman, and thou, ?vetaketu, art It." Many illustrations of the relations of the tman and the universe follow. For i

drawn forth from the tman 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 tman: there is no real d

aches 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 B?ihad-ra?yaka affirms of the last (IV. 3. 32): "This i

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 tman is recognized as the only Reality. Its intellectual character is equally clearly affirmed. Thus the B?ihad-ra?yaka (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 hi

hooling 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 Yaj?avalkya says to Garg?[194]: "Whoever without knowing the imperishable one offers oblations in this w

n their own self, belongs eternal peace, not to others. They feel that highest, unspeakable bliss saying, this is that. How then can I understand it? Has it its own light or does it

is real: there is but One who neither makes nor is made[197]. In a land of such multiform theology it would be hazardous to say that Monotheism has always arisen out of Pantheism, but in the speculative schools where the Upanishads were composed, this was often its genesis. The older idea is that a subtle essence pervades all nature and the deities who rule nature: this is spiritualized into the doctrine of Brahman attributed to Yaj?avalkya and it is only by a secondary process that this Brahman is personified and sometimes identified with a particular god such as Siva. The doctrine of the personal ??vara is elaborated in the ?veta?vatara Upanishad of uncertain date[198]. It celebrates him in hymns