1. Seceret Lore of India Passages from Upanishads Teape W.M

Contents

PAGE

FOREWORD - - - - - - - - - - - v

PREFACE - - - - - - - - - - ix

Introduction: Survey of the Sacred Tradition - 1

THE SELECTIONS

Brief Advice to the Reader - - - - - 47

Pronunciation of Sanskrit - - - - - 49

1. The World as the Horse Sacrifice - - - 50

i. First, External, Aspect: The Horse at Liberty 50

ii. Second, Inner, Aspect: The Horse Slain - - 51

iii. The Source of the Horse - - - - - 52

2. The Evolution of the Cosmos or the Attainment

of a Body of Complete Self-Sacrifice - - 54

ANALYSIS - - - - - - - - 54

A. Introduction - - - - - - - - 56

B. The Process of Evolution - - - - - 56

i. Death at the Beginning - - - - 56

ii. The Yearning of Death for a Body - - 57

iii. First Stage of Evolution: The Body of Force 57

iv. Second Stage of Evolution: The Body of

Life - - - - - - - - 60

v. Third Stage of Evolution: The Body of the

Spirit - - - - - - - - 67

C. Epilogue on the Two Fires - - - - 72

(a) The Two Fires, One on Earth, the Other

in Heaven - - - - - - - 72

(b) The Two Fires are One Divinity - - - 76

(c) The Triumph of Him who knows this - 76

xvi

CONTENTS

3. The Emanations from and the Return to Itself of the Unitive Self

PAGE

I. Introduction

77

II. The Descent: Six Increasingly Gross Emanations from the Self: At last—the Person

77

III. The Ascent: Five Increasingly Ethereal Persons

78

IV. Identity with the Sun

82

V. Recapitulation of the Return

82

VI. The Rapturous Song of the Unitive Self after it has returned to itself

83

4. Macrocosm and Microcosm

84

5. The Open Way at Death

86

6. "The Creed of Śāṇḍilya" and "A Song" thereon by Paul Eberhardt

87

7. What Certain Creatures of the Wilderness taught Satyakāma

89

8. How Spirit became the All

95

9. The Self Creative

97

10. The Instruction given by Uddālaka to his son Śvetaketu

99

11. The Bird of Paradise

115

12. The Instruction Yājnavalkya gave to Janaka, King of the Videhas

117

13. Yājnavalkya's Last Testament

131

14. The World Beyond

137

15. The Secret Teaching given to the Gods and Demons by the Lord of Creatures regarding the True Self

138

16. The Advantage of Knowledge of One's Nature

146

17. The Eight Wardens of the Head

148

18. The Homage given by All Things to Him who in All Things sees the Self

149

19. The Meaning of the Thunder

150

20. The Supremacy of the Real

152

21. The False in Truth's Embrace

153

22. The Supreme Austerities - - - - - 154

23. The Sin-deterrent Fire - - - - - 155

24. The Necessity that the Self should Reveal Itself to Itself - - - - 156

Notes on the Selections - - - - - 159

Vocabulary of some Important Sanskrit Words - 205

Conclusion: The One Perfect Life for All - - 228

Appendix I: Literal Translation of "The World as the Horse Sacrifice" (bau. I.I.) - - 325

Appendix II: Literal Translation of "The Evolution of the Cosmos" (bau. I.2.) - - - 326

Appendix III: On "Nephesh" - - - - - 327

Appendix IV: The Spirit - - - - - 328

Appendix V: Westcott on Hindu Thought in General 337

Appendix VI: Sir George Birdwood on India - 339

Index of Upanishad Passages - - - - - 341

Index of Abbreviations - - - - - - 342

General Index - - - - - - - 343

Introduction :

Survey of the Sacred Tradition

I. The Place of the Secret Lore in the Sacred Tradition

II. The First Prehistoric Period: The Earliest Indo-European Thought

III. The Second Prehistoric Period: The Attainment of the Airya Contingent

IV. The Land of the Origin of the Veda

V. The New Inspiration.

VI. Its Strength

VII. Its Exalted Character

VIII. Its Objective Fulness

IX. The Age of the Poets

(i) The Growing Preference for the God of Battle

(ii) The Increase in the Number of Officiants and the Rise of Hereditary Bodies with Special Functions

(iii) A Deteriorating Influx

(a) The Influx

(b) The Content of the Influx

(c) The Source of the Influx.

(iv) Presentiments of Unity

(v) The Elevation of the Sacrifice.

X. The Age of the Omnipotence of the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual

(i) The Arrival at the Strait of Fertile Land before the Watershed between West and East was arrived at

(ii) The Change in the People

(iii) The Cessation of the Poetry

(iv) The Formation of the Rigveda.

(v) Two New Vedas

(vi) The Forming of the Commentaries

(vii) The Region of this Compilation of the Hymns and Commencement of Commentaries on the Ritual

(viii) The Expansion of the Commentaries.

(ix) The Change of Character in the Mind of the Priest and of the Significance of the Ritual

(x) The Power of the Sacrifice in the World

(xi) The Decline of the Gods

(xii) Summary of the Change in Religion.

(xiii) The Decline of Philosophy

1

2 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

XI. The Escape in the Upanishads from the Magic and Ac-quisitive Ritual to the Glory of the Self, the Spirit

Seven Steps :

(i) The First Step: The Actual takes the place of the Symbol 28

(ii) The Second Step: The Two Inheritances brought forward

(a) The Prayer-force .. .. 30

(b) The World-Person, the Puruṣa .. 31

(iii) The Third Step: The Actualising of the Prayer-force .. 32

(iv) The Fourth Step: The Actualising of the World-Person.. 35

(v) The Fifth Step: The thorough De-objectifying of the Prayer-force and the Person .. .. 36

(vi) The Sixth Step: Being is the World and the Self .. 37

(vii) The Seventh and

Final Step: The Self is Being and is Spirit.. .. 39

(a) The Self .. .. .. 40

(b) The Spirit .. .. .. 42

(c) The Reality of the World .. .. 44

XII. The Necessity that the Self Transcendent should enable the Self in the Flesh to know its True Nature .. .. .. .. .. .. 45

XIII. Recapitulation .. .. .. .. .. 45

I. The Place of the Secret Lore in the Sacred Tradition.

The Secret Lore, which we here present specimens of, is handed down in a series of documents called Upanishads, that is 'sittings down-near,' because their contents were transmitted as a secret to a student who sat close to his teacher. The teaching was imparted by divines ('men of the spirit,' as they were called) to those of their own caste who had undergone a long course of discipline, and whom the teacher thought fit to receive it. It was given long ago, about the middle of the first millenium before Christ, that is about the time of Jeremiah the prophet in Judah, and was the Climax of a course of development of religious thought that had begun a thousand years previously.

It is to be remembered that all dates, however, in this story are conjectures within wide limits. The basis of the conjectures is linguistic evidence we shall presently describe, besides internal evidence in pre-Upanishad and Upanishad documents themselves. A prime fact to keep fixed in mind is that the Upanishads were concluded before the classic Buddhist doctrines were formed.

THE EARLIEST INDO-EUROPEAN THOUGHT 3

II. The First Prehistoric Period: The Earliest Indo-European Thought.

Let us consider the linguistic evidence to which we have just referred.

It so happens that those ancient people of India among whom this development of thought took place spoke a language (and their multitudinous descendants in India still speak daughter-tongues thereof) that is plainly kindred to practically all the languages spoken in Europe to-day. These languages, taken all together, are consequently called Indo-European.

It has therefore been of interest to scholars to try, by comparing these so evidently cognate languages and sifting out what is common to them all, to discover what the original tongue might be from which they are derived, and from words thus found to ascertain, as far as possible, what was the home of those who spoke the original language, what their stage of civilisation, their character, and their religion.

It will accordingly be useful for us who are about to study the course of early Indian thought, to have the results of the investigations of these scholars before us, for we shall then ascertain the sort of life and thought from which ultimately the Indian thought of our study is derived.

First then, with regard to the home of these people, the learned philologist, Dr. Giles, having gone through their vocabulary, conjectures it to be a varied country, for their vocabulary shows that they had not only to do with horses and sheep, whose habitat is the short grass and the plain, but also trained and kept the cow that browses on the rich grass while she hides her calf in the thicket, the pig of the forest, and the goat of the hills, and the mention of corn requires their stay here and there to raise crops. But their use of metals, he tells us, had not advanced very far, the only word for metal common to many of the derivative languages being that which appears in Sanskrit as ayas, in Latin as æs, and in English as ore. The word at the time of the migrations from the main stock meant either copper or bronze. Their climate was temperate. Their lakes were open, but there was snow on lofty mountains near at hand.

4 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

The learned linguist accordingly gives his verdict as follows:

The areas that will satisfy the linguistic data require a land with a temperate climate, remote from the sea and shut off from other areas, for otherwise it seems impossible that languages with so complicated a grammatical system as the Indo-European could have developed, bearing so close a resemblance to one another, and on the whole so strongly differentiated from other languages. The only area accordingly which will satisfy the conditions postulated is the great area in Europe which includes practically the former empire of Austria-Hungary.1

Next, as to their character, we may note only this: That they had a pretty name for themselves, based upon the adjective arya, which means 'faithful; attached, kindly,' the person whom you 'go eagerly to.'2 We find it their name in changing form from east to west of the wide-stretching territory they eventually occupied in Euro-Asia. Thus Airya is their name in the Avesta, and so we may take it to be their name in the old Persian days. Ārya is their name in their ancient hymns, which we know as the Veda, composed by priestly families of the detachment that entered India and is still the name treasured in India by those who look back to the morning. Erān was the name of the present Persia in the Middle Persian language, and Irān is its name in Modern Persian. The great mountain with its summit capped with perpetual snow that bounds Irān's west is named Ararat. The region to the west of Ararat, where another contingent settled, is called Armenia. Erin3 is the original name of the island still called Ireland, where yet another offshoot settled and which became the farthest Indo-European West, only because the boundless ocean stayed all further advance, until the fifteenth century, when Indo-European voyagers at last crossed the ocean, and let their brethren move further westward, not only that, but south and south-east as well, in the course of their travelling round the world to meet at last at Calcutta in the Āryans

1 P. Giles, Art., "Indo-European Languages," p. 267, in Encycl. Brit., 14.

2 [L] the root being √r̥, rise. Note in contrast the Latin sēd-itio, civil discord, from sē or sēd, inseparable preposition, denoting (i) separation or division, or (ii) reversal of the significance of the root + itio, going. [Dr. Smith's Smaller Latin-English Dictionary (New Edition).]

3 Eriu is the nominative case; Erinn, the accusative [L].

THE EARLIEST INDO-EUROPEAN THOUGHT

of India, although they did not then know it, their long-lost linguistic brothers.

We say 'linguistic' brothers, because for us, who are studying the thought of those with whom we are concerned, language is the prime interest, but a glance at the physique of most of those who speak Indo-European tongues shows them to be, as one would expect, of the same racial stock.

What was the original Indo-European religion? So far as scholars can discover from the linguistic research just mentioned, the original Indo-Europeans had only one god, Dyaus, the Shining Sky.1

When we learn that there can thus be discovered only one God for them, and that God to be the Shining Sky, and recollect that it has been inferred that they spent their days on the apparently boundless Hungarian plain, the great open sky dominating their landscape, lofty mountains shutting them off from the rest of mankind, we wonder whether to these original Indo-Europeans there was not a revelation of the Majesty in Heaven granted, of a One God in contrast with whom other gods were of none or of little account, not very unlike that vouchsafed to the Hebrews, who were at a somewhat similar stage of civilisation with a similar vastness of sky over their boundless sand, and shut off similarly by their sands from the nations.

More particularly, we remember "the thunders and lightnings and the thick cloud" at Sinai, and the Lord "descending upon the mount in fire," and there speaking to Moses,2 and that it was just under such awe-inspiring display in the heavens that this Dyaus, becoming Zeus and ruling gods and men from Olympus, impressed his authority upon the contingent that broke off from the original stock of Indo-Europeans and settled in Greece.

But we have to recognise that in the Veda, that is the collection we have of the hymns of the people whose religious thought we are about to study, who are a branch of the Indo-European continent that came to be settled south and east of the Caspian Sea, Dyaus is of a very different status. In these hymns he is, as the sky is found to be among primitive peoples, simply the all-father, and has, as his spouse the earth, as all-mother.

1 See VM.; also Keith in RVP. 2 Exod. xx. 16–19.

6

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

III. The Second Pre-Historic Period: The Attainment of the Airya Contingent.

Concerning the religion of the Indo-European contingent just mentioned, the Airyas, as we may call them, from the name given to them in the Avesta, who eventually settled south and east of the Caspian Sea, we get much more information from linguistic evidence than we get with regard to the religion of the original stock.

Among them we find, in ritual, 'sacrifice,' 'offerer (hotṛ),' the worship of fire, 'fire-priest,' 'established order' or 'rite' (ṛta1 in the Rigveda, aṣa in the Avesta), and 'soma,' this last the inspiring juice of a plant used as the main libation. With regard to the soma, we find its pressing mentioned, its purification by being passed through a sieve, its being mixed with milk, its growing on mountains which are high, for we find it described as brought down by an eagle or eagles,2 just such mountains, we may add, as are the Caucasus and the Hindu Kush.

When we examine further what we have discovered to be the language of the Airyas we find, when we come to gods, not simply one god, as we found in the common language of the Indo-Europeans, but several gods, 'mighty kings, drawn by swift steeds through the air in war chariots, in character benevolent, and almost entirely free from guile and immoral traits'; a divinity who is a wise spirit (Sanskrit asura); a contest between a great god and a great demon; a ruler of the dead and of paradise;3 and evil spirits as well.

IV. The Land of the Origin of the Veda.

Was there ever such a country as that which lies between the lofty snow-capped precipitous north-west corner of India and the salty Caspian Sea? Not because of the encroachment there of the arid loess, but because there so singularly poetry and religion have grown as one inflorescence. How rarely can we say of the hymn that it is a poem and that the poem is a hymn! but so it was there,

1 See ṛta in Voc., p. 210, for its significance among the Āryans, the people with whom we have to do in this book, who withdrew from the Airyas and settled in India.

2 VM., p. 7.

3 VM.

THE LAND OF THE ORIGIN OF THE VEDA 7

both with the early reciters with whom we have to do in this book, and also with inhabitants who come later. Perhaps just because, with the struggle we have mentioned between the field and garden and the arid loess, heaven, on whose gifts from the sky and the hills the people were made thus so manifestly dependent, was the more in mind; and, on account of the constant alignment of the field and garden with the sand, each in its most vivid presentation, the beauty of earth the better appreciated.

Thus does this part of the world bestir Dr. Rickmer Rickmers in his book on The Duab ['two rivers district'] of Turkestan: "Men ask me to weld into beautiful symphonies of reality the two eternal elements of heaven and earth! Where is the golden mean that ever satisfies? Such may be the musings of one who lets his view sweep from the summits of Hazrat Sultan to Tamerlane's avenues."

The mention here of the avenues of Tamerlane is an allusion to Samarkand, which, we should notice, attracted an earlier conqueror than Tamerlane, for there, at the ancient city, Marakanda, now Afrosiab, close to the present city, Alexander the Great rested on his way to India. There it was, at a banquet, when both were heated with wine, that he slew his friend Kleitos, who had saved his life at the battle of the Granicos six years before, being provoked at his friend's insolent language. He was inconsolable, we are told, at the death of his friend. At his departure he burned the city with fire.

Dr. Rickmer Rickmers then goes on to describe Samarkand:

Where the mountains whence issues the Zarafshan river, overshadow the plain, there lies Samarkand, the queen of the world, like a lovely woman, reclining on her couch: she, who is the mother and child, in whom are conception and birth. To the mountains with their high serrated wall devoid of all vegetation, capped with snow, she is fulfilment and a promise, she the ever-youthful, beatific, crowned with the glory of Tamerlane. Seeing her, we feel that the towering giants of the south are a symbol of virility and the ardent plain of hopeful desire. Out of the passionate longing the creative power uplifts the miracle of growth and blossom, calling forth the young down of corn, the swelling bosom of the trees, and the ripening fruit.1

1 See W. Rickmer Rickmers, The Duab of Turkestan, pp. 119, 120.

8

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

It was there, then, the Indian scholars Belvalkar and

Ranade, from whose History of Indian Philosophy we shall

have frequent occasion to quote, find from internal evidence

that certain (therefore the earliest) hymns of the Rigveda,

the collection of poetry of the Āryans, were composed, that

is to say, to quote the definition of the professors, in ‘the

land beyond the Hindu Kush, to the west and north of it,’

more particularly ‘in North Īrān, between the Caspian Sea

and the Panjāb.’1

But that was only the earlier, the prehistoric, say some-

where in the second millenium B.C., spiritual blossoming of

this land of green straths and oasis gardens and monotonous

expanses of sand. In that land again, as we have said,

this time at the beginning of the second millenium after our

era, a composite upgrowth showed itself of what was at

once poem and hymn; that is, not only after the Vedic

poets of our story, but also after the Avestan sage Zāra-

thustra, Greeks, Buddhists, and the people of Islām, had

successively brought their influence to bear. Then it was,

in ninth and tenth centuries, that poets arose at Samarkand,

at Merv, at Bokhara, who presented for men’s admiration

‘real gems of spontaneous growth.’2

Through the next two centuries, the eleventh and twelfth,

poets continue to appear, in Khorāsān, at Herat, and at

Khiva. In the thirteenth century the greatest heights of the

pantheistic ‘Union with God’ were attained, the richest

flower of which showed itself in Jalāl-ud-dīn, who was born

at Balkh, although his father, an orthodox Sunite, having in-

curred the wrath of the Sultan, who had become a Shī‘ite, had

to leave Balkh, while the future poet was still a child, and

eventually settled at Iconium in Rūm (Asia Minor), where

Jalāl-ud-dīn spent the last fifty years of his life, and whence

he is known as Rūmī.3

One, as we have said, were these declaimers of the Veda

and of Islām in their devotion to high heaven and in their

linking therewith joy in the beauty of the round world

below.

1 CP. p. 10.

2 Prof. V. F. Minorsky in “Persian Literature,” p. 697, in Encyl. Brit., 14.

3 Prof. R. A. Nicholson in Tales of Mystic Meaning from Jalāl-ud-dīn,

p. xv.

THE NEW INSPIRATION

9

V. The New Inspiration.

So it was among the farthest east Airyas, that is to say, among those who dwelt just outside the north-west corner of India, that the Vedic inspiration, which is our present concern, the earlier of the two indigenous upgrowths we have noted, arose.

Already the Airyas of that day, as we have stated, practised fire-worship, believed in a Wise Spirit (Asura Mazda) and Eternal Order (ṛta) and in gods riding as kings through the sky in their chariots: and to that body of practice and belief those who received the new inspiration still held.

What then was the new element? Nothing less than the arrival of a new god, Varuṇa, in whom they saw, glorious in his palace in highest heaven, the Wise Spirit that people already believed to exist, and who maintained the Eternal Law, which was for them already an article of belief.

When we read of the description of Varuṇa in the poems we can understand how he so strongly moved these men's hearts.

Here is a summons to his praise:

Sing a sublime prayer (brahman) to the ruler Varuṇa, the glorious, who, as a (sacrificial) slaughterer stretches a skin, has stretched out the earth to be a carpet for the sun.

And thus are his wonderful deeds recounted:

Varuṇa spread abroad the air through the forests. He put speed into the horses, milk in cows, intellect in the heart, the Fire in the waters, the Sun in the sky, snow on the mountain.

And here is a personal confession:

I will tell forth the great wondrous power of Varuṇa, the Asura-son.…

None has dared to question this great wondrous power of the most wise God, in that the shining rivers with their water fill not the one sea into which they flow.1

Thus much of praise of ordering of nature. Here is Varuṇa's power in the realm of spirit made clear:

What sin we have ever committed against an intimate, O Vàruṇa, against a friend or companion at any time, a brother, a neighbour or a stranger, that, O Varuṇa, loose from us.

1 RV. v. 85. 1, 2, 6; E. J. Thomas, Vedic Hymns, p. 56.

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THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

If we have cheated, as gamblers do at play, whether in

truth or without knowing, all that loose from us, O God.

So may we be dear to thee, O Varuna.1

Through weakness of understanding I have gone per-

versely, I know not how, O pure one. Be gracious, good

ruler, show grace.2

What was the most grievous sin, O Varuna, that thou

desirest to slay thy praiser, thy friend? Reveal it to me,

thou hard to deceive, who preservest thine own nature.

Quickly may I sinless3 approach thee with reverence.4

O Varuna who preservest thine own nature, may this

hymn of praise abide in thy heart.5

Every hymn to Varuna, Professor Macdonell tells us,

contains a prayer for forgiveness of sin.

And notice this announcement of Varuna with regard to

ṛta, the eternal order:

I uphold the heaven in the place of eternal order. And

in accordance with eternal order I, the sacred son of Aditi,

spread out the threefold world [heaven, atmosphere, earth].6

We are not, however, to think of Varuna as in isolation.

We find with him, ruling in the same palace in heaven, an

associate god, Mitra. Thus are the two addressed:

Guardians of ṛta, preserving true ordinances, ye mount

the chariot in the highest firmament.

As sovereigns ye rule over this world, O Mitra and

Varuna.7

One hymn8 is offered to Mitra alone, in which he is thus

described:

Mitra of wide renown, who surpasses heaven through his

greatness, who surpasses earth through his glories. . . .

Mitra bears up all the gods.9

How then did the Airyas of the new religion and those

who still kept to the old get on together? Quite har-

moniously at first. For those who joined the new faith

1 RV. v. 85. 7, 8; id., p. 57.

2 RV. vii. 89. 3; id., p. 58.

3 sin, ēnas, n. [perhaps 'deed of violence,' from √in, drive; force (L)].

4 RV. vii. 86. 4; id., p. 58.

5 RV. vii. 86. 8; id., p. 59.

6 RV. iv. 42. 4. This hymn is commented upon by Lanman, Sanskrit

Reader, p. 367.

7 RV. v. 63. E. J. Thomas, Vedic Hymns, p. 61.

8 RV. iii. 59; id., p. 60.

9 RV. iii. 59. 7–8. Id. Bhandarkar conjectures that the name asura is

preserved in the name of the country Assyria. See asura in Voc.

THE STRENGTH OF THE NEW INSPIRATION II

the old gods were still their gods, the old demons, their demons, the old ritual, their ritual; but at last tolerance on both sides ceased. We find, when we come to the later portion of the collection of hymns composed by the adherents of Varuṇa (the Rigveda) that the poets have come to understand asura, the name their fellow Airyas had for a god, to mean a devil, and the name they had for a devil to mean a god. The significance, in fact, of the religious vocabulary has become interchanged, the deities and devils of the one side becoming the devils and deities of the other. The strife this interchange indicates is believed to be embodied in the contests between gods and devils we find described in the Commentaries drawn up eventually with regard to the Vedic ritual.

Finally the obvious course was taken. The adherents of the new faith withdrew from those who still held to the old. From their North-East they trekked, through winding valleys and over mighty passes into the country that lay just beyond, to wit the wide plain of the Indus and its tributaries, and there, shut off from their troublers, settled down, ever, as the population increased, spreading still further away. We are following here the suggestion Professor Belvalkar deduces from the Poems and Commentaries as to what happened, and he explains thus, for one thing, the regard the Commentaries have for the North-East quarter as the direction of triumph and good auspices, and the fact that the Avesta, the book of the reformation by Zārathustra, among the original Airyas centuries afterwards, does not fail, presumably carrying down the old bitterness which had changed gods into demons, to put into that region Hell.1

VI. The Strength of the New Inspiration.

So there was strength in this new inspiration. Those who were moved by it call themselves vipras, a title usually translated ‘poets,’ which is a good translation, if we forget the etymology of the word ‘poet.’ True, every poet is a ‘maker,’ but first he is made to be a poet by what moves him, and it was this latter condition that was evident to these men, for vipra means ‘agitated,’ from √vip, ‘tremble

1 Vedānta Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 30.

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THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

or shake.'1 The power that moved them they called brahman.2 We may have noticed the word in the opening

of the first hymn to Varuṇa, which we quoted, translated there by Dr. Thomas 'sublime prayer.' It means 'that which

makes great or causes to swell,' and signified precisely for these reciters the energy that made their hearts 'swell' as

they prayed to and praised their gods. Accordingly they called themselves Brahmins, the great title which their

descendants still bear; that is 'men of the brahman,'3 men moved by a heart-enlarging power that enabled them to

pray. They believed that the gods also whom they ad-dressed were moved by the brahman, and so were induced

to grant to them their prayers; and that faith they were careful to instill into their patrons.

No wonder then that such believers in prayer had among their gods the god of prayer, Brhas-pati,4 that is the Lord

and Master of Prayer. He was the priest of the gods, and we find the poets in a passage of the Rigveda placing him in

front of themselves as their head. He is a god peculiar to Vedic tradition, and regarded as of much importance,

eleven hymns of the Rigveda being entirely allotted to his praise. Indeed Professor Macdonell conjectures that, being

looked upon as the brahman-priest for the gods, he is the prototype of Brahmā, the chief of the Hindu triad of to-day.

His office it was to awaken the gods from their sleep by means of the sacrifice, and to recite before them when

awakened the hymns in which they took pleasure. He himself composed hymns and passed them on to the priests

among men. He is depicted seven-mouthed, seven-rayed, beautiful-tongued, golden-coloured and ruddy, having a

1 √vip, be in trembling agitation; tremble or shake. Cf. Lat. vibrare, shake, brandish, from vib-ru-s, víp-ru-s, shaking; Eng. waver; Eng.

frequentative whiffle, veer about, blow in gusts; whiffle-tree, so called from its constant jerky motion (-tree means 'wooden bar') [L].

2 Note that a in Sanskrit has the sound of the neutral vowel, the u in but, and that h is to be pronounced. See "Pronunciation of Sanskrit,"

p. 49; bráhman in Voc.

3 Compare the Gaelic and Irish bárd, singer. Oldenberg notes the Irish bricht, magic, incantation, and conjectures a connection of brahman therewith. [Die Lehre der Upanishaden, p. 46.]

4 Professor Macdonell, seeing that the form brahmanas-pati, that is 'Lord and Master of the brahman,' is evidently an explanation of brhas-pati, concludes that the poets regarded brh-as as the genitive of a noun brh, from the same root brh as is brahman, VM., p. 103. See bráhman in Voc.

THE EXALTED CHARACTER

13

hundred wings and a clear voice, holding a bow the string

of which is ṛta, the rite. The ṛta is also described as his

car, and in it, as king of all prayers, he rides as do the rest of

the gods in their cars in the sky, launching his arrows

against those holding in enmity prayer and the gods.1

VII. The Exalted Character of the New Inspiration.

Here then is a poetry not only of strength, with which

those who declaimed were vipra, 'shaking,' as are trees with

the wind, but the breeze was a breeze from on high. They

called themselves 'seers,' and what they recited is preserved

by succeeding generations as śruti, 'a hearing,' from heaven,

in distinction from that which is smṛti, 'remembrance' of

the utterance of men. Rig-veda, the title given to the

collection of their poems, means 'knowledge' (veda) expressed

in verse (ṛg).

VIII. The Objective Fulness.

With regard to the subject-matter of their hymns we have

to remember that we have generations of poets before us

and the experiences of nature and man on the Caspian side

as well as the Indian side of the Híndu Kush, and then

across the wide Panjāb plain to just upon its eastern water-

shed.2 We are to view the people spreading from the hills

over that great Plain with its rich grass, its scattered trees,

its mighty rivers, settling themselves down in their tribes,

busy as herdsmen and husbandmen, not the only folk there,

but finding a dark race settled before them with which they

have many a conflict, also having conflict among their own

tribes.

No wonder then that the poems are full of variety; so

much to beseech the gods for, that the many needs and

desires of life may be met—especially for a 'life of a hundred

autumns,' 'sons who are heroes,' 'rich milk-giving kine'—and

that the dark-skinned foes and kindred warring tribes may

be overcome. Sometimes the great movements in nature,

sometimes these battles, sometimes the common affairs of

everyday life, absorb the poet's attention and acute ob-

servation is shown.

1 See brhas-pati in VM., pp. 101-4.

2 H. J. Eggeling, in article, "Sanskrit Language and Literature,"

revised by J. Allan, in Encycl. Brit., 14.

14

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

The goddess of dawn is depicted in a manner that reminds one of Tennyson's portrayal of the homely beauty of the 'Gardener's Daughter,'1 and you can almost hear in the poet's humorous lines the croaking of the frogs as they join together 'like the lowing of cows with calves,' one sidling up, 'like a son to a father,' as he talks.2 The funeral is tenderly described, and the lonely plight of the widow.3 The gambler's doings are related and he gets a good trouncing.4

IX. The Age of the Poets.

The reader will have already inferred that the way was not unbrokenly smooth for the poets. The religious strife we have mentioned, in which each side called the gods of their brethren demons, must have made the mind of the poets less peaceful than they liked. Yet there would be in that strife the satisfaction for each side that they felt themselves enlisted on behalf for what they deemed to be truly divine.

(i) The Growing Preference for the God of Battle.

But we have another trait in our Vedic poets, in which high matters of conscience seem to be rather deserted than maintained. We learn from Professor Macdonell that already in Rigvedic times Varuṇa, the great and wise Spirit, who dwelt in heaven, had a rival in the air beneath him, the god of the storm, Indra, who wielded with success the thunderbolt, and was therefore deemed to be the proper god to pray to for victory in battle. We find attributed to him universal authority as was assigned to Varuṇa. The professor points out indeed that the universal functions of the two were different: "When Indra is addressed as a universal monarch it is not as the applier of the eternal law of the inverse nor as a moral ruler, but as the irresistible warrior whose mighty arm wins victory and who also possesses as his distinctive trait inexhaustible liberality in the bestowal

1 RV. i. 113. Trans. E. J. Thomas in Vedic Hymns. See also Maurice Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, pp. 64-.

2 RV. vii. 103. Trans. E. J. Thomas in Vedic Hymns.

3 RV. x, 18. Trans. id.

4 RV. x, 34. Trans. A. A. Macdonell in Hymns from the Rigveda.

THE AGE OF THE POETS

15

of earthly goods.'1 We are to notice, however, that the irresistibleness of Indra, whose great exploit on which the poets expatiate with much admiration, was the piercing of the huge sky-serpent of drought, was not so much inspired by a desire to rid the world of the evil, as by a rejoicing in simply the strength of his arm. Also, he was, as befits such a character, boisterous and rollicking, and, besides, so heavily did he drink Soma that he became a braggart of impossible deeds, and was—what is worse—on one occasion driven to murder his father. On these counts 'he falls,' our learned authority concludes, 'far beneath the general level of the high Vedic gods.'2

Professor Lanman finds a gradual supersession of Varuṇa by Indra in a considerable number of passages. He quotes one in which first Varuṇa claims the supreme godhead and the godhead from the beginning, to which Indra responds by asserting his irresistible might as god of battle, and at last the hymn ends with an acknowledgement on the part of the poet of the superior claims of Indra.3

We can only plead our common fraility in the poet and his patrons when, seeing the foe before them, they realised the strong arm in the air that could, and most likely would, help them, if only for love of the fight, albeit above them in the heaven was Varuṇa, the only sure defender of a righteous cause.4

(ii) The Increase in the Number of Officiants and the Rise of Hereditary Bodies with Special Functions.

As the march of the successive generations of the poet-priests goes on we notice that the number of the officiants employed in the service increases.

At first, we infer, it was simply the poet himself, who, after making obeisance to the fire, poured into it the sacrificer's offering of milk, butter, grain or whatever it might be; for his name hotṛ, which, as we stated some time ago, dates back to Caspian days,5 means properly 'offerer,' from the √hu, which means 'pour.'6 But in the Rigveda Collection it is taken to be derived from the √hū, which means 'call,' and we find there already another priest, the adhvaryu,

1 VM. 2 VM., pp. 64–66.

3 L., p. 367. RV. iv. 42, of which L. gives the Sanskrit with notes.

4 CP., p. 12. 5 P. 6. 6 L.

C

16

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

who does the manual acts of the sacrifice. The hotṛ's duty has become simply to invoke the gods.1 So the Rigveda starts off with at least two priests, not one. Lists of seven and more afterwards appear,2 some to assist the adhvaryu in the manual acts, others to sing the formulae. There come eventually to be three hereditary classes of priests employed at a service: the hotṛ, who intones the hymns; the adhvaryu, who mutters the formulae taken from them while he performs the manual acts; and the singer who sings formulae adapted to be sung. It is doubtful whether in Rigvedic times, but certainly afterwards, a fourth priest was appointed, as overseer of the whole sacrifice.1 His duty it was to correct any mistake that might be made by any of the three priests just mentioned. This fourth priest was called the Brahmin in a special official sense, that is to say, as 'the man of the brahman (the prayer-force).' whose duty it was to see that throughout the ceremony no offence to that mysterious power should befall, a happening charged with calamity for those engaged in the sacrifice.

(iii) A Deteriorating Influx.

(a) The Influx.

And alas ! it is not only a growing preference as time goes on for the God of Battles over Varuṇa that we have to deplore. Our two Indian scholars, Professors Belvalkar and Ranade, find a general deterioration of spiritual values set in even before the commencement of what they call the late Vedic period. They bid us observe how deeply it penetrated. It was brought about by the introduction of a "new and inferior pantheon," they tell us, that came to affect "the character of even the old Vedic gods and the mode and motive of their worship."1 They recall in contrast the state of things in the really old Vedic days. "There was a primitive Vedic religion," they maintain, "wherein feeling was not overlaid, nor outraged, by form; a religion wherein joy in existence was not marred by a too frequent necessity to propitiate some malignant lesser spirits or to seek the intervention of an all-too-knowing and all-too-grabbing priesthood."3

1 RPV., p. 254. 2 Id., p. 252.

3 CP., p. 8.

THE AGE OF THE POETS

17

(b) The Content of the Influx.

Our two scholars describe the different content of the new sort of religion. The original Vedic poet-priest, they tell us, worshipped high nature-gods. Now they find "lesser divinities" invoked, "lesser" forsooth, unspeakably mean and malignant, and yet indeed "great" in the terror they inspire, and the dire evil they inflict upon the open or hidden foe whom they are induced to attack; also the weirdest witchcraft and the worship of animals and trees.1 Most serious of all, the high gods, Professor Bloomfield tells us, are worshipped no longer with humble devotion, but are brought under compulsion.1 "All that," our two Indian professors point out, is "quite different from the general mode and tone of the primitive days."

(c) The Source of the Influx.

The question then is, Whence was this change? Considering its radical nature, our two scholars maintain we have here a new sort of religion from that which was previously held, an example of the demonatratrous and grossly-magic stage of religion which anthropologists find to be usually passed through by mankind in the course of religious development. Professor Bloomfield as well reckons this new feature in the Vedic religion to belong to that stage, and our reader will feel how different it is from the worship by the Airyas of the bright sky-kings in their chariots.

Yet we have evidence, which we give in our Vocabulary, from the Atharvāngirasas Collection of Spells, that even in the Airya days there was such a religion practised.2 So, at least a certain amount of this deteriorate faith we may attribute to a yielding by the original Airyas to what was already in their midst, and may regard the strife that ultimately led to the withdrawal from among them of the people of the new god Varuṇa as a protest against that submission. But certainly most, and the most degraded, elements, of this demonolatry and witchcraft one would rather attribute, not to the Airya people at all, but to the dark-skinned race, presumably devotees of a lower sort of religion, among whom the adherents of Varuṇa, after they had passed through the mountains,

1 CP., p. 16. 2 See Atharvan and Angirasas in Voc.

18 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

had to settle. It is to be noted that it is only at the very end of the Rigvedic period, when the adherents of Varuṇa had spread across the whole breadth of the Panjāb, and there was consequently danger of their original enthusiasm dying down, that the Collection of demonolatrous magic we have noticed was published.

(iv) Presentiments of Unity.

There is a noble trait, however, that sets in after the procession of the Poets has gone some way. We find the idea that, while it is multiplicity that meets the eye as one looks upon the world, yet somehow what is present is One.

The thought makes its way in through two channels. First, in the poet's attributing to the god he is addressing, in order that the honour of the god may be the more increased, the attributes and acts of other gods. The reader may have already noticed this in the extracts we have given with regard to Varuṇa and Mitra; Mitra being lauded as bearing up all the gods just as Varuṇa has been lauded.1 We shall presently find the same with regard to Varuṇa and Indra; Indra addressed as a universal monarch as it was the custom to address Varuṇa and to Indra the acts of Varuṇa ascribed.2 Thus the outlines of the gods, their characteristics being so much shared by each other, become shadowy, and we arrive at the exclamation of a late hymn:

Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, Agni, they style him. He is also the Heavenly Bird, the winged Garutmān. Being One, the poets many-wise name him They call him Agni, Yama, or Mātari-śvan.3

Secondly, this conviction of the under-lying unity came also through contemplation of nature.

Agni [Fire] is One, only kindled in many places. One is the Sun mightily overspreading the world. One alone is the Dawn beaming over all this. It is the One that has severally become all this.4

Yet we are not to think of this conviction as only based on deduction. Such a couplet as the following exhibits it as an intuition:

What moves and what moves not, all that the One rules;5 Also what walks and flies: all this multiform creation.6

1 P. 10. 2 P. 35. 3 RV., i. 164, 46; CP., p. 23. 4 RV. viii. 58, 2; CP., p. 23. 5 RV. iii. 54, 8; CP., p. 23. 6 See CP., p. 23.

THE AGE OF THE POETS

19

It is interesting to notice in what different aspects even in these three examples the One appears. Where we see one god receiving the attributes of the rest we have the apprehension of a Personality, and the phrase 'the One ruler' gives us a Personality outside creation and controlling it. On the other hand, the statement 'the One has become all this' bespeaks an impersonal and an inclusive entity, not an entity apart.

Indeed—to mention only one point—we seem to meet here after all an inkling of the presence not of One but of Two: One Person coming forward as the One spiritual power, the other persons being for the moment out of mind, and also a Neuter One, apprehended as the poet looks on the world: briefly, a dualism not a monism.

(v) The Elevation of the Sacrifice.

Another noble mode of thought! We find in a late poem,1 noted for its length and lofty imagination, the sacrifice regarded as a replica of what goes on in heaven.

The fire into which the priests on earth pour their offerings is in that poem held to be brother to the heavenly fire that shines in the sun and stars and to the fire that plays in the air as the lightning; and the seven priests round the earthly fire to correspond to seven priests in the firmament.2 In certain verses the heavenly priest is regarded as guardian and inspirer of the poet who recites below.3 The hearth of the sacrifice is declared to extend to the extreme limit of the earth and the sacrifice itself to be the navel of all existence, while the priest as he pronounces the sacred utterance (brahman) is declared to be the highest firmament of speech,4 and the utterance itself the roar of the mighty ox of heaven.5

But this conception loses, we will surely agree, its grandeur and truth when we find that not simply the sacrifice as a whole, but, Belwalkar and Ranade inform us, 'the several

1 RV. i. 164, already quoted on p. 3.

2 RV. i. 164; 1–3. See D.I., i, p. 108.

3 RV. i. 164, 37–39. D.I., i, p. 116.

4 RV. i. 164, 35. Atharva-veda, 9.10.14. (Whitney.)

5 RV. i. 164, 40–42, D.I, i, p. 117. Note the likening of the world to an Ox in Selection 2 (BAU. i, 2), p. 58, and Selection 7 (CU. 4, 4–9), p. 91.

20 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

stages of the ritual—its preliminary rites and ceremonies, the consecration ceremony, the fasts, the baths, and even the place and the period of worship, the number of priests and of potsherds, the sacrificial cakes (made of rice)—come all to be invested with cosmic significance."1

X. The Age of the Omnipotence of the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual.

(i) The Arrival at the Strait of Fertile Land before the Water-shed between West and East was arrived at.

How then at this late period of our story are the Āryans situated? They have come to be spread, as we have already mentioned, far from the hills they passed through when they parted from the Airyas. They stretch now right across the plain of the Panjāb. Their advance settlements are on the extreme east thereof, on the doāb (two-waters district), of the two rivers now known as the Sarsuti and Chautang.2

Here the advancing tribes have come to what Professor Rapson describes as the ‘narrow strait of habitable land which lies between the desert and the mountains.’3 This strait abuts on the watershed that divides the plain of the Indus from the plain of the Jumna and Ganges.

(ii) The Change in the People themselves who arrive there.

But it is not the narrowing of the fertile land in which the people may disperse that need claim our attention. What is of moment for us is the change observed in the people themselves that arrive there. It is a ‘marked change’; there is no ‘shading by degrees,’ Professor Rapson tells us. The change occurs about the longitude of Sirhind, which strikes through the doāb we have mentioned. At once we are aware that the people are no longer Āryan in language but Āryo-Dravidian. That evidently means that they have come upon a Dravidian people that have an influence upon them that the earlier inhabitants among whom the tribes left behind had settled had not. Not only does their ancient

1 CP., p. 17.

2 A. A. Macdonell, Imperial Gazetteer of India,1 Vol. II, p. 227.

3 Cambridge History of India, I, p. 46.

AGE OF MAGIC AND ACQUISITIVE RITUAL 21

literature testify to this change, but to-day we find that the people on the east of the longitude we have mentioned are different in physique from those on the west. That the change should be so radical implies that the incoming Āryans have now met with a people possessing a culture largely akin to their own.

Also, we find with these Āryo-Dravidians as they continue the onward movement of the Āryans that the waves of migration have been "impeded at this point," that "the influence farther east of this incoming people must be due rather to penetration, warlike or peaceful, than to the wholesale encroachment of multitudes."1

(iii) The Cessation of the Poetry.

Most striking feature of the change, however, for us who are studying the deeper mind of these people, is that the poetry now ceases. The doāb of the Sarsuti and Chautang proved to be the Land of the Swan-song. There the last hymns were sung. Fitly that doāb was ever after remembered as Brahmāvarta, the land of the brahman, the prayer-force, the Spirit.

(iv) The Formation of the Rigveda.

When the advancing tribes have got beyond the doāb of the Sarsuti and the Chautang, and have come to colonise the country immediately over the watershed where the upper waters of the Jumna and the Ganges flow, the leaders of thought among the Men of the Spirit retain indeed their ancient name of ṛṣi (seer), but they compose no poetry. What they do is to make, with the service of the altar for by far the most part in view, a Collection of the poetry their predecessors have composed, giving it the name we have noted, Rig-veda, 'knowledge expressed in verses.'

(v) Two New Vedas.

Also, after a while those among the seers that belong to the Adhvaryu class, the class we noted that was engaged with the manual acts of the sacrifice, draw up a Veda for the Adhvaryus, made up of formulae in prose and verse drawn for the greater part from the Rigveda, that were

1 Professor Rapson in Cambridge History of India, I, p. 45.

22 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

muttered by the Adhvaryu as he performed his manual acts. This they called the Yajur (worship) Veda. The leaders among the Singing Priests also put up a Veda for the Singers, made up of formulae from the Rigveda modified to suit certain tunes. They named it the Sāma (Tune)-Veda. Thus there came to be Three Vedas, and they were known as the Threefold Knowledge (Trayī-vidyā).

(vi) The Forming of the Commentaries.

But these seers not only drew up the 'Threefold Knowledge. They also began to compose Commentaries (brāhmanas), that should give not only 'descriptions of the sacrificial ceremonies,' but also 'attributions of hidden meanings, accounts of their origin, and legends to illustrate their efficacy.'1

(vii) The Region of this Compilation of the Hymns and Commencement of Commentaries on the Ritual.

The region of this activity of leaders among the priests Professor Rapson defines as "the upper portion of the doāb between the Jumña and the Ganges and the Muttra district of the United Provinces."2 These leaders and this activity of theirs in mind, this doāb came to be called "the Land of the Seers among the Men of the Spirit" (brahmarṣi-deśa).

(viii) The Expansion of the Commentaries.

Still the people advance. Beyond the upper portion of the doāb between the Jumña and Ganges they proceed further east. The portion of the people who have thus advanced are the Kuru-Pancālas, and among them the men of the spirit are now busy enlarging the commentaries they have begun upon the ritual, for the dominant feature of the age we have now entered upon is belief in the all-mighty all-reaching power of the word and act at the altar.

So may this age be called not only the Age of the Magic Ritual but the Age of the Commentaries, and this country of the Kuru-Pancālas the Land of the Commentaries.

1 Lanman's Sanskrit Reader, p. 357.

2 Cambridge History of India, I, p. 46.

AGE OF MAGIC AND ACQUISITIVE RITUAL 23

(ix) The Change of Character in the Mind of the Priest and of the Significance of the Ritual.

From of old, as we have seen, the priests believed indeed in the power of the hymns and praises they solemnly intoned as poets at the altar, but now quite a new significance comes to these now reduced to mere formulae, and a new power to the priest who has become an enchanter. Professor Maurice Bloomfield thus writes:

The Yajur-veda presents the exceeding growth of ritualism and sacerdotalism as time went on. We notice that the main object of the ceremony, namely, the worship of the gods, is lost sight of. Solemn, pompous, performance, garnished with lip service, now occupies the stage. The performance is supposed to have a magic or mystic power of its own, so that every detail of it is all-important. Mechanically, by its own intrinsic power, it regulates the relation of man to the divine powers. Yet is that power controlled and guided by the wonderful technique of the priests and their still more wonderful insight into the meaning of the technical acts.

He continues:

A crowd of priests we see—seventeen is the largest number—conduct an interminable ceremonial, full of symbolic meaning down to its smallest minutiae. The priests seat themselves on the sacrificial ground strewn with blades of sacred darbha-grass and mark out the altar-hearths on which the sacred fires are then built. They arrange and handle the utensils and sacrificial substances. Then they proceed to give to the gods of the sacrifice, to each god his proper oblation and his proper share. The least and most trivial act has its stanza or formula. Every utensil has its own particular blessing pronounced upon it. It is these stanzas and formulae with a description of the proper rite more or less directly attached to them, that make up the numerous redactions of the Yajur-veda, the Veda of Sacrifice.1

We are to note, however, to the credit of these priests, that they did not take their formulae from the Veda of the Spells. They declared that such a gross magic was ‘devilish.’ Our two Indian scholars bid us beware indeed of making too much of this distinction. They say the mode of mind and act between those who used the Rigvedic formulae and those who used the formulae of the

1 M. Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, p. 31.

24 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

Veda of the Spells was rather a difference between ‘my-doxy’ and ‘thy-doxy’ than a difference of essential quality. Yet the Collection of gross magic was not, at all events for a long period, officially used. A striking testimony to that is that in South India into which the Men of the Spirit later on carried their teaching and practice and where now they are so peculiarly dominant with their great temples and elaborate worship, the Atharva-Veda is to-day ‘practically unknown.’1 Yet one would judge that after all it did eventually get in the north country, the homeland of these priests, a place in the customary ritual, seeing that not only is it announced immediately after the three Vedas, which head the long list of sacred works that is repeated in the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest2 and in the Maitri3, but still remains in that position in the Chāndogya4 and Taittirīya5 Upanishads in which no other sacred works are mentioned, ranking there accordingly as fourth in a conjoint four; but also among the Thirteen Principal Upanishads has three Upanishads of its own, the Muṇḍaka, the Praśna, and the Māṇḍukya.

(x) The Power of the Sacrifice in the World.

Thus Professor Belvalkar describes the condition of things:

Every single detail of the Sacrifice was believed to be full of untold potentialities for good or for evil according as it was well or ill performed. In fact, all the happenings of the universe—the sun, rain, and harvest: births, deaths, pestilences; the course of the planets in their orbits, the success and stability of kingdoms, the peace and prosperity of the people—were believed to be the direct result of this or that feature of the sacrifice. The gods, even the highest of them, Prajā-pati, the Lord of Creatures, the Creator of the World, derived their godhood from the sacrifice. The world-creation was a process of sacrifice and its indispensible preliminary, self-castigation, and it was the continuance of that process of sacrifice which sustained the world6—

1 Art. in “Sanskrit Literature,” in Encycl. Brit., 14. 2 BAU., 2.4.10=4.5.11 (p. 134); 4.1.2. 3 Maitri, 6. 32,33. 4 CU., 3.1-11. 5 TIJ., 2. 3 (p. 80). 6 Note numbers 1 and 2 of the Selections (BAU. i. 1 and 2), where the World-process is the Sacrifice of the Creator to Himself, but the earthly sacrifice has become no longer causal, but representative, of that fact.

AGE OF MAGIC AND ACQUISITIVE RITUAL 25

provided indeed that the sacrifice was performed correctly to the smallest detail of the ritual prescribed. Consequently there was believed to be in the knowledge of the minutiae of the sacrifice not only the salvation of the sacrificing patron and his household, but of the whole universe.1

It was accordingly believed that every single object in the world was in bond with a part or aspect of the sacrifice, and consequently with every other object in the world that came under this bond. The world, in fact, was a net-work of invisible potential lines of force on which certain series of objects were strung, all of which proceeded from the sacrifice, and which the sacrificing priest could by the ritual make active.2

(xi) The Decline of the Gods.

Of a bond or line of force the authority just quoted gives the following example. In the age we are now in, the age of the dominance of the ritual as interpreted by the commentaries, Indra had come to be the chief god. Not only had he acquired complete superiority over Varuṇa, but Prajā-pati, the Lord of Creation, who was then nominally the supreme god, was, Professor Belvalkar tells us, “ a nebulous and semi-ritualistic figure, ‘an apex [and here he quotes with approval the description by Oldenberg] set up by the priesthood to the pantheon as it now existed in this age, an unsteady apex moving to and from with each breeze of fantasy and each caprice of these thinkers.’ ”3 With such a shadowy, variously conceived, figure in high heaven, albeit of the Creator and Sustainer of all, the Prince of power in the air, the mighty Indra, immediately over the head of the priest, a divinity strong in his deeds, already, as we saw, regarded during the age of the poets as the god rather to be appealed to for success in this world than the spiritually superior Varuṇa, became the god supreme over all for all practical purposes. Now it is to be noted that the number sacred to Prajā-pati was seventeen, while that to Indra was eleven. The reason why eleven was so dedicated was because each quarter of the metre of the sentences where-with Indra was invoked contained eleven syllables. Accordingly everything to which the number eleven could be

1 S. K. Belvalkar, Lectures on Vedānta Philosophy, Part i, p. 33.

2 Id., p. 34.

3 Id., p. 48. The quotation from Oldenberg is from p. 32 of his Weltanschauung der Brāhmaṇa-texte.

26

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

applied was united to him. Indra's mighty power passed

through the number eleven. The number eleven came in

fact to be identified with Indra himself. A far-reaching in-

fluence therefore was his who dealt at the altar with that

number. He had under his control none less than the god

who wielded universal power in the world below 1

We can easily imagine what a strange sort of universe

this web woven of lines of force, all springing from the altar,

must have been for those men. They wearied themselves,

puzzling over this conception, working out the series of

objects that could be linked together, like beads, along these

magic lines: 'magic,' indeed, for by means of these threads

that brought certain objects in touch with each other, these

officiants compelled the gods to act, and mechanical com-

pulsion of the gods is, of course, the essence of magic.

(xii) Summary of the Change in Religion.

So then, the religious thought of the Āryans had certainly

changed. From looking up, as the poets had looked up,

to the sky and on nature around and glorying in a humble

spirit over the aspects and works of the gods, these men had

lowered their eyes and fixed their attention upon the

sacrifice and their official dealings therewith, and then

looked up and around, and lo! the heavens for them were

vacant of authority. They had come to believe with a

passionate devotion that it was their own ritual acts and

their own repetitions of sentences of the Veda that were

the real controllers of the gods. Their all-consuming

anxiety was now to discover the connexions of things with

the sacrifice. The gods had become little more than

potences. The conception of the world was little more than

that of a network of blind lines of force, all starting from the

sacrifice and played upon at their own will by their in-

cantations.2

(xiii) The Decline of Philosophy.

As for the idea of the Unity of all-being which had come

up, as we have observed, in the presentiments of the Poets,

1 Belvalkar. Work cited, Part i, p. 34.

2 The confusion of mind is well described by Oldenberg in his Die Weltan-schauung der Brāhmaṇa-texte.

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 27

it was "in this Age of the Dominance of the Sacrifice in a state of ebb," says Professor Oldenberg; "the circle of thoughts which had its centre in the Offering obscured it." "True," he goes on to say, "it was understood as self-evident that the world must have grown out of one root, and before the fancy there appeared such root-existences as 'being' and 'not-being,' but in the actual world the One thus conceived played no part. The universe before the mind was simply the justing-ground of numberless single-existences whose movements mostly had no common rhythm and no all-binding goal, and, if the fancy raised one or other of these for a moment to the highest place and equated it with 'all This [Being],' it was only by a chance among other chances. These fancies, perhaps indeed, helped to prepare for the idea of the All-One which was to be taken up so strongly in the succeeding period of the Upanishads. But, to speak seriously, there was no effort of thought that got so far down into Being's true depth."1

XI. The Escape in the Upanishads from the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual to the Glory of the Self, the Spirit: Seven Steps.

It would be astonishing that there should not be endeavours to escape from the weight of ritual and degrading conception of religion we have described. It was, however, only with the Upanishads—the teaching of the Secret Lore of which we present specimens in this book—that the escape really began.

True, there were preparatory ideas before that. Belvalkar and Ranade tell us: "It can be safely asserted that amongst the new ideas occurring in the Upanishads there is hardly one that is not implicit in, and logically deducible from, the ideas present in different portions of the Commentaries on the Ritual."2 As to the character of the thinking, however, we have just learned from Oldenberg's description, that, with all its variety, it lacked serious determination to get to the depth of things.

So it is with the Upanishads we find the path of escape really begun and we seem to count along it Seven Steps.

1 H. Oldenberg, Die Weltanschauung der Brāhmaṇa-texte, p. 243-. 2 CP., p. 84.

28

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

(i) The First Step of Escape: The Actual takes the Place of the Symbol.

The first step was enabled by a literal step-out. The wearied ritualist looked round upon the busy transactions at the altar with the accompanying incantations and the rich gifts, and realised at last that in these very things he had taken part in and had gloried in were the means of his depression. He fled. He made his way to the forest. Behind him were his company of fellow-priests, the sacrifice with its labours, its splendour, and its gifts. He remained in the quiet, thinking over it all. There must be a meaning, he felt, in it all, and he was determined to find it. Not that he kept entirely out of touch with the sacrifice. Indeed we find attributed to notables of these forest dwellers elaboration of sacrifice and altar. Students of the sacrifice repaired to them for instruction, and their own caste of sacrificing priests came to them as pupils and were received as such. Nor were they exclusively in the forest. We read of a great disputation of clergy in which a notable hermit1 took a leading part, which was a disputation arranged by a king to take place at a great sacrifice he held for the purpose at his court.2 Yet henceforth their proper dwelling-place was in the retirement of the forest and their life a life of meditation withdrawn from ceremonies.

The results of these earliest meditations, which we count as the First Step of those who escaped, are handed down in the treatises called Āraṇyakas, that is 'belonging to the forest,' araṇa,3 because, we may conjecture, in the forest they were thought out. Not only, however, in the treatises so named do we find the outcome of these meditations recorded.

It is one of the Upanishads that the first of the two typical illustrations of this mode of thought that are given to us by Belvalkar and Ranade is contained. It is as follows: "When a man [who is a sacrificer] hungers, thirsts and abstains from pleasures, that is the Initiatory Rite. Penance, liberality, righteousness, truthfulness, these are the Gifts to the Priests."4

1 Yājnavalkya. 2 BAU. 3. 3 āraṇya, wilderness, forest ['strange land' from araṇa, distant, strange]. [L.] 4 CU. 3. 17. 1. CP., p. 85.

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 29

The second typical illustration these two authorities give us is likewise drawn from another class of treatises, the Śāstras,1 which are Compendiums of various sorts of Instruction. " A wise man, if he perform a mental sacrifice at which meditation is the fire; truthfulness the fuel; patience the oblation; modesty the sacrificial spoon; abstention from injuring life the sacrificial cake; contentment the sacrificial post; and [a promise of] safety to all beings which is hard to keep, the reward that is given to the priests, goes to heaven."2

Here we see that, in contrast to the material sacrifice, it is a mental sacrifice, a cost to a man's will and heart,3 that wins heaven. The self is brought forward here and its discipline is distinguished from the mere offering of material gifts and of rigorous treatment of the body, which alone the material sacrifice ostensibly required, whatever else might be implied.

We will notice that in this mode of thought the thing signified has taken the place of the sign. The fire is left behind; we have meditation instead, which the fire is taken to represent. The sacrificial cake is no longer before us, but abstention from injuring life. That is to say, it is the thing supposed to be signified that occupies the hermit's concern, and not that which merely represents it.

We have already noted that in the Commentaries on the Ritual certain portions of the world came to be regarded as manifestations of certain stages or items of the sacrifice.4 We find similarly the Upanishad called the 'Secret Teaching in the Chant '5 lead off with Lists of natural phenomena that correspond to stages of the Loud Chant (the Ud-gītha), the Chant to which the title of that Upanishad refers.

Thus we are told that in the following ascending phenomena we should reverence these successive transactions of the Chant.

1 Ṣ = sh. See Pronunciation of Sanskrit, p. 49.

2 Vasishṭha Dharma-śāstra, 3. 8. CP., p. 85.

3 It is to be noted that in Vedic psychology the mind (manas) is regarded as situated in the heart and includes emotion, mind and will. See manas in Voc.

4 P. 24.

5 The Chāndogya Upanishad.

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The earth is the Preliminary Vocalizing.

Fire is the Introductory Praise.

The atmosphere is the Loud Chant.

The sun is the Response.

The sky is the Conclusion.1

We have a much-worked-out example of transition from sign to thing signified in our First and Second Selections, but there it is not any particular movement or object in the world that the sacrifice is found to signify, but the world as a whole. The Horse Sacrifice is brought before us and is declared to be in its translation into the actual the universe, conceived as one stupendous holocaust.

(ii) The Second Step : The Two Inheritances brought forward.

We have recorded Professors Belvalkar and Ranade telling us that the ideas in the Commentaries on the Ritual were utilised by the Upanishad philosophers.

The transference we have noted from the symbol to what the symbol was believed to really mean having begun, the next step was to bring forward into special prominence two of the old items: the Prayer-force (the brahman) and the World-person (the puruṣa).

(a) The Prayer-force.

We have already mentioned the Prayer-force, the bráhman as it was called, because it made the heart to swell, but we have not made as clear as we might how essentially it was a force and a World-force.

This, which we would call the non-spiritual phase of the Prayer-force, is brought before us in the second and third sections of the Kena Upanishad.

The brahman is there called a yakṣa,2 a sprite. We are told that the gods themselves did not understand it. It had won a victory for them, and they had not acknowledged that by it they had become victorious. So it appeared

1 CU., 2. 2. [H.].

2 Yakṣá, n., spirit or sprite or ghost; as m. a Yaksha, one of a class of fabulous genii [perhaps 'a restless one,' from the √yakṣ, stir, move quickly, and so, on the one hand, pursue, esp. pursuingly, avenge; and, on the other, dart swiftly (as a suddenly appearing light). For connection of meanings of root and derivations compare the converse relation of Eng. spirit or sprite to sprightly, 'brisk, stirring,' and compare Scott's 'restless sprite.' [L.]

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 31

before them; and, when they caught sight of it, their want of

understanding came home to them. They accordingly

deputed Fire to discover what it might be. Fire went up

to the sprite and claimed to burn everything; but when the

sprite put a straw before him and challenged him to burn it,

he could not burn it. Next they sent Wind. On his

declaring that he could carry everything off, the sprite put

before him in like manner a straw and challenged him also

to put forth his power, but, going at the straw with all

speed, Wind could not carry it off. Then the gods sent

Indra. However, when Indra went up to it, the sprite,

strange to say, did not challenge him but vanished. "In

that very space,"1 we are told, Indra came upon a woman

exceedingly beautiful, Umā, daughter of the Snowy Moun-

tain (Himavat), and he inquired of her, "What is this

wonderful being (yakṣa)?" "It is brahman," she said.

"In that victory of brahman, verily, exult ye." Thereupon

he knew it was brahman. It was because Indra was thus

the first of the gods to know it was brahman, the story

finishes by telling us, that Indra became their chief.

We have to remember, however (and the manner in which

Indra in the story we have just related comes to the knowledge

of it gives us a hint of its spiritual quality), that all the time

this strange uncanny quasi-material force was the energy in the

hymns that made the heart of the poet expand as he recited

them, the energy in the spell that the enchanter muttered.

Accordingly we see a double-character in the brahman.

It is at one time a force mechanically acting without, at

another time an inspiration moving within. It was an age

in which analysis had not gone far. The spiritual and the

material, the moral and the non-moral, the cosmic and the

personal, were not as yet clearly distinguished.

(b) The World-Person, the Puruṣa.

The other item that was brought forward was the World-

person, the Puruṣa.

Puruṣa means simply a man.2 Each individual is a man,

but the puruṣa that most dominated in the early mind, the

puruṣa that was always present, was the World-puruṣa, the

1 'Where the Yakṣa stood ' is the explanation in B. D. Basu's Sacred

Books of the Hindus.

2 See puruṣa in Voc.

D

32 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

World-man. In early human thought and practice the individual man counted but little. In fact history, we realise, may be defined as the process of the individual coming to his own. And the process is not yet over. In early practice the tribe ruled the man, but supreme above all was the World-man. His head was the sky, his eye was the sun, the quarters of heaven were his ears, the earth was his feet, the wind was his breath, and so on. We find also, evidently, since it is particular, a later conception, and arising of course only among those who had to do with cattle, the conception of the world as a Bull. In the course of our Second Selection this idea is introduced. The world is depicted as an Ox that is standing firm in the waters, the east his head, the west his tail, the sky his back, the atmosphere his belly, the earth his chest.1 The same idea underlies the story in Selection 7, where the Bull, describing the world, speaks of the four quarters of the world as four feet or limbs; the quarters no doubt of his own world reality. In our First Selection, however, we find the world described as a horse, the sun his eye, the wind his breath, the sky his back, the seasons his limbs, his yawning the lightning, his shaking himself the thunder; but that is for the special reason that the teacher may identify the world with the horse sacrifice.

(iii) The Third Step: The Actualising of the Prayer-force.

We have seen how confused was the idea of the Prayer-force. Two things, however, about it were clear. It was the power that was in the hymns the poet recited and in the formulae which, drawn from these hymns, the enchanter muttered. Also, it had a mighty influence in the world; so great, that the very gods won victories by it.

Yet it was an uncanny, quasi-personal thing, as we have seen, that could behave very perversely with those that did not recognise it for what it really was. Yes, what was it? It took an Indra to be reckoned by it as having a suspicion of what it was and to have his suspicion confirmed and become knowledge by the information given to him by Umā.

1 P. 58.

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33

(a) The Actualising of the Prayer-force in the World.

The power of this force that moved in the hymns is proclaimed in the Hundred-Paths Commentary on the Ritual, the largest of all the Commentaries, believed to have been published in full form well on in the Upanishad period, indeed only shortly before the doctrines of the Buddha were put into shape.

There we find that the Creator uses this mysterious force for the making of the world. First by it he creates the verses, the Rig—Yajur—and Sāma-vedas, that is the Threefold Knowledge. Then he uses that Threefold Knowledge as a support on which to sit, while, by practising ascetic discipline, he produces from himself the world.1

In another section of the same Commentary, the Creator is left out altogether. We are told that all that exists was originally simply the Prayer-force, and that the Prayer-force produced from itself the three great gods, Fire, Wind and Sun, and set each of them in his proper place of earth, atmosphere, and sky.2

With that creative activity ascribed to the force that moved in the hymns and made the priest’s heart to swell as he uttered them, we can understand the Lists in the Secret Teaching of the Chant, of which we have already given an example3 which set in detail objects and movements in the world that are the expressions of specified parts of the priest’s incantation. Here follows from the same series another List which prescribes how one should in a rainstorm worship the Loud Chant.

The preceding wind is a Preliminary Vocalizing.

A cloud is formed: That is the Introductory Praise.

It rains: That is the Loud Chant.

It lightens, it thunders: That is the Response.

It lifts: That is the Conclusion.4

We shall notice how the gods have here disappeared and that there is no chain of correspondences between the reciter and the actual world.

So we are prepared for such a conception as we find in our Selection 7, to which we have lately alluded,5 in which

1 Śata-patha Brāhmaṇa, 6.1.8ff., quoted in CP., p. 68.

2 Id., II.2.3.1.ff. CP., p. 68.

3 CU. 2.2., on p. 30.

4 CU. 2.3. [H].

5 P. 32.

34 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

the Bull described the four quarters or limbs of the World-Bull. A student of the Prayer-force is there depicted, sent by his teacher into the wilderness to tend his preceptor's cows. Thus employed in obedience to his teacher, he is at the same time deprived of the instruction he longs to receive. On his departure he had volunteered to his teacher that he would not return until the herd had reached a thousand. When it has so increased, the Bull takes pity upon him, and tells him that a certain quarter of the world is really a quarter of the Prayer-force, and tells him what is the name of the quarter. Then successively the Fire the student has kindled for the night, the Swan, and the Diver-bird, disclose the names of the other three quarters. Here we find the Prayer-force not only independent of the gods but of the magician. The world, including, we should notice, not only the world outside man, but his own body, breath, eye, ear, and mind, is presented, apart from any connection with the altar, an embodiment in itself of the Prayer-force, the Spirit.

In its most general terms this conception is expressed as the beginning of Śāṇḍilya's Creed:1 "Verily this whole world is the brahman."

(b) The Actualising of the Prayer-force in Man.

So much for the Prayer-force in the World. What now with regard to the Prayer-force in man?

One would have thought that the mere fact that it was the power that produced the hymns would have made it sufficiently human. But we have to remember the strong objectifying of early thought. We have seen that the hymns themselves were supposed to be heard (śruti) in heaven, and that this brahman was conceived as a world-force quasi-personal that embodied itself in the hymns and by that means expanded the poet's heart.2

1 P. 87.

2 This conception of the power that stirred to prayer as a power semi-personal independent of man is well paralleled by the conception of Wisdom in the Graeco-Judaic Wisdom of Solomon, as estimated by Lascelles Abercrombie. We have to notice, however, how ennobled beyond the range of the Forest Fathers' apprehension of such matters, the Jewish conception is through the introduction therein of the revelation of God that the Jews had received. Lascelles Abercrombie thus writes: "In the Wisdom of Solomon wisdom is no perfection of the intellectual man; it is no sort of exercise of human nature at all. It is an energy pouring into the world from beyond it, vivifying it and disposing it: 'more moving than any motion.' When it visits the mind of man, it

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 35

The actualising of the Prayer-force in the World which we have seen made known to the student of religion in the wilderness was so far an actualising of it in man: for man's faculties were part of the world. The breath, the eye, the ear, the mind, we saw, were declared to the student to be a quarter of brahman. But these comprise a much larger territory of human nature than the region (the heart) in which the Prayer-force properly flows.

Coming nearer, however, to a presentation of its true relation to man is the place the brahman occupies in the Taittirīya Upanishad. There the brahman is the support, the limbs, on which stands the Man who is composed of Bliss.1

More satisfactory still is the presentation of the Prayer-force in Sāndilya's Creed: “This Self of mine within the heart, smaller than the kernel of a grain of millet, greater than these worlds. This is the brahman.”

(iv) The Fourth Step : The Actualising of the World-Person.

Let us next consider the actualising of the World-Person. We have already seen him conceived as the World as a whole, the sky his head; the sun his eye; the quarters of the heaven his ears; the earth his feet.

Next we see him more human. He is the person seated in the sun.

But there was also the Person in the eye, which one sees step forward and look out when one looks into a neighbour's eye. We will remember the name ‘pupil’ we have taken from the Latin, with both the meanings ‘little boy’ and ‘pupil in the eye’ in both Latin and English.

is not merely government there, but the bestowal of knowledge of itself, as ‘the breath of the power of God, the brightness of the everlasting light.’ Wisdom is sometimes the name for the spirit of divine activity, sometimes for a man's sense of this; and often the two meanings combine. When he is speaking of Wisdom as the executant of God's will, the poet can summon up a picture as direct as anything in Homer:

‘For, while all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, thine Almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heavens but it stood upon the earth.’ Wisdom, 18. 14–16.”

[Lascelles Abercrombie, The Idea of Great Poetry, p. 121.]

1 Selection 3, p. 82 (TU. 2. 5.).

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THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

So there came to be two Persons to be recognised: That in the sun and That in the eye.

The next aspect is that observed by Śāṇḍilya, who at first unites, or seems to unite, the two Persons, speaking in his Creed of 'the Person encompassing his whole world,' and then, forthwith, of 'this Self of mine within the heart, greater than the earth, than the worlds'; and yet concludes with 'Into him I shall enter on departing hence,' thus still maintaining the duality.

The next stage is that presented in Selection 3 from the Taittirīya Upanishad, in which the exalted Self comes down to embody himself as the person of man and after a while returns to his high seat above.

(v) The Fifth Step: The Thorough De-objectifying of the Prayer-force and the Person.

The Fifth Step on the path of escape from the magic ritual seems to present itself as the de-objectifying of the Prayer-force and the Person.

(a) The De-objectifying of the Prayer-force.

We have noticed that the Taittirīya Upanishad went so far as to make the Prayer-force the support, the limbs on which stands the man made of bliss. Now we arrive at the more abstract concept that the brahman is simply the quality bliss (ānanda).

That is the view we find in Yājnavalkya. He counts the blisses to King Janaka, according to their intensity, one above another, the bliss of the wealthy and dominant among men, the bliss of the Fathers in the world just above us, the bliss of the Sky-elves who sing in a realm still higher, the bliss of successively higher realms of the gods, and above these again, supreme and final, the bliss of the brahman-world, and finds that world the highest world, and its bliss the bliss that is greatest of all.

As to the character of this bliss we notice that the progress of the Person to the man of bliss in the Taittirīya is from embodiment in food (the body of the flesh) to embodiment in air-currents (the network of breaths), thence to embodiment in selfish purpose, and thence again to embodiment in intelligence. It is only after these several embodiments

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF

37

have been passed through that the embodiment in bliss can be entered, the support of which (the lower limbs, that is to say, on which one then stands) is the brahman.1

With Yājnavalkya it is only the man who is without any desire, whose only desire is the soul, that can attain to the brahman. It would seem that his view is that only after the flesh is entirely abandoned can the brahman be fully attained, yet we are to notice that he regards the brahman in incorporeal condition as no vacuous entity but glory (tejas2).’

(b) The De-objectifying of the Person.

And if thus the brahman was de-objectified, coming finally to correspond, one would say, to what we of to-day mean by Spirit: so also did the Person come to be de-objectified. The Person passed from what we have noted, the figure in the sun and the figure in the eye, to become simply the Ātman, the Self, be it the Self that resided in the figure in the Sun, or in the figure of the eye of man. There were, indeed, two figures still, the one counterpart of the other. Yet each of the two was the one Self realised as de-objectified, that is to say, as the Self in itself, independent quite of a bodily form.

(vi) The Sixth Step : Being is the World and the Self.

The next step on the pathway of escape from the magic ritual we may take to be the New Philosophy that Uddālaka reports to his son Śvetaketū: ‘In the beginning, my dear, this world was simply Being (sat), one only, without a second’3: an announcement that is the foundation stone of all Hindu philosophy to this day.

1 Selection 3.

2 tejas, n.i., sharpness, edge; 2. tip of flame or ray; gleaming splendour; fire; 3. (splendour, i.e.), beauty of person; 4. (like Eng. fire, i.e.), energy, vigour, power; 5. moral or magic power; influence, dignity; majesty. [√tij be sharp. Orig. *stig: cf. Gk. stizō, prick; stig-ma, prick. Lat. in-stigare, prick on; Eng. stick, pierce.] [L].

"The ground-significance of the word is ‘sharpness’ (etymologically related to stigma, etc.); from which is derived under the Indian sun the magic power that is the property of certain classes of beings and also of certain objects and substances in nature and that shows itself as glow or brilliance of light." [J. Ph. Vogel in his lecture Het sancrit woord ‘tejas,’ pub. Amsterdam, 1930, as reviewed approvingly by H. Windisch in Theologische Literaturzeitung, 20 Dec., 1930.]

3 See note on p. 177.

38 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

As we listen to the sage's teaching we perceive that it is no abstract Being that is here meant, but Being 'credited' as our two Indian scholars, Belvalkar and Ranade, point out, 'with powers of perception and thought.'1 "It be-thought itself (aiksata)2," Uddālaka tells Svetaketu: " 'Would that I were many ! Let me procreate myself!' It emitted heat. That heat bethought itself: 'Would that I were many ! Let me procreate myself.' It emitted water. Therefore whenever a person grieves or perspires from the heat there is produced water [in tears or in perspiration]. That water bethought itself: 'Would that I were many ! Let me procreate myself!' It emitted food. Therefore whenever it rains, there is abundant food.'"3

More than that. We find later on that Being is actually described as possessing a self. "That divinity4 [i.e. Being] bethought itself: 'Come ! Let me enter these three divinities [i.e. heat, water, food] with this living Self [ātman] and separate out name and form.' "5

To bring home the newly arrived-at philosophy Uddālaka finally presents eight Parables. Being is described in these as the subtle essence out of which emerge the various forms we behold, tiger, lion, wolf, bear, worm, fly, and so on, and into which they return.6 It is also the invisible within the seed from which the tree springs and the invisible life of the tree while the tree exists. We are not, however, to understand that the subtle essence is here thought of as only the unseen potential power within the seed or only the unseen current moving within the tree that makes the tree live. It is the whole seed, the whole tree. It is that which makes the seed to exist as a seed and the tree to exist as a tree. In brief, the seed is the essence showing itself in form of a seed, the tree is the essence showing itself in form of a tree. In fact, each particular of the world is the essence in the form of that particular and the world as a whole is simply the essence in the wholeness we feel the world

1 CP., p. 226.

2 Aiksata, 3. sing. Imperfect Middle of √īks: look; look at; see; behold. [desiderative of √*aś, 'see,' contained in ak-ṣán, 'eye,' etc.] [L.]

3 CU.6.2.2–4. [H]

4 Devátā, the word for 'divinity' in Sanskrit is feminine.

5 CU. 6.3.2.

6 The emergence, Yājnavalkya teaches, takes place at birth, the return at death. Also, return is made with entrance into deep dreamless sleep and emergence at waking therefrom.

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 39

to be. Were these not the essence, and the essence in that particular mode, they would not exist in the form in which we see them. In a word, this subtle essence is Being, and so everything must embody it or that thing would not exist. But this subtle essence does not give existence only to life and matter. It is not only what one would call physical reality. It is truth in the widest sense of the term. It includes moral truth. It is the truth that preserves through his ordeal the truth-speaker who has been accused of telling a lie.

So, after each parable, the Sage recites this refrain:

"That which is the finest essence.1 This whole world is that which has That [namely, Being] as it's self (ātman) [that is to say, enabling it to exist as the world]. That is Reality (satya). That is the Self (Ātman). That art thou, O Śvetaketu."

(vii) The Seventh and Final Stage of the Escape from the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual to the Glory of the Self, the Classic Doctrine: The Self is Being with Spirit as its quality.

What is the state of things now? We have watched the de-objectifying of the Prayer-force into the Spirit, of the World-person into the Self of the Sun and the Self of man.

Now has Uddālaka brought forward Being, one without a second, as that from which all things have been derived and from which they, by the entering of Being into them with his living self, derive their name and form. He has told his pupil that Being is the subtle essence that constitutes the existence of everything: that it is the Self of the World; the Self of the pupil addressed; the Self in itself; in brief, Reality.

We seem to have five principles here:

(1) Being; quasi-personal, as Uddālaka has described it;

(2) The Self that makes the world to be the world;

(3) The Self that makes each man to be a man;

(4) The Self in itself;

(5) Reality.

Evidently we want to know the proper value of each of these and the relation they bear to each other.

1 'finest essence'; Sanskrit, an-i-mán, m. thinness, subtlety; ánu, adj. minute, subtle, delicate; m. atom. [M.]

40 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

(a) The Self.

It remained for one whom we have already mentioned,1 a pupil of Uddālaka's, and his successor in a long line of Upanishad teachers,2 not one of the Chanting priests, as his master was, but of the Class of Priests that undertook the Manual Acts of the sacrifice, the sharp-witted Yājnavalkya with salt in his speech, to clarify the great announcement we have just analysed.

Yājnavalkya it was, who was famous for his clearing of text from comment in the Commentaries on the Ritual; putting, that is to say, the formulae in one series, and the priestly discourses, or brāhmaṇas, which commented on the ritual of the sacrifice, in another series. This mode of presentation was known as the White Veda for the Sacrifice (White Yajur-Veda), because of its being in that way cleared or sifted, duly arranged. The unseparated form was called in contradistinction the Black Veda for the Sacrifice.

So we have here now another clarifying, the clarifying we have just stated, of the announcement of his master with regard to the new philosophy. It was a clarifying, we are to observe, not a contradiction. With Uddālaka there was but One essence, namely, Being, and it was, if not personal, semi-personal. But Uddālaka brought in, as we have seen, several principles and their meaning and relationship to each other was obscure. With Yājnavalkya the Person is the One, and there is no doubt in Yājnavalkya's teaching as to his personality or that he is the One. It is this One Person who is the Self in each man and the Self of the World. There are not two Selves, one human, the other cosmic, but only One Self. Out of the One Self all proceeds, and it is on account of having the One Self as their inner thread that all things have their being and movement. It seems that we might express the difference between the two philosophers this way: With Uddālaka Being is the Self; with Yājnavalkya, the Self is Being. Here, then, is the Glory of the Self, the Final Step (the Seventh as we have counted the stages, in the path of escape from the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual), the harbour of security and inner contentment, reached at last, the great Classic Doctrine of the Upanishads.

1 P. 36. 2 List of Teachers: BAU. 6.5., 1–3.

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 41

The most complete exposition by Yājnavalkya of his doctrine of the Self is found in his speech to his philosophical wife Maitreyī, given in our Selection 13. He is on the point of departing, as was the custom with these sages, for meditation in the forest as the closing stage of his life, and therefore expresses his desire to make a settlement for Maitreyī from his estate. Maitreyī accordingly takes occasion to ask whether wealth, were it all the wealth of the world, would make her immortal. On the sage answering that she would thereby be rich, but that through wealth there was no hope of immortality, Maitreyī entreats the sage to tell her what he knows, and so is he led to disclose to her his great secret.

First, he points out the devotion everyone has to the Self, or, as we had better with Hume translate the word 'the Soul' (so as to avoid any thought of selfishness, which is the last thing this doctrine implies). It is not for love of the husband that a husband is dear, he begins (suitably enough, seeing he is addressing his devoted Maitreyī), but for love of the Soul is a husband dear. So also is it with the husband toward his wife. Not because she is a wife is she dear, but for love of the Soul. So is it also, the sage proceeds, with sons, wealth, cattle, the priesthood, and so on. Not one of these is dear in itself, but for love of the Soul is each dear.

Next Yājnavalkya points out that all activities and sensations in the world are the media of the activity and sensibility of the Self. As all waters, O Maitreyī, meet in the sea, so all touches meet in the skin wherever skin may be, for that is the organ of touch for the Self: so also all odours find their place in the nose of all creatures, the Self's organ for smelling; all forms in the eye, the Self's organ for seeing; all knowledges in the heart, for in the heart it is that the Self holds his mind1; all journeyings in the feet for by means of feet the Self moves about.

Further, we have a speech of Yājnavalkya's to his old teacher Uddālaka in which he describes the Self as the Controller, the Inner Thread, of all the things that there are in the world, that which makes everything move as the inner

1 We shall remember that the heart is regarded as the seat of the mind, and that the mind (manas) is regarded as including the emotion and will as well as the intellect.

42 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

sinews and strands of the body make the limbs of the body to move.1 And in the discourse to Maitreyī we find him describe the Self as a drummer, a blower of a conch-shell, a player on a lute, the world being the drum, the conch-shell, the lute, that is played on.

Also, all things are breathed out of the Self, he tells Maitreyī, just as smoke is sent up from a damped fire, the sacred hymns, legends, sciences, sacrifices, oblations, food, drink, this world and the other world, and all beings.

In fact, ‘everything here,’ in one part of his speech to her he declares, ‘is what the Self is.’

As to the status and quality of the Self, he pronounces it in his discourse to King Janaka to be One and only and Unborn, and in the address to Maitreyī to be imperishable and indestructible.

But perhaps the most distinctive teaching of Yājnavalkya is the last feature we noted in our summary in the opening paragraph of this section, namely, that only on itself is the Self dependent for existence. In fact, it is existence. We have seen Uddālaka had that already in his mind, although not clearly enough. It not only contains all, but it has no one and nothing outside it. It is the only seer, smeller, taster, thinker. It must, therefore, always exist and always possess its faculties. Let death come, and with it the Self see no longer with the eyes or smell or hear, taste or think, by means of the several organs it possesses in this life for these sensations and activities, yet see and taste and smell and hear and think it must, for the only seer, taster, thinker, cannot die.

It is with this prime phase of the Self that Yājnavalkya closes his instruction of Maitreyī, who, longing to know what might make her immortal, had requested him to tell her what he knew. His last words as he parts from her are: ‘Such, lo, indeed, Maitreyī, is immortality.’

(b) The Spirit.

So much for the Self. The reader perhaps now asks: Has the Self ousted the Prayer-force which lifted the hearts of the poets so that they composed the songs which induced

1 BAU. 3. 7.

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 43

the gods graciously to grant the patron's desires, the magic-

force in the incarnations that was so strong that it com-

pelled the gods to act automically, but now, de-objectified

and purified in the course of this thinking, has become, we

would say, very nearly what we moderns of to-day under-

stand when we speak of the Spirit? Has it in the teaching

of Yājnavalkya fallen out of account?

Not so indeed. With him it is playing a greater rôle than

before. The brahman is no longer, as it was for the student in

the wilderness, simply a power in nature including man's

sense-organs, no longer even simply the afflatus of prayer and

praise as it was for the poet, or the god-compelling spell of the

enchanter, but spirit purely conceived, such as, we hear him

tell Janaka, is only possible for the man 'devoid of desire,

whose only desire is the soul.'1 To attain to spirit was

'man's highest path, his highest achievement, his highest

bliss, the bliss on which just a part thereof all other creatures

live'; yea—as we have noted him saying—when the heights

of bliss are detailed, each height a hundredfold higher,

from bliss among men through the blisses of gods, this

bliss is the highest of all.2 When the last body of the

weary succession of births is cast off, as by the snake is cast

off its slough, and have thus become 'liberated all the

desires that lodge in one's heart,' then, that man, 'being

very spirit, to spirit retires,3 spirit attains.'4 'That in-

corporeal immortal life.' Yājnavalkya maintains, 'is spirit

indeed and glory indeed.'5,6

So do in his teaching the two foci of the sacrifice at last

become One Principle, the Self being its essence, the Spirit

the quality of the essence.

The Triumph of Yājnavalkya.

Such then was the triumph of Yājnavalkya. He had

thought out into clearness the teaching of his great master,

1 BAU. 4. 4. 6b; p. 127.

2 BAU. 4. 3. 32, 33; p. 122.

3 apy-eti, retires unto (with accusative); √i, go+api, unto.

4 'attains,' sam-aśnute: √aś, reach; attain; obtain, get. [L.] The

sam, 'together,' denotes completeness of attainment.

5 glory, tejas; note on tejas on p. 37.

6 BAU. 4. 6b, 7a; p. 127.

44

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

Uddālaka. He had discovered that the 'One Being' of his master was the Self within each man's own breast, the Soul of the World; completely contained within itself, immortal, its energy—spirit. For him just to know that meant the attainment of salvation, when at last the life of sense should be entirely laid by.

At a public disputation a persistent inquirer more eager to outwit the sage than to discover the truth, asked him: 'On what, Yājnavalkya, is the heart based?' 'You idiot,' he replied, 'that you will think that it could be anywhere else than in ourselves: for if it were anywhere else than in ourselves, the dogs might eat it or the birds might tear it to pieces.'1

One has seen it stated that there are certain great men who make those who listen to them feel small, other great men who make their listeners feel great. Surely this latter must have been the experience of those who heard the teaching of Yājnavalkya. We find the king we have mentioned promise during the instruction that is our Selection 12, largesse to the sage time after time, if only he will tell him still more for his soul's release, until at last, the secret revealed, the King offers to give him his subjects and himself as well to become his servants.

(c) The Reality of the World.

It is held by some critics that this doctrine of the independence and all-containedness of the Self involves a belief in the unreality of the world.

That inference is firmly denied by Professor E. W. Hopkins, who thus writes:

For the authors of the early Upanishads the objective exists just as much as the subjective; it is a part of the subjective. This is in fact the great discovery, not that the world is māyā, illusion, but that it is real, not in being the ultimate, but in being a form of the subjective. The former view is moha, delusion (materialism), the latter is the highest truth . . . namely, that the Infinite is Ātman [the Self], that Ātman is all that is; whatever is, is Soul (Self), and out of Soul as part of Soul comes the whole world, as expressed in the Chāndogya Upanishad (The Secret Teaching in the Chant): 'The Soul is below. The Soul is

1 BAU. 3. 9. 25 [H].

THE ESCAPE TO THE GLORY OF THE SELF 45

above. The Soul is to the West. The Soul is to the East. The Soul indeed is this whole world. Indeed this whole world is from the Soul."1

XII. The Necessity that the Self Transcendent should enable the Self in the Flesh to know its true Nature.

We may be said to have finished our task. We have brought the Forest Fathers to their final step, the knowledge of the true Dignity of the Self. It was their conviction that only to know that Dignity was sufficient for salvation.

Further, they believed that this saving knowledge might be attained, if only one was possessed of sufficient intelligence and diligence in his thinking.

A later School of sages, however, arose, who contested this last belief. They taught the futility of intelligence and learning for the obtaining of such knowledge. The Self, they said, as we realise it in our breast, had become caught in the succession of births of the flesh, like a swan caught in a blinding whirlpool. That surge of the flesh prevented the overwhelmed self from seeing its true self, the Transcendent, in its composure above the flood. With this shutting-off of the Transcendent from view ignorance arose in its mind as to its true nature. It was necessary that the Transcendent Self should, as it were, stoop down, and touch the eyes of the self overwhelmed by the flood, so that this ignorance might be removed and the distracted one behold in its mind its true Self in tranquility, so that, at the sight of that glory, the flood, however strong it might be, should no more distress it, and thus its peace at last be attained.

Such is the teaching described in our final Selection.

XIII. Recapitulation.

Let us briefly review. We shall remember that we began with two periods, which were inferred from such of the language as has been handed down; namely, First, the Age of the Original Indo-European speakers when they were passing, most likely on the Hungarian plain, from the nomad-shepherd to the agricultural stage; and Second, the

1 E. W. Hopkins, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1901, Vol. XXII, p. 386. Quotation from CU. 7. 25, 26. [H.]

Age of the Airyas, who had trekked from the Indo-European host and had finally settled south and east of the Caspian Sea.

Next came the three periods of the Sacred Tradition; the First, the Age of the Veda, when the Veda of the Hymns (the Rigveda) was composed, and when (at the close of the period) the Collection of Spells (the Atharvāngirasas) appeared; the Second, the Age of the Dominance of the Magic and Acquisitive Ritual, when the Veda to accompany the acts of the Sacrifice (the Yajur-Veda) and the Veda for chanting threat (the Sāma-Veda) were put together and the Commentaries begun and extended; the Third, the Age of the Upanishads. We are to note that these three periods did not suddenly commence, and passed, one into the next, in leisurely fashion.

The Selections

BRIEF ADVICE TO THE READER

The teaching presented here, although it is little more than thirty years since its documents have been translated into a European tongue, has from many centuries before the Christian era woven itself into the higher thought of the peoples of India.

It needs sifting and enlarging. At that we need not be surprised, when we consider that it was arrived at by thinkers who, earnest and sharp-witted although they were, had come to it after having just shaken off a degraded mode of a noble and yet comparatively primitive form of religion, in which they had been priests, and in which they still took a certain amount of interest; and who, besides, although it would seem that they lived at the time of the great Hebrew prophets, yet had to do their thinking entirely by themselves, shut off as they were by the great mountain barriers of India from the rest of mankind.

The sacred caste to which they belonged called themselves from old time Men of the Spirit. And it was chiefly concerning the Spirit, that had moved in the hymns of their early poets, and now moved in prayers taken therefrom that had become for their caste incantations, that these thinkers, withdrawn into the quietude of the forest, had set themselves to inquire. Not that they were alone in their several retreats, or that they only meditated. They were married men and possessed cattle and the popular among them had perhaps a score of resident pupils of their own spiritual caste that stayed with them from the eve of puberty until marriage, or—if they did not marry—until it might be, as we learn from one of our selections, their four and twentieth year. These thinkers still took an interest in the sacrifice and, at all events, attended meetings of students of the sacrifice. And they took missionary journeys for the teaching of their newly found faith to their

47

E

48 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

fellow Men of the Spirit. We find kings taking an interest

in their views and inviting them to hold disputation with

their brethren in the royal presence.

They were careful with regard to their teaching. They

inculcated a general reverence for truth. They received as

pupils only members of their own sacred caste. The pupil

was solemnly installed. What was taught was transmitted

as 'upanishad' [secret]. (The word upanishad means

'sitting near [a teacher]'). The course they required was

not only instruction but strict moral discipline. When it

was over the student had to bathe himself, so that the holy

contagion of what was taught might not affect injuriously

the unwary in the world of ordinary intercourse to which

he returned.

It is for those of the West who have this teaching brought

before them to observe this reverence, discipline, and caution,

connected with it. It will be found that its character will

then be better understood and its place in our own scheme

of thought more fitly assigned.

Concerning the translation the reader is asked to note

that the first two Selections, being of a mythological

character and much compressed, have needed much and

somewhat problematical expansion. The translator hopes,

however, that he has presented their true meaning. A

literal translation is given as Appendices I and II in order

that the reader may form his own opinion.

Such compressed mythological statement, however,

happily belongs only to the initial stage of this course of

thought. The main and later teaching is expressed plainly

in terms of ordinary experience. The translator has ac-

cordingly in the subsequent Selections had only to render

the original as accurately as he could word for word. Only

brief and very occasional explanations he has permitted

himself and these only to give point.

Pronunciation of Sanskrit

a = the neutral vowel, as, for example, the u in ‘but.’

ī = e in ‘mete.’

ū = oo in ‘moot.’

ṛ = a smooth or untrilled r-sound.

ḷ = a smooth l-sound, that is an l-sound without the l being emphasised.

c = ch in ‘church.’

ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh are domal sounds, that is, pronounced, according to all the native authorities, Whitney in his Sanskrit Grammar informs us, as “uttered with the tip of the tongue turned up and drawn back into the dome of the palate (somewhat as the usual English smooth r is pronounced).”

ś = sh as the sh-sound is produced in the s of the word ‘eschew.’

ṣ = sh, pronounced as a domal sound.

h must always be given its h value.

ḥ is a final h-sound uttered (to quote Whitney again) “in the articulating position of the preceding vowel.”

ṅ or ṃ is (again Whitney): “A nasal sound lacking that closure of the organs which is required to make a nasal-mute or contact-sound; in its utterance there is a nasal resonance along with some degree of openness of the mouth.”

49

I

THE WORLD AS THE HORSE-SACRIFICE:

BEING THE FIRST COMMENTARY

ON THE RITUAL IN

The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The World as the Horse-Sacrifice

I. THE FIRST, EXTERNAL, ASPECT: THE HORSE AT LIBERTY BEFORE ITS SACRIFICE.

A. The Horse Described.

On Horse's back we launch away,

His mane—those clouds all-rippled grey;

Thorough the grey yon crinkling red—

Reflexions cast by rising head;

The courser's back—that stretch of sky,

This wind—his breath, that sun—his eye.

These rivers running near and far

The entrails of his body are;

His paunch's fill—these drifts of sand;

Above the drifts those mountains stand—

His lungs and liver. Debonair

His hide behold, with trees for hair;

His flesh—those clouds that low and high

Amass in dapple through the sky.

His yawnings are the lightning's pranks

North south east west about his flanks.

O hark the rain ! Each lake doth boil

Surcharged with yeast in wild turmoil.

His are the speeding years we ride,

50

I—THE WORLD AS THE HORSE-SACRIFICE 51

His heat—the warmth in all descried.

Strikes out his hoof of each new-flashed day.

The moon! O see it dance away!

One leap of his, a year is fled;

His vibrant tail—the stars outspread!

Voice is his voice; 't is he we hear

When e'er salutes a voice our ear.

So urge we on, on mad course hurled,

Thou, I, and others, all the world!1

B. The Horse's Transformations to Suit his Riders.

Bearer diverse becometh he:

With gods—a courser running free;

With elves in sky—a stallion flame:

With demons—'scorcher' for his name;

With men—a slave of much resource,

A homely creature just a 'horse.'

So taught the East the World doth fill

A part fulfilling each man's will:

For rider each, cause good or ill

For which he hath his flag unfurled,

As be the rider, so his world,

A steed for him of just the breed

To bear him to his nature's deed.

II. THE SECOND, INNER, ASPECT: THE WORLD AS THE HORSE ALREADY SLAIN FOR SACRIFICE.

But after that, not yet content,

These Easterns insight deeper bent:

Day as a vessel swimming red

We mark rise with the Horse's head

And Night fall past the Western brink,

A bowl filled red, while He doth sink.

Seem these two twilights in our eyes

To glow with blood of sacrifice,

In these poured in, from these poured out,

Its shining putting dark to rout,

Rich mantling in these vessels twain,

The heart's red stream of One fresh slain,

1 This stanza is Paul Eberhardt's spirited paraphrase in his Der Weisheit Letzter Schluss, put into English.

52 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

Yea of the All for all self-bled,

At haunch one bowl and one at head,

Signs vivid in impassioned skies

Of one tremendous sacrifice,

The cosmic verity beheld

Of greatest sacrifice of eld

When 'fore the kings who owned his sway

A king of kings a horse did slay,

With altar-fires the flesh did blend,

And thus to heaven an offering send,

So potent that complete thereby

Was made Creation's Lord on high;

The offerer too became complete,

And all things found atonement meet;

Yea by the gods themselves 't was owned

That they thereby all sins atoned.

So did these men the Law descry;

"The All to be the All must die,

Unto the All itself must give,

The All thereby in it to live."

And so the World to being came,

Truth of the Horse devote in flame.

But what then of the boisterous ride?

These wise men now set that aside.

Seemed now the world before their eyes

One constant, rising, sacrifice,

No foray of self-will and pride,

No wild unbridled madcap ride,

But immolation of desire,

The self subjéct to mordant fire,

From dawn to sunset life laid down,

An offering's smoke Creation's crown—

Pale floating wreaths of self's Last dross—

The World the triumph of the Cross.

III. THE SOURCE OF THE HORSE.

Whence came the Horse, was next their quest.

Their finding this, they told with zest:

Behold his up-and-down-ward path:

The Flood as mother-place he hath.

From That, where morn her golden cup

Presents, his head he reareth up:

See how his freshly-glowing eye

I—THE WORLD AS THE HORSE-SACRIFICE 53

Kindles with light the Eastern sky !

And where the Eve her silver urn

Lets down, he there doth make return.

So from and to these Waters One,

That, reddened, through these twain bowls run,

Tincting the dawn and dark with rose,

Out of the Flood and back, he goes,

The Waters of Eternal Peace,

Whence all things rose, where all things cease,

The everlasting pristine main;

From that, to that, again, again.

In that great placid deep is set

The power that did the Horse beget,

And thence it is throughout his drive

He doth his constant verve derive.

IV. SUMMARY.

So, in this One entwining Dance

Of pulse and flash and circumstance

First saw these wise what all men see

The fling of self-willed riotry;

But next self-sacrifice they saw

To be in truth its inmost law;

Next fount descried, to meet the cost

Of leap so strong, so tempest-tossed,

That it might ever rise not cease,

The placid depth of Endless Peace.

2

THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS OR THE ATTAINMENT BY DEATH OF HIS TRUE BODY

BEING THE SECOND COMMENTARY ON THE RITUAL IN

The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Evolution of the Cosmos or The Attainment by Death of his True Body

which, being the Body of the Self (or Spirit) of Death, is a Body of Complete Self-Sacrifice.

This body is displayed in miniature in ritual fashion in the Horse Sacrifice.

ANALYSIS.

A. INTRODUCTION.

B. The Process of Evolution.

i. The World at the Beginning was nothing else but Death. Yet the Upanishad evidently presents him as the Self, for we find him ‘making up his mind’ and otherwise showing Self-hood (p. 56).

ii. The Mind of Death awakening in him, Death realises his emptiness and therefore goes on yearning for a body. This is no more than a yearning; Mind is indeed at the root of it, but Mind is not fully awake (Note that mind according to the Rigveda is in the heart and includes sensation, will, and thought). (p. 57).

iii. First Stage : Evolution of the Body (or World) of Force, the World of Matter or Force, the Material Body.

54

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

55

Impelled by his yearning for a body, Death evolves force from himself, thus producing a material body of himself, the Material World.

Yet Death is not satisfied. The Material World is not his proper body, nor his food (p. 58).

iv. Second Stage : The Evolution of the Body (or World) of Life, the World of Matter inflate with Mind (sensation, will, thought), the Psychic Body. Death’s mind is now fully awake and he uses it, inasmuch as by means of his Mind he takes Voice to wife, that is, he interpenetrates Voice with Mind. He thus begets of Voice, as the issue of his Mind by her, the Psychic World, as his Body. Thus is the World of Life evolved from the World of Matter (p. 60).

It is from this Body of Life indeed that sound at last becomes Voice, Voice being Sound inflate with Mind (p. 61).

Death would fain have this issue of his Mind, the World of Life, as his True Body and his Food, but this Body, the Body of his Mind conflate with matter, will not sacrifice itself to him (p. 62). This rejection brings about the degradation of the World of Life (p. 64) and is discovered by Death to threaten the degradation of himself (p. 68).

v. Third Stage : The Evolution of the Body (or World) of the Spirit (or Self) of Death, which is Sacrifice, the Spiritual Body.

The Spirit (or Self) of Death now assumes supreme control (p. 69).

That is its true office, for the Self is superior to both Matter (Force) and Mind.

His true self thus active, Death now evolves from himself into the World of Life a Body that is not inflate with such externalities as force or mind, which combined make the World of Life; but is, without intervention of these, directly inflate with his Spirit (or Self). This Body is accordingly an immediate expression of himself. That being the case, and since Death is ever giving up himself, so is this Body ever giving up itself; or, in other words, is ever returning to

56 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

Death from whom it came. This is the Body of Sacrifice, the Body that comes into existence only to forthwith pass away (p. 70).

This then is Death's true Body. With this Body, as expression of himself and engine of his activity and as his food, he is at last satisfied

This Body is the true Horse Sacrifice, of which the horse-sacrifice offered by men is only the ritual miniature.

C. EPILOGUE ON THE TWO FIRES.

The Fire on Earth and the Fire in Heaven.

(A) The Two Fires: i. The Fire on Earth (p. 72); ii. The Fire in Heaven (p. 74).

(B) The Two Fires are One Divinity (p. 76).

(C) The Triumph of him who knows this.

A. INTRODUCTION.

Our wise men so, in Intimation First,1

As thou hast heard, this labyrinthine world,

Entwining aye, within, alow, aloft,

Perceived to be that very sacrifice

Devote by kings of kings when they a horse

Did slay and lift in fire, these sages' eye

Well trained by thought to search the rite,

Its secret find. And thou dost now exclaim

"So then this World a great Oblation is !"

And askest "How came that to be?" List, then,

My dear.

B. THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION.

I. Death at the Beginning.

At first was Death. Yea, all with Death

Was covered. Nothing was, my dear, save Death.

The which did mean an utter emptiness,

And emptiness, mark thou, is Hunger's self.

1 The First Commentary on the Ritual (Selection I).

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

II. DEATH, HIS MIND AWAKENING IN HIM, REALISES HIS EMPTINESS AND GOES ON YEARNING FOR A BODY.

So, being Hunger’s self, Death thus made up His Mind: “O would that I embodied were,

That, with beholding of myself, this blank may cease,

And wherewith, as with instrument, I food May find; yea, which itself shall be my food,

So that I may at last be filled!”—no speech, For speech he had not yet brought forth, but just

The thought repeatedly in him arose That must from emptiness arise, “O would

That I a body had, a body had!”

III. FIRST STAGE: THE EVOLUTION OF THE BODY OF FORCE, THE MATERIAL BODY.

The Preparation of the Platform for the Ascetic.

So ‘went he on’ with that refrain; which means He ‘praised,’ for ācarat, the Sanskrit word

For ‘he went on’ doth ṛc include, and ṛc Means ‘praise’ (O mark thou well how much doth Voice

When we her words inspect, make known!) Then thought He next “While I was praising, pleasure (kam)

Had I; which revelation voice confirms, For ca which is disclosed in ṛc doth rest

Within the throat on ka, and ka or kam Doth ‘pleasure’ mean: the which must be, for who

That praises hath not pleasure? Note that ar Is also found in ṛc, and that, with ka

And ar combined, arkā arises, which, Thou knowest, meaneth ‘gleam.’ And what is gleam

But essence of the waters, waters’ self? Mark from the cloud as mother spring the ‘gleam’

We call the lightning, winning thus the name We give it—waters’ son’. So, self arrived,

The self’s embodiment, the waters, next We see, the flood primeval, through the which

There welled up froth, the surge beclouding, and, In solid falling, ‘earth’ becoming, Earth

We walk on come to be!

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THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

The Ascetic on the Platform evolves Heat.

But more he did.

Upon that floor of Earth he set himself,

Austerity in divers ways contrived

Until did heat arise from him that turned

To sweat that flowed amain in threefold stream:

Fire,—see its pulsing beads upon his far

Periphery (the stars we nightly view);

The Sun, the eye of him who in the Fire

Doth flow; and, with the Fire and Sun, the Wind,

Which now we find to Fire and Sun keep close,

Exhilarating with its breath the Fire,

And fore the Sun, at rise and set thereof,

Raising its crooning serenade. Still so

He doth himself divide, trifluent stream,

Sun, Fire and Wind, the universal surge

Of breathings all, wherein we now are borne.

The Spectacle of the Material World.

See now his frame majestic, giant ox,

That steadfast in the waters stands, the earth—

His chest, the east—his head, his back—the sky,

His body—this great bulging air, the west—

His tail. The man who knows that steadfast stand

Is steadfast wheresoe'er he goes.

Dissatisfaction.

But note,

Although thuswise he had from out himself,

With self-inflicted stricture so severe,

Movements and shapings manifold, diverse

In size and hue, past numbering, produced,

Uniqueness as a gift on each bestowed,

And each one set upon its own career,

Thus far made each to selfhood proximate,

Thus far set bounds upon his sovereignty;

Yet not in that magnificent array

Of fashionings unique did he descry

The body that he yearned to have, nor find

The food that should him satisfy and build;

Be it the gleam (arkā) that erst did come

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

59

And cometh still each morn; be it the flood,

That next broke forth and still in cloud and stream

And dropping rain divides; or the spurn froth

That did the lymph becloud and earth became

Now firm beneath our feet and overhead

In lofty hills; or that fierce stream of heat

And sweat that on his far periphery

Rolled out the luminous beads we now do see

Burning and flickering 'gainst the dark, the stream

That still its three fold course pursues in fire

And sun and air. Not one of these which he

With such restriction had evolved, nor all

Of these, greatest to most minute, combined,

Did he account as that which could for him

His emptiness make good, make manifest

Himself unto himself, body, so far

As he, the bodiless, might manifest

Become; be that whereby his pulse should beat,

And sense, emotion, will, transpire as in

True body they assert; be instrument

Wherewith, within a world inanimate,

He might his purpose execute, and might

That world not only into honour bring

Of service, but also make it more replete,

And, in his judgment, nobler in itself,

And so become his food, his apanage,

Whereby e'en he, the source of all, should be

Sustained and strengthened, in himself and for

His work, and which should, as did meaning dawn,

Find in that giving of itself to him

A joy unspeakable; in brief, not yet

The Body that the All need have,

Nor Body yet that should the All reflect

And of the all be instrument,

For force alone as yet did he behold

Objectified. Such the defect detect

In things external, but did more appall

The lack within. True, he himself was there

And had a mind (Thou hast just heard that he

'Made up his mind') but just in that, his mind,

Dissatisfaction reigned. So still he yearned

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With yearning yet unvoiced, "O would that I !

That I ! O would that I embodied were!"

The Great Discovery.

Then came he to discover that, if he

His proper body would bring forth, wherein

Should stir the currents not of force alone,

But also of desire and thought and will,

He did require a body to beget

Of voice by means of mind, a body thus

Embodying mind and from the womb of voice

Brought forth, Voice his beloved wife, by him

Betaken to him in himself, for man

And wife were then, as thou dost know, not yet

Dispart.

IV. Second Stage: The Evolution of the Body of

Life, the Psychic Body.

The Outlook of Hope.

Deemed he, the body thus begot

Of voice by means of mind the emptiness

Should fill, that so disturbed his peace; should be

A body that, the world of force its stuff,

Should be for him, within that world of force,

Not only instrument transmitting force,

But housing also for him be, wherein

Should feeling, thought, volition, move, and, as

They moved, should, through this body, make upon

The world his own impress; yea, body that

Should be in its totality his own,

In all its varied fashions and its modes

None other than himself, and so at last

His longing should be satisfied, "O would

That I, O would that I, a body had!"

The Marriage with Voice.

Such, then, his hope. So now, throughout a year

His Voice he interwove with influence of

His mind. That energy of his is. that

Long course we now behold, of days and nights,

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

Of light and dark half-months, the sun conducts

As north he moves then back to south, the which

We call the year; yea, thus the year did come to be,

No year before. Then waited he, while sounds

Of wind and stream and thundering cloud and launch

Of high-built snow and crash of rocks were held

To be but various tunes for heralding

The utterance intelligent he longed

To hear. Conception came, and, through the year

He had construct, he bore within himself

(For man and wife were not, remember thou,

As yet dispart) his mind now fashioning

Within his Voice, yet inarticulate,

The body which, enabling voice to be

Articulate, should bring to utterance

His mind.

Birth of the Pure Psychic Body,

the Body of his Mind Begotten of Voice.

That year of nurturing elapsed,

He brought him forth, saw sport before his eyes

The body of his mind. Had hitherto

Outside his mind been all he had produced—

The gleam, the waters, earth, sun, fire, wind;

But now within that which appeared was mind,

Inhabitant and lord of this new form,

That flung its ruddy limbs to grasp and feel

The world o’ matter into which, up from

Depth o’ himself, it had arisen, dazed

Startled and inquisitive, its new

Surroundings putting to the test.

The Attraction of the Psychic Body.

Allured

(This succulent and rosy image of

Himself, aglow with leaping life-blood—there!)

He oped his mouth: “My body this; so this

My food shall be!”

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The Refusal of his Psychic Body to Sacrifice itself to Him.

Agape on him his psychic form cried 'Bhān !'

So mind at last did move in sound ! Had now,

In that pure body of his mind, his voice

At last begun her utterance. Was now

His universe no longer dumb.

His Consequent Withdrawal from his Pure Psychic Body.

But woke

That protest 'gainst himself at once the thought

"If I against this tractive fashion of

Myself intend, less then my food shall be."

The Disastrous Effect of this Withdrawal.

Alas, that that desire should rise, for he

That 'less' of food doth fear, doth wish

Therein for 'more,' and 'more' doth 'more' again

Involve, and that 'more'—'more'; O, who may to

The series put an end? Besides, did this

Desire imply retreat from that pure form

Immediate to himself, form of all forms

Most fair, the form that one might deem indeed

To be at last, since it embodied mind,

The true expression of himself (so far

As form the formless may express), the form

That, thus embodying mind, ability

Possessed to, in that mind, conceive itself

A sacrifice to him and so become

His food, his plenishment; from That to turn

To other forms, O how inferior to

Himself; yea meant an endless budding off,

A seine cast out, unbridled, widening out

To gather, in its downward sweep, the whole

Prolific lower psychic world that round

Us now doth pullulate; thus brought to birth

Not only endless multiplicity

(Which is a degradation in itself)

But also, endless stepping down,

For now should voice, expressing his revolt

From that pure psychic body, which had him,

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Alas ! repelled, express itself in these

Aye lower lower forms.

The Immediate Ascent of Voice.

But first Voice rose.

Dost deem she could abide entangled in

That form of flesh, although a form so fair,

That did to give itself to him, the Lord

Supreme, who from her brought it forth, refuse?

Nay, we do teach her native place lies far

Above these prison-bars. So now we see

Her mount from height to height twixt earth and sky

Pass through the transit-porch and judgment hall

Of souls, the moon we watch add white to white

As souls press in, and part with white as souls

Are downward sent or let go onward, take

Her station past that gate upon the floor

Which is the star-pierced roof above our heads,

Floor of her native province where doth sit

The Inexpressible.

The Declamation of the Veda of the Verses.

There stablished, she,

In her true home before her Lord, no veil

Of flesh twixt her and him, in her true form,

Apart from flesh, etherial, delicate,

Recipient immediate of his mind

(The which no form can e'er comprise,

Seek as it may), by him illuminate

And from herself illuminant, as no

Man may imagine, did from her pure lips

Give forth his thought, clear as doth perfect bell

In perfectly conveyant air, the lore

Rigveda ('knowledge put in Verses') named,

Forsooth still ours, but mouthèd then by her

As never man may mouth nor human ear

Can hear, so spiritual; yet times are ours,

When, gazing on the moving throng of souls

That from the entrance of her rostrum-hall

Shines down, or when, the souls withdrawn,

The porch in gloom, hangs o'er us what we call

A moonless night, we catch if we do list

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Intent, a stir above the stars, e'en words

Apprise—his words—that through the gateway come.

The Fall of Voice.

So did his Voice, tearing herself away

From that his psychic body, stung by that

Rebellious cry of Bhān, mount up to his

Immediate presence bodiless, and so,

In her true self, irradiate with the mind

Of him before whose throne she stood, proclaim,

Most clear ungarbled undisguised, the Rig,

The Verses that his mind make known; but then,

Effectual the poison of that cry,

Shrank back ashamed, shrank ever further back,

To fall from that high place from zone to zone,

As falls a stream from pure white snow, that crowns

A crag, adown its front precipitous,

From ledge to ledge, and so, in channels caught,

To run in ever new captivity;

Thus from her pristine declamation fell

To move in muttered Formulas wherewith

We bend the gods their worshippers to serve,

The Yajur-Veda ('Knowledge set for use

In worship'), next to sport in pattern moulds

Of music, launching, staying, shrinking with

The tune, the Sāma-Veda ('Knowledge set

For Chanting'); but as yet forsooth no guise

Material putting on; but lo ! assumed

That next, no longer satisfied with sound

Alone; became the cracklings that are clad

In sacrificial robes—the shouts that ride

The leaping flames, in shining butter clothed,

The sharp reports within the heated pot

That don them waving garments of white milk

Therein oblate; integuments yet these,

Perchance, to be accounted vesture fit,

Since they, although of matter fashioned, yet

Are consecrate, and sent to heaven to feed

The gods; but lower still descended she,

Became the voice that garniture puts on

In which articulate she doth indeed

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

Become, but which is filled with ills and doth

Her message much distort, bodies to wit

Of human kind; and next still farther fell,

Became the drawl and moan around our farms

Embodied in our tethered beasts, thus near

To that inchoate cry with which she broke

Into the world of matter, yet not that;

Promise of better that cry bore, but this

Of lower still was prelude; for she next

Became the chirp and squeak that put them on

Cincture that wings and crawls; did peter out

At last in moving dust, the hordes no man

Can count, the tenuous lappings of the world

Of life, in which she doth herself succumb,

Throttled thereby as mighty river by

Our thirsty sands. Woeeworth that rebel shout

Of that fair psychic self beheld at first

With joy, but which refused to give itself

To him who then, with yearning seized for more

And more, did turn from it to voice himself

In other forms !

The Endless Bringing Forth and Taking In.

Thus, then, did he bring forth

This total teeming endless psychic world

We see around us now, in which are we

Within these bodies held. And all thereof

That he produced did he begin to eat.

Yea, so it is with everything with him,

E'en Death, the which is Hunger's self; all that

He bringeth forth he taketh back and doth

Within himself consume. Now ad means 'eat'

And Ad-iti—'the Infinite,' by which

Doth Voice, for those who note that consonance,

The nature of the Infinite reveal,

E'en that which makes it Infinite to be.

He, who this universal bringing forth

And taking in doth know, for him are all

Things food.

Yet Dissatisfaction.

But yet was he not satisfied.

The forms magnifical produced at first,

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The voices multitudinous now come

With corresponding multiplicity

Of forms, no peace to him did bring.

Discipline of the Psychic.

So he,

Caparisoned with that magnificence

Out-woven from himself, not only robe

External, but in psychic strands well-nigh

His very body, throned in state, yet not

The state nor yet the body of his peace,

Did this desire: "Thus seated and thus robed,

Yet greater sacrifice, a sacrifice

More intimate, would I accordingly

Devote"; and so again to torture gave

Himself, to practise now austerity

That exercised his feelings, mind, and will;

For not was he as heretofore when from

Himself, as praising he went on, he did

The waters, earth, fire, sun, and wind, produce,

For these he then did place outside himself

And separate; but now, as hath been said,

He had by marriage of himself by means

Of mind with voice, in these brought forth

Expressions of himself, this sound or that

To be his voice, this form or that his form,

This force or that—his act, and so no more

Outside himself.

Temptation in the Flesh: Fame and Forcefulness seek to Overcome.

And so behold him now

In that wide psychic decadence, that is

To say the Flesh, enthroned, and, through the flesh

And o'er the flesh, exerting strength within

His later world of feeling, mind, and will.

And from that studious labour and its fruits

See now bestir, him seeking to o'ercome,

Twin powers, even Fame that struck without

Her myriad-sounding bell, and Forcefulness,

Seated within, these both peremptory

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67

That he should count them vital breaths, the which

These two by multitudes of human kind,

Who to their psychic decadence give way,

Are suffered now to be, whose bodies they

Do make to swell, so that they plume themselves

And strut, with self-congratulation big.

Fame and Forcefulness Find no Welcome.

Not so with him. For how with Death should Fame

And Self-assertion vital breaths become?

True, when externally upon himself

He looked, he had discovered emptiness,

And, being Hunger’s self, yearned then to have

His emptiness made good, and therefore built

To farthest bound the world o’ matter; there

To fail embodiment to find; and now

Had framed, by marriage of himself with Voice

By means of mind, the body he had deemed

Should be his presentation true, engine

Of action, and his food; yet was he Death,

Who nought containeth, and doth forthwith that

Consigned to him to nothingness resign;

Death, who is thus with vacancy content,

Supremely resting in himself. So did

These two discover that in him there was

No harbourage. Forthwith they went.

V. Third Stage: The Evolution of the Body of the Spirit (or Self) of Death, the Body of Sacrifice, the Spiritual Body.

The Result of the Departure of Fame and Forcefulness.

And lo!

The truth that Fame and Forcefulness had now

Indeed become the vital breaths of that

Degenerate state still weighting him

Was presently. made manifest, for now

That body decadent, whence these withdrew,

Began to swell, but not as bodies swell

Of pompous men we have described, for whom,

Ill-judging in their pride-infected mind,

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These two are cordials indispensable,

Without which they would reckon life not life,

But with which, ruddy shining, wax they gross;

Not so with him, but, such vain boastfulness

Not found, as bodies bulge of drowned men,

That pallid grow and hasten to decay;

Which genuine consequence to him disclosed

The depth to which his psychic form, erst pure,

Was now deject.

The Final Discovery.

So, as the vapid shell,

Gauging its own depletion, rose, so rose

Desire reversing that refusal of

His psychic self, become degenerate,

To sacrifice itself to him and his

Retreat therefrom that he might fashion for

His intake other food: "O would that I

A body had for sacrifice adept !

O would that now at last my psychic self,

Even in this divided multiple,

Would give, within the whole, within each part,

Itself to Death, holding, as end in view,

To fill the emptiness Death truly feels,

Not die the death I now behold that hath

As end decay; thus, through its death

(Within the whole, within each part) in will,

Not by dejection, reach its goal, the All

To feed, its self thus gain, retrieve as well

(Both in completeness viewed and in each part,

Although divided myriadly it be)

The comeliness of body it at first

Possessed, when, born of voice by means of mind,

It rose within the world ! But how shall that

My psychic self with willingness itself

Give up, within the whole, within each part,

Unless do I, who am the Self, the very Self,

The Self that is within the psychic self,

The Self that makes that self the Self, give up

(Not in dejection, but with self-less will)

Myself, pass in through death, the self to be

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

In this now so degenerate psychic world,

Down the whole gamut of descending voice,

Bodied as tree of myriad buds, the self

In each of these, as each may self contain

(From self's presentments conscious felt

Down to life-pulses beating unaware)?

Myself thus gain; for I am Death that doth

Esteem, as he his inner self accounts,

The quality peculiar to himself to be

An utter absence of content, and yet

Should I, gazing beyond, behold the All,

Within which then, yea into every

Particular thereof, I should have passed,

Become my body, e'en the boundless All,

The contrary complete of nothingness.

Thus should my pristine yearning “Would that I

Who, as I do my outer self regard,

But emptiness possess, a body had !”

At last be satisfied; not less than that,

The boundless All, required to meet desire

Of Death, who, being Death, is Hunger's self,

And, being such, complete in Hunger, so,

Alone by intusception of the All,

Become within himself secure in peace.”

O note that he was there and had a mind !

The Body Fit for Sacrifice (that is the Horse Sacrifice)

Arrived at.

So now the aśva-medha we have reached.

Note he did ‘swell,’ and aśvat meaneth ‘swelled.’

Aśva means ‘horse.’ So we in aśvat, e'en

The ‘swelling’ that hath come, do aśva ‘horse’

Behold. And, when the swelling he perceived,

He thought: “This medhya (fit for sacrifice)

Hath come to be.” These two combine in one,

Then have we aśva-medha, just that Horse

Uplift within the flame to heaven by kings

Of kings as sacrifice in ancient day.

He verily the aśva-medha knows

Who knows it as we have it now declared.

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The Completeness of the Sacrifice.

Behold rise thus the Sacrificial Horse,

The body that at last should bring him peace,

Since now with self-abandonment it swelled,

Big not with pride, with relegation big,

Presage of willingness to meet at last

The fire and lose itself therein, and at

His will become an offering to himself,

And so re-enter gladly him from whom

It came. Thus of his spirit body true

At last was this, responsive through and through

To sacrificial impulse (contrast clear

To his initial body of blind force

And dumb, incompetent for sacrifice,

And to his body next, of sentient life

Endowed with voice whose first-mouthed cry

Rejection meant of sacrifice to him).

So had true correspondent come at last

To him who, as the one and only Self,

Himself within each item of the world

Devotes, that, each within its grade, simply

Of matter made or psychic, be, within

The genuine body of his selfless Self,

Retrieved.

The Destined Horse in Reservation and at Liberty.

So now he kept him in his mind

For sacrifice, such time as he should will;

But sent him first upon a wide career

Through boundless space, with force in him bestowed

And granted mind—to feel, to will, to know—

Within the world material, thus a year

Thorough the seasons' rise and fall to have

His way of browse, of joy, of flight, of wheel,

Of ramp, play or revolt or strenuous pull,

Just as he would. Portrayal of him thus

Hast thou received.1

1 The First Aspect of the Horse, BAU. I, i, p. 50.

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

The Horse Sacrificed.

The time he willed

Passed by, he brought him to himself in flame.

So Death, that did beget the all, the all

He had begotten did through nothingness—

The only way by which may Death acquire—

Again take in; and so the tide, the flow

And ebb, of will and act, within the All,

The sending forth and calling back, the out

And in of sacrifice on part of each,

No facet set beneath his light its flash

Surrendering not, fulfilled itself.

Attainment.

Thus Death most truly did himself acquire,

No item now left outside Death. So too

Did item each to its own being come.

This interlacing, constantly reflex,

Of sacrifice it is that makes the World

We now behold the World to be; the which

To eye of those who pierce the mystery

Is day by day, as thou hast just been told,

Shown clear in mantling carnadine that tincts

The waves from which the Horse doth rise

And lights again the billows where He sinks.1

The Other Domestic Animals Assigned to the Gods within the All.

The Lord of Creatures and their Father thus

Took for himself the Horse. The tethered beasts

Of other kind upon our farms did he

To the divinities within the all,

Such as the sun, the moon, the fire, assign.

Therefore we see men now regard that which

To Him they consecrate and offer up

As offered up to all the gods.

1 The Second Aspect, p. 51.

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C. EPILOGUE ON THE TWO FIRES: THE FIRE ON EARTH AND THE FIRE IN HEAVEN.

(a) Two Fires.

Two fires, mark thou, we count. One fire—on earth,

The other fire—in heaven.

I. The Fire on Earth.

The fire on earth

The worlds are its embodiment.

The World of Matter.

Recall to Mind

The glow within, the yearning, when did Death

As hunger’s self, survey his emptiness,

So that he did his mind make up with “O

That I a body had!”; and ácarat

(‘Went on’) with that as his refrain; and so

Did ‘praise,’ for ácarat doth ṛc contain,

Which meaneth ‘praise.’ Next recollect ‘t was shown

That ácarat implieth also ka,

And so arkā ‘the gleam’ did come; and, since

‘The gleam’ is waters’ self, thou first didst see

The lightning issue; then the rain did come,

The flood primeval, darkening froth of which

Is this hard earth on which we tread, which he

Did take as platform whereupon himself

To torture, at which his heat and sweat arose

(Note thou the progress: ‘glow,’ then ‘gleam,’ next ‘heat’),

And turned his essence into fire (note ‘fire’),

Which gathered in a vortex, that our sun,

And drew as comrade to itself the wind;

And so, threefold, as fire and sun and wind,

We find he did himself divide; and did

We then behold his body grand,

The east, his head, the west—his tail,

The south and north—his flanks, the sky—his back,

The air—his belly, this broad earth—his chest:

The strong and virile water-buffalo,

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73

A frame vast, dominating, intricate,

Material product of the yearning felt

At emptiness, which, travailing on through glow

And gleam and heat to this the earthly fire,

Did thus display its first embodiment,

Yet that no more than interveaving force,

For he not yet by means of mind had of

His Voice the psychic world, the world of life,

Begat.

The Psychic World.

But next thou learnedst, in that world

Of matter he the psychic world comprised,

Forth bringing from the womb of voice that pure

And proper psychic form thou didst behold,

Rosy and active with the surge of life,

And thou hast witnessed how therefrom at once

(For so our doctrine doth require) soared voice

To take her stand in loftiest heaven before

Her Lord, the Inexpressible, and there

Recite the Veda of the Verses. Yet,

The utterance first on earth of that pure form

Had been before his face a cry of fear

That meant refusal of that psychic self

To sacrifice itself to him, sign too

That he not yet a body had acquired

Ready for sacrifice to him; at which

Had risen in him the counter-thought: “If I

Against him shall intend, less then my food

Shall be.” So, flesh-subserving, fell his voice,

Betook for its embodiment and food

Other than that pure form original,

Did ever lower forms produce. So, when

In that degenerate embodiment,

He wrought severity, there sprang two powers,

E'en Fame and Forcefulness, claiming to be

His vital breaths, thus making clear to him

That he not yet had body of his own.

The Horse Sacrifice.

And so again the glow within did burn:

'O would that I a body had that should

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Look not askance at heavenward-lifting fire !"

At which awakening, did his psychic form,

(Orphan become, as thou didst hear1, of pride)

With frame adapt for offering blossom out,

Became the Horse that sported fore the flame

And met the flame, Death's proper body now,

In which the Self of Death, that had been caught

In flesh, could, freed, unto itself return,

The sacrifice supreme which kings of kings

Alone might offer up, the sacrifice which makes

The offerer complete, the sacrifice

That in the world he hath produced do rule.

Summary.

See then the Earthly Fire that on our hearths

Doth raise its proper, sacred, flame, of which

The crown is that great sacrifice, which hath

To thee been told, which kings of kings alone

Might lift, the clear-set miniature

Of this great ever-rising world itself,

The sacrifice perpetual; the fire

That first did glow unseen unvoiced, yet stirred

His mind to contemplate his emptiness

And build his World of Matter; so, the light,

Arká, we see break forth, as soft-eyed child

Of morning mist, the coming day, or son,

Defiance-flashing, of the thunder-cloud;

The glow that did with nobler passion urge

Again his mind in fiery year-long stream,

Which, born of voice, is This, his World of Life.

Of which are we: thus both these Worlds that Fire's

Embodiments.

II. The Fire in Heaven.

The Fire.

Yet more to tell ! Hold close

Thine ear ! Whisper receive ! A teaching now

Is called for, higher still. Raise up thine eyes.

1 Fame and Forcefulness find no welcome, p. 67.

2—THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS

What is that sun? Mere ball of fire? Not so !

Be these, the matter-world, the world of life,

Successively produced embodiments

Of sacrifice, subjections each of Self,

The first in lines of force alone, the next

To mind consort with force, together viewed

The passing body thus of Death, is this,

That shines o'er all, most certainly, perceived

With insight due, his eye—O canst thou doubt?

Behold its liquid gaze—the eye of him

Who doth the sacrifice upon the earth

Lay down, who doth up there unto himself

That sacrifice receive. Up there ! Home of

The fathers and the gods, himself o'er these

Supreme. Here then the sacrifice, the Fire

On Earth; and there—reward, the Heavenly Fire.

The Two Embodiments of the Heavenly Fire : The March of

the Year and the Psychic Body Aforesaid.

And thou hast heard that he who hath for eye

The sun, when, linked with voice, did quicken voice

With mind (strong, purposive, displayed at first

In that his bodying-forth we name the Year,

Celestial March from south to north from north

To south repeatedly) which, marking time,

As thou hast lately heard, within the womb

Of voice, came forth, the year elapsed, to sight,

His Psychic Form, his proper form, so far

As form may him present, which doth englobe

Not only that, the heaven's white fire, but, as

To thee already hath been told, that fire's

Red fringe, the earthly fire, as well, which round

The heavenly plays, the frame in which at last

His voice did come to utterance, but which

Surrender did refuse to Death, who is

Within himself contained, who to the All

Himself entirely gives, the selfless Self,

The energy that builds the world, the life

Of soul, Lord of the mutual joy above,

Where doth the gift the giver meet. Alas !

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That that, his psychic form, at voice arrived,

Should that great Lord refuse, thrown down thereby

To fall and fall in self and mind and form.

(b) These Two Fires are One Divinity.

Thus these two fires, the Fire on Earth, the Fire

In Heaven, are One Divinity, e'en Death.

(c) The Triumph of Him who Knows this.

And he who doth this know, though he shall die

He shall not die again, for then doth Death

Become his self. He, dying here, doth rise

With Death, yea one of these divinities

Becomes, that rise in triumph in the flame.

3

THE EMANATIONS FROM AND THE RETURN TO ITSELF OF THE UNITIVE SELF:

From the Secret Teaching to the Partridge-Disciples.

The Emanations from and the Return to itself of the Unitive Self

I. Introduction.

II. The Descent: Six Increasingly Gross Emanations from the Self. At last—the Person.

II. The Ascent: Five Increasingly Ethereal Persons.

IV. Identity with the Sun.

V. The Return Briefly Described.

VI. The Rapturous Song of the Unitive Self returned to Itself.

I. INTRODUCTION.

Oṁ ! He who knows the Spirit mounteth high.

To that this verse we quote doth testify :

The man, who Spirit as existence, consciousness, the infinite,

Into the hiding-place [the heart] set down, set also in the height

Of farthest ether, knows, he all desires obtains;

The Spirit too, that doth its tremor ken, he gains.

II. THE DESCENT: SIX INCREASINGLY GROSS EMANATIONS FROM THE SELF;

`AT LAST—THE PERSON.

From this great Self Space came to be

Whereinto clear and far we see.

Then out of Space the Wind did blow.

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And out of Wind the Fire did glow.

From Fire the Waters took their birth.

Out of the Waters merged the Earth.

Out of the Earth then Food arose;

And 't is from Food the Person grows.

III. THE ASCENT: THE FIVE INCREASINGLY ETHEREAL PERSONS THAT WING THEIR WAY UP, ONE THROUGH THE OTHER, BACK TO UNITIVE SELF.

I. The First, the Outermost, Form: Made of the Essence of Food.

The Head.

The Right Wing : The Right Arm.

The Left Wing : The Left Arm.

The Body.

The Tail, the Support : The Legs.

And so the Person now our scrutiny descroies

At last from food, or rather from food's essence, rise.

[The teacher touched his head his arms his body feet,

That in his pupil's sight he might this person mete,

Comparing with these terms of 'head,' 'wings,' 'body,' 'tail,'

Man to the bird that makes for sky and there doth sail;

For as the swan that far aloft his way doth make

He would have man himself regard, his transit take.

Our fathers parted into head, tail, body, wings,

The verses made to fly to heaven the chanter sings;

And delved, as we their children delve, bird-shaped, with head

And body wings and tail smoothed-out, the altar-bed,

The space wherein the fires are set wherein we pour

Libations to delight the gods whom we adore;

Where, gods thus first supplied, partake we too

High festival with them, all seated on the strew.]

Praise of Food.

From food forsooth are brought to birth

All growths that find support on earth;

By food thenceforth they live and then

3-THE RETURN OF THE SELF TO ITSELF 79

Food they become at last again.

So, chief is food of beings all,

And that explains why it we call

"The Universal Nourishment."

All who adore, in worship bent,

Spirit as food, all food obtain.

Again doth that the mot explain—

"The Universal Nourishment."

From food are beings born; 't is so.

By means of food, when born, they grow.

Food both is eaten and doth eat,

Hence we it 'Aunam!' ['Eatin'!] greet.

2. The Second Form: Made of Breath.

The Head : Breath (prāṇa).

The Right Wing : Diffused Breath (vyāna).

The Left Wing : Out-breath (apāna).

The Body : Space.

The Tail, the Support : The Earth.

Is This next met not such as eyes can view,

Or hands can grasp, yet ranged as person too—

The Self of Breath composed. By This is filled

The Self that doth of Food its members build;

And as That person doth his structure frame,

So models This with spirants form the same,

Drawn in, sent out, urged round within: his head—

'The breath'; the wing on right, its currents sped

With strength—'the breath diffused'; the wing on left—

'The out-breath'; 'space'—his body, where are weft,

Within, without, all airs with changeful tide;

And for his grand support—'the earth' so wide.

Praise of Breath.

O great is Breath! Close following after Breath

[For service that to them it rendereth]

The gods do breathe; men also breath ensue

Remittingless; and leashed are beasts thereto.

Breath is indeed the life that beings live,

Whence 'Life-of-all' the name to it we give.

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All they to life their way complete do make Who Spirit do as Breath for worship take.

Such the embodied Self that Breath doth hold, Like unto that which hath of Food been told.

3. THE THIRD FORM: MADE OF THE COVETOUS MIND IN THE HEART.

The Head: The Veda of Sacrifice (The Yajur-Veda).

The Right Wing: The Veda of Hymns (The Rig-Veda).

The Left Wing: The Veda of Chants (The Sāma-Veda).

The Body: The Teaching (ādeśa).

The Tail, the Support: The Collection of Spells (Atharvāngirasas).

Other than Self construct of Breath next find, Framed in the heart, the Self of avid mind By which is gain desired, thought out, and willed.

As That, so This doth form of person build, The Yajur-Veda, sacred lore expressed In potent formulae to gods addressed, 'Veda of Sacrifice' hence fitly named— His head; the Veda out of which are framed These formulae, the Veda we recite, Rig-Veda (Verses-Veda)—wing on right; The Sāma-Veda, that Rig-Veda weft With chantings' regulating beat—wing left; His body—‘Teaching' how these things be done, For woe betide, be slip incurred but one.

And, lo! th' Átharvāngirasas hymns, Composed of Spells, make that man's lower limbs.

[Yet declamation, incantation, chant That seek to grasp from gods the goods we want Grasp not our want. That that indeed is so The stanza which we now do quote doth show.]

THE FAILURE OF THE COVETOUS MIND.

Voices of such Mind, pursuant on their track, Not catching That, from It, dismayed, turn back; But him, who bliss of Spirit knows,appal No turning-fears at any time at all!

3–THE RETURN OF THE SELF TO ITSELF 81

As of the former, Breath, has just been told,

We here see Mind a bodily self unfold.

4. The Fourth Form: Made of Pure Intelli-

gence (vijnāna).

The Head: Faith (śraddhā).

The Right Wing: What is right (ṛta).

The Left Wing: What is true (satya).

The Body: Meditation (yoga).

The Tail, the Support: Might (mahas).

The Self of pure Intelligence mark next

With no desire of acquisition vexed.

By This that Self of avid Mind is filled.

Doth This like That in form of person build,

And as the heart-bound Mind its mould doth frame,

So This one portions-out his form the same.

His head is ‘faith’; his right wing—‘what is right’;

Left—‘what is true’; the body of his flight

Is ‘meditation,’ by which his form is set

On ‘might,’ for, great his height, is yet

His station strong.

[The following verse doth raise

Keen-eyed, high-placed, Intelligence’s praise:]

In Praise of Intelligence.

'T is by Intelligence that movements deft

At holy sacrifice are duly weft.

Sooth, all the deeds we plan and do and dare

Intelligence doth weave us strong and fair.

Yea, worship all the gods Intelligence

As Spirit, chief, with deepest reverence.

If Spirit as Intelligence one knows

Nor with it idly plays as on he goes,

His sins he in the body leaves; desires,

Yea, all the train, flesh left behind, acquires.

So see we here as hath of Mind been told,

Intelligence a bodily self unfold.

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5. The Fifth Form: Made of Bliss.

The Head : Pleasure (priya).

The Right Wing : Delight (moda).

The Left Wing : Great delight (pra-moda).

The Body : Bliss (ānanda).

The Tail, the Support : Spirit (brahman).

Other than That one just described is This—

The Self within it that is made of Bliss.

By This Intelligence's form is filled.

Doth This like That in shape of person build,

For, as Intelligence his mould doth frame,

So This one doth dispose himself the same.

His head is 'pleasure'; 'moda'—wing on right,

'Delight'; 'pramoda' wing on left endite

[Moda plus pra, so—'great delight,' the pra,1

Which meaneth 'forth,' denoting no delay,

But joy that dances 'forth' upon its way].

Person indeed of highest pleasance—This;

His body, source and store of strength, is 'bliss'

With 'Spirit' his support, which with its spell

Doth make the heart receiving it to swell.

IV. IDENTITY WITH THE SUN.

This Person and That Person in the Sun,

This within and That above, are one.

He that the truth of This doth know,

On death doth to That Person go.

Recount his progress rising so:

V. RECAPITULATION OF THE RETURN.

At first doth he the Self of Food construct;

Doth next in Self of Breath his powers conduct;

In Self, that doth with avid Mind conceive,

Back nearer home doth next his way retrieve;

Then ousts that Self to avarice propense

With glorious Self of pure Intelligence;

Then, still advancing, joyous, past all this,

Attains, at Sun, his goal, the Self of Bliss.

1 prá, prep. forward, onward, forth, fore [cf. Gk. and Lat. pro, before].

[L.]

3—THE RETURN OF THE SELF TO ITSELF 83

He, Self of all, then through these worlds at ease

Saunters, here, there—eating what food he please;

And O ! the forms he dotes upon

Just these at will he putteth on,

Then sits and sings

Mid myriad rings:

VI. THE RAPTUROUS SONG OF THE WORLD-SOUL,

THE UNITIVE SELF, AFTER IT HAS RETURNED

TO ITSELF.

"O, wonderful ! O, wonderful ! O, wonderful !

Food am I ! Food am I ! Food am I !

Fare for these realms of earth and sky.

Food-eater too ! Food-eater too ! Food-eater too !

I absorb them with joy as I pass through.

I am maker of songs, of paeans, of fanfares far,

That sink neath the depth and o'ermount the star !

O, hear them course round !

By Me, held in awe,

Are all vagaries bound,

For I am the first-born of Law.

Before the gods were brought forth was I

In the navel of immortality.

He who gives me away

Me doth save from decay.

I am food, and the eater of food I eat.

All that exists is beneath my feet,

I the light in its beauty that all things greet."

4

MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM :

From the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

Macrocosm and Microcosm

'Bhūḥ ! bhuvah ! svah !' our priests do cry,

Invoking thus earth, air, and sky.

Bhūḥ is the 'earth' and bhuvah 'air',

And svah the 'sun' that shines up there.

Now count the breaths for these we take,

And note that they (when svah we make

Dissyllable1) one-two-two mete,

Just as we count our head-hands-feet,

For bhūḥ makes one, and bhuv-ah su-ah

Each two. Our members thus concur.

So, earth-air-sky and head-hands-feet

Do each a triplet make complete,

Each triplet, note, at root combined,

Their branches also intertwined.

And thus the wondrous truth we reach

That these do answer each to each.

And so should we in earth, air, sky,

A Person's giant form descry,

His portions clearly to us told,

Just as are with this Person found

Together in this body bound.

His head is earth, his arms the air,

His feet the shining sun up there.

Yea, as that sun secure he stands,

The moving breezes are his hands,

1 That is, as su-ah.

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His head rotund this tree-clothed earth

In which his senses have their birth.

The secret grand by which his way

This Person augurs is the Day.

Be That the Person planted high,

The Other moves in this right eye

With head-arms-feet which we know well,

Which one-two-two, we saw, do tell;

To whom then too let none demur

To also cry 'Bhūḥ ! bhuvah ! svaḥ !';

Who also holds, whereby he stands

And moveth safely, head feet hands,

A secret, as doth He on high;

And what his secret? It is I.

Aham is 'I' and 'Day'—ahan.

Thus voice doth draw these two toward one,

To show, who would make sure his way

Must jointly reverence 'I' and 'Day.'

5

THE OPEN WAY AT DEATH:

From the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Open Way at Death

In yonder sun the Real behold,

All gold and throned in orb of gold.

This Person in the right eye placed

And He are each on other based.

See This from That his life-breaths bring,

While That sends rays on This to cling.

When This one here doth come to die

And home his life-breaths yearn to fly,

The Real, these arms withdrawn, shines clear;

Nought with return doth interfere.

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6

THE CREED OF ŚĀNDILYA

WHICH IS FOUND IN

The Secret Teaching in the Chant

AND

A SONG BY PAUL EBERHARDT BASED UPON THE CREED

The Creed of Śāṇḍilya1

1. Verily this whole world is Spirit. Tranquil, let one worship It as that from which he came forth, as that into which he will be dissolved, as that in which he breathes.2

Now, verily, the Person consists of purpose (kratu-maya). According to the purpose which the Person has in this world, thus does he become on departing hence. So let him form for himself a purpose.

2. He who consists of mind, whose body is life (prāṇa), whose form is light, whose conception is truth, whose self [or ‘body’] (ātman) is space, containing all works, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all tastes, encompassing this whole world, the unspeaking, the unconcerned—[3] this self of mine within the heart is smaller than a grain of rice, or a barley-corn, or a mustard-seed, or a grain of millet, or a kernel of a grain of millet;

1 This, which is Chāndogya, 3. 14, and is found in an abbreviated form in BAU., 5.6, occurs also as Śat. Br., 10.6.3.

2 “as that, etc.,” is Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the word tajjalān, which we find in the text. He derives it from the words tat, ‘that’; √jan, ‘produce’; √lī, ‘slip into,’ ‘disappear’; √an, ‘breathe.’

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this self of mine within the heart is greater than the earth, greater than the atmosphere, greater than the sky, greater than these worlds.

4. Containing all works, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all tastes, encompassing this whole world, the unspeaking, the unconcerned—this is the self of mine within the heart, this is Spirit. Into him I shall enter on departing hence.

If one would believe this, he would have no more doubt. Thus used Śāṇḍilya to say; yea, Śāṇḍilya !

A SONG BY PAUL EBERHARDT,1

Brought to its Voice by the Creed of Śāṇḍilya.

Soul of mine, how small !

To enclose thy sorrow

Not the flooded mere

Needes thou to borrow—

Just a single tear

Can contain it all;

And thy joys together throng

Fully in a little song.

Soul of mine, how small !

Yet thine anguish piled-up skies—

O how far they seem to rise !—

Vainly struggle to comprize,

And thy jubilation far

Overleaps the highest star.

So, most clear it is to see,

Wondrous great my soul must be.

1 In Der Weisheit Letzter Schluss, p. 61.

7

WHAT CERTAIN CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS TAUGHT SATYAKĀMA

AND HOW NEVERTHELESS HE SOUGHT INSTRUCTION FROM HIS TEACHER:

From the Secret Teaching in the Chant.

What Certain Creatures of the Wilderness taught Satyakāma

AND HOW NEVERTHELESS HE SOUGHT INSTRUCTION FROM HIS TEACHER.

Satyakāma is received as Pupil by Hāridrimata.

Satyakāma (Lover of Truth)1

His mother thus addressed:

"Madam, I would in this my youth

A student be professed

Of sacred lore, which none may be

Save Brahmins. Tell me pray

My family." "That, to me

Not known, I cannot say"

Replied Jabāla. "In my youth

In service much about,

Satyakāma, Lover of Truth,

I got thee. So give out

1 That is the translation of ‘Satya-kāma.’

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'Satyakāma' be thy name

'Jabāla's son'.” At that,

To where a sage of teaching-fame,

Hāridrūmata, sat,

Of Gotama's lineage, went

The youth. “To learn,” said he,

“The sacred lore my steps are bent.

May I thy pupil be?”

At which the sage: “Make known, I pray,

Thy rank by birth, my dear.”

The youth replied, “I cannot say.

I come from questioning clear

My mother, and she said 'In youth,

When serving much about,

Satyakāma, Lover of Truth,

I got thee. So give out

'Satyakāma' be thy name,

'Jabāla's son'.” Whereat

The sage: “Alone could Brahmin frame

An answer clear like that.

The fuel take in hand, my dear,

To light my fire and live with me

As pupil. 'Not to veer

From truth' inspireth thee.”

The First Act of Hāridrūmata after installing Satyakāma

was not to teach him but to send him into the Wilderness

to tend his cows.

The sage received him, from the kine

Four hundred weak and lean

Chose out: “My dear, these cows of mine

Now tend.” For one aim keen—

To be obedient—straight he cried:

“Your reverence, to thee

I will not back, till multiplied

These cows to thousand be.”

7—CERTAIN CREATURES TEACH SATYAKĀMA

The Quarters of the Spirit.

I. The Bull's Announcement of the Quarter ‘Conspicuous.’

So Satyakāma stayed away

Through many years, saw make

The herd its thousand, on which day

At last the mystery brake.

The Bull said “Satyakāma !” “Sir!”

Attentive he replied.

“Us now a thousand, dear, bestir

To reach where doth reside

The teacher. Now would I to thee

A fourth of Spirit tell.”

“So let his honour speak,” said he,

And thus the Bull's words fell:-

“The east the west the south the north,

A sixteenth each one, frame

A Spirit-quarter shining forth,

‘Conspicuous’ its name.

He who this quarter, known it thus,

In reverence maintains,

Becometh here conspicuous

And worlds conspicuous gains.

The Fire a quarter will proclaim.”

II. The Fire's Announcement of the Quarter ‘Endless.’

So drove he forth next day

The herd, and where at eve they came

Made halt for night to stay.

A fire he lit and round the cows

He wove a circling pen,

Then on the fire more broken boughs

As fuel set, and then

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Did, facing east with ne'er a stir,

West of the Fire ensconce,

Which whispered "Satyakāma!" "Sir"

Said he in quick response.

Whereat the Fire said "Would I thee

A fourth of Spirit tell."

"So let his honour speak," said he,

And thus the Fire's words fell:

"A sixteenth each, earth, air, sky, cloud

Returning whence it came,

Quarter of Spirit's mystery shroud,

'The Endless' is its name.

He who this quarter, known it thus,

In reverence maintains,

Becomes here aye continuous

And endless worlds he gains."

The Swan a quarter will proclaim.

III. The Swan's Announcement of the Quarter 'Luminous.'

At morn, resumed his way,

He made again, when evening came,

A halt for night to stay.

The fire he lighted, round the cows

Entwined a circling pen;

Built up the fire with broken boughs

And set him eastward; then

The Swan flew down, wings all astir,

And "Satyakāma!" cried,

To which the youth, respectful, "Sir,"

Expectantly replied.

Then cried the Swan "Would I to thee

A fourth of Spirit tell."

"So let his honour speak," said he,

And thus the Swan's words fell:

7—CERTAIN CREATURES TEACH SATYAKĀMA 93

"The fire, the sun, the morn, the glare

Called 'Lightning,' quarter frame,

A sixteenth each; since light these bear,

'The luminous' its name.

He who this quarter, known it thus,

In reverence maintains.

Becomes in this world luminous,

Worlds luminous he gains."

A fourth the Diver will proclaim.

IV. The Diver-Bird's Announcement of the Quarter

'Supported.'

The cows again next day

He drove, and where at eve they came

Made halt for night to stay.

A fire he lit and fenced the cows

Within enclosing pen,

More fuel laid of broken boughs,

Sat eastward facing; then

The Diver-bird, wings all astir,

Alighted by his side

With "Satyakāma!" Quoth he "Sir!"

And needful did abide.

Then cried the Diver "I would thee

A fourth of Spirit tell."

"So let his honour speak," said he,

And these the words that fell:

"The breath, the eye, the ear, the mind,

A Spirit-quarter frame;

Support these sixteen parts each find;

'Supported' thus its name.

He who this quarter, known it thus,

In reverence maintains,

Supported in this world becomes,

And worlds supported gains."

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Satyakāma returns.

The teacher cried to him arrived,

"My dear, I see thee shine

Like Spirit-knower. Whence derived

The knowledge that is thine?"

Satyakāma asks his teacher to instruct him.

"From men I learned not, yet to me

Instruction give I pray,

For I have heard, from those like thee,

Who seeks upon this way

Knowledge most fit to gain the goal,

From teachers gathers it."

The Teacher now tells him the secret and tells it fully

Then told the sage to him the whole,

Yea, kept not back a whit.

8

HOW SPIRIT BECAME THE ALL

From the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest

How Spirit became the All

We find this asked: “Knowledge of Spirit is

The means by which men think they will the All

Become. What was it then that Spirit knew,

Whereby it did the all become?”

To that

We thus reply: Spirit indeed this world

At the beginning was. Behold, it knew

Itself as self. So, Spirit being, it

Could then itself address: “I that am I,

I Spirit am.” Thereby it did the All

Become.

Whoever of the gods (be it

The God of Storm, the Sun, or other god)

To that awoke, the All became. So too

The seers, so also—men. Perceiving that,

To this the seer Vāmadeva came:

“Manu, the first of all mankind, was I.

So too, ’t is I that shines as Sun.”

The same

Likewise to-day doth hold. The man who knows

“I Spirit am,” the All doth he become.

Even the gods possess no power that he

Should not be so, for he thereby their self

Becomes.

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The man who thinks " He yonder there

Is one and I another," and so comes

Other divinity to worship than

The Self, this knowledge hath not yet attained.

A beast domestic of the gods is he,

To service bound. And mark, as many beasts

With men are each one reckoned in, with gods

Each single man. Be from the herd but one

Withdrawn is found unpleasant. What say then,

If many? So, not what they like it is,

That human beings this should come to know.

9

THE SELF CREATIVE

From the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest

The Self Creative

This world in the beginning was the Self,

In person's form disposed, nought else than he.

He thus bestirred:

As forest-dweller who,

Spinning a twig within his hands, a spark

Doth draw from out a white-bleached stock, long lain

A relict of o'erspreading boughs, that, smote

By many searching suns, hath tinderous

Become, and blows the spark to flame: so he.

Unto his mouth he raised his hands. [With that

The teacher raised his hands to show in act

The marvel told.] He, churning with his lips—

Lips that are twain as twain the drill-stick and

The mother-stock—did breathe out fire. His mouth

Whereby the Spirit did itself express

(Keep thou in mind the Hymns of praise and prayer

The Spirit moved our poets to recite,

Which, they aver, they heard from heaven, used now

In our devotions at the sacrifice)

Did thus become, e'en that his mouth, the womb

Wherefrom he brought this world to light, And so

We find in that his kindling act of old

These three together linked that testify

To-day to that primeval partnership

By being smooth alike within: the mouth,

The hands, and that dark place of origin

From which we all proceed.

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So, recognise

All moisture, be it rain at whose descent

The food doth break forth from the ground, or sap

Of trees that into leaves and buds doth burst,

Or lymph that burgeons into teeming life,

As one great effluence sent forth from him,

Yea, as in truth that Soma stream which from

The stalks we crush in solemn act doth flow,

The while we join in holy sacrifice,

Which doth in those who quaff awaken thought

And speech and them immortal make and leads

Them into light so that they come the gods

To know.

Mark next. Thus much is this whole world:

Just food and that which eateth food, these two,

Eaten and eater. Food is Soma. That

Which eats is fire, the glow forsooth we feel

Within, which with digestive power the food

We take consumes.

So knew he: "It is I

Who this creation am, for from myself

I sent it forth, e'en all I now behold."

Thence it was that this creation came

To be. Who knows this comes indeed to be

In this creation that is his.

Yet more

To tell! What of the gods? We hear folk say

"Worship this god and that god," singing out

First one and then another. Nathless these

Are from himself. He it is is all

The gods. And that the Spirit's, mark thou,

Super-creation is. So called because

More fair and glorious than himself are these,

E'en gods, that from himself he hath evolved.

He, mortal, hath immortals brought him forth,

Super-creation therefore truly called.

In that creation which, while his, doth him

Surpass, the man who knows this comes to be.

10

THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA ĀRUNEYA TO HIS SON SVETAKETU

From the Secret Teaching in the Chant.

The Instruction given by Uddālaka Āruneya to his son Svetaketu

Uddālaka bids his son engage in sacred study.

Uddālaka did Śvetaketu bid

Engage in sacred study, for, said he,

"Among our family is none who is

Unlearnèd in the Vedas, in Brahminhood

By kinship, as it were."

The Pride of the Graduate.

Had Śvetaketu at the age of twelve

Become a pupil in the sacred lore

And all the Vedas learned, he then, at age

Of four and twenty, to his home returned,

Possessed of mighty mind, deeming himself

A learnèd man, and in his bearing stiff.

The Father's Question.

Of which observant, said Uddālaka:

"My dear, thou hast with mighty mind returned,

Deeming thyself a learnèd man, and stiff

In bearing. Means this thou didst also ask

That teaching to be given thee whereby

That which hath not been heard of meets the ear,

That which hath not been thought of enters thought,

That not as yet discerned becomes discerned?"

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Śvetaketu has to confess his ignorance.

To this could Śvetaketu but reply:

"What pray, Sir, is that teaching?"

All separation is simply putting a name.

Thus addressed,

His father said: "Just as by but one lump

Of clay, my dear, may all that is of clay

Be understood, or by one ornament

Of copper everything of copper known,

Or apprehended by one nail-scissors all

That is of iron: so that teaching is.

First, take a lump of clay. We call it 'lump,'

As separate in itself regard,

But only in our 'calling' is it so;

The separation is a taking hold

By voice, yea nothing more, nought else

Than putting of a name; the truth is clay.

Consider next the copper 'ornament.'

It seems to us existent in itself,

Yet here again the separation that

We make is just a capture by the voice,

The putting of a name; the truth this time

Is copper. Let us next the 'scissors' take.

The separation, here again assumed,

Is nothing but a seizing by the voice,

A name we put; the truth, reality,

Here met is simply iron."

Śvetaketu begs to be instructed.

"Verily."

Said Śvetaketu. "This those honoured men

Who taught me did not know for had they known

Why should they not have told me? But do thou,

Sir, tell it me." "My dear, so be it," said

Uddālaka, and thus he spake:-

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 101

Only Being in the beginning.

"Know then

That simply Being, simply One, and so

Without a second, was this world at first.

In contrary indeed some people say

'Non-being simply, only One, and so

Without a second, was this world at first,

And so did Being come to be.' But how

Could Being from Non-being issue forth?

Not so! In the beginning Being was,

Just Being, One, without a second."

The Production from Being of Heat, Water, Food as

Constituents of the World.

"It

Bethought itself 'May I be many, bring

Forth progeny!' [Doth not a person so

Desire, himself beholding only One

Without a second? And in that which is

Just Being, with no second, only One,

Is not the many just in thought thereon

Involved?] With that did Heat arise. Then Heat

Bethought itself 'May I be many!' Then

The Waters did ensue. [Observe thou, when

A person grieves or doth exert himself,

His heat engenders water; tears are shed

And sweat comes forth.] The Waters then bethought

Themselves 'One flood we be, we also would

Be many.' From out the Waters Food then rose.

[Note thou how food springs up when rain sinks in.]

So these compose the world: first, Heat, that is

To say, all warmth, wherever warmth be found;

The Waters—that is all that liquid is,

The fluids coursing through our frame, the clouds,

All moisture, life's elixir multiplex;

And Food, that is, all solid, due some time

To meet its eater, he who eats thereof

By it, his food, in turn to eaten be,

For Justice so requires."

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BEING, ENTERING AS INDIVIDUAL SOUL INTO THESE CONSTITUENTS OF THE WORLD, FASHIONS OUT NAME AND FORM.

"But note that now—

And how momentous this did prove !—did that Divinity bethink itself, aware

Of lack in these divinities, these three, Heat, Water, Food, of which had heat

And water sent their products out, each at Its own initiative from out themselves

Apart from Being's aid: 'Come, let me, with This living self, an entrant I, within

These three divinities, in them at home, Them permeating, make out Name and Form.'"

THE TRANSFORMATION ('RED,' 'WHITE' AND 'BLACK') EFFECTED BY NAME AND FORM UPON THE THREE CONSTITUENTS OF THE WORLD (HEAT, WATER, FOOD)

"Thus Being Name and Form did fashion out, When with this living soul It came to dwell,

Active inhabitant, within this world Of heat and lymph and food, a world ere that unnamed,

Possessed of nothing in itself discrete. Contrást with that unpunctuated state

The gladsome change when Being, One, without A second, entered thus, to dwell herein

Active inhabitant, and set him up To be the joint assessors of his rule.

These 'goblins' twain, yclept so by our sires, E'en Name that puts the Form (that is the shape

Mark, colour, impress, whatsoe'er it be, Upon the sense or mind), and Form that doth

Embody Name; for, master-wizards they, By names they have bestowed upon Heat, Lymph, And Food, the forms that constitute the world.

Heat styling 'red,' the Waters—'white,' Food—'black,' Have wrought with potent magic on our sense,

For as the 'lump' of clay, the copper 'ornament,' The 'scissors' made of iron, were indeed

Found nothing else than strictures by the voice,

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 103

Mere puttings of a name, the truth of each—

Clay, copper, iron; so it also is

With 'red' and 'white' and 'black.' These three are each

Nought else than takings-hold by voice, are but

The puttings of a name, the truth is one

Of these three forms, Heat, Water, Food. Where name

Of 'red' is given, there is Heat; where 'white'—

The Waters are; where 'black'—is Food."

EXAMPLES OF THESE THREE NAMES, 'RED,' 'WHITE,' 'BLACK,'

AS THEY ARE GIVEN TO CERTAIN POWERS THAT SHINE,

WHICH POWERS, BEING THUS SHOWN TO BE NOTHING ELSE

THAN COMPOSITES OF THE THREE FORMS THAT CONSTI-

TUTE THE WORLD, LOSE THEIR INDEPENDENT EXISTENCE.

"Note then

That Being hath these products three that are

Eventual from himself, that do the world

Compose, Heat, Waters, Food, transfigured with

These names of 'red,' 'white,' 'black.' So now observe

How these three elemental forms present

Themselves, each in its own disguise, in these,

Fire, sun, moon, lightning, powers four that shine.

FIRST, THE FIRE.

"First, watch the fire advancing in the wood.

It kindles in the form named 'red.' 'Tis Heat

We see. Then 'white' it glows and palpitates.

The Waters (Liquid) it is plainly, that

We now descry. Then with its lowering

Doth 'black,' the char, set in, which certes is

Food (Solid, Earth) presented to our eyes.

So here it is as with the 'lump' of clay of which

We spoke, the 'ornament' of copper, 'pair

Of scissors' made of iron, each of which,

Declared to be a separate thing, was by

Reflection found in truth to simply be

Clay, copper, iron, made of which these are;

Their separate existence nothing more

Than just a capture by the voice, nought else

For each than putting of a name. Here then

104 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

The ‘red,’ ‘white,’ ‘black,’ we see are nothing else Than those three forms that constitute the world, Heat, Water, Food. The firehood from the fire Hath gone.”

Second, the Sun.

“Next watch the sun. It riseth ‘red,’ Whatever ‘red’ it hath is form of Heat. Ascending, it becometh ‘white,’ more ‘white,’ A pool that seetheth to the brim. Are not The Waters (Liquid) plainly there? From height Descending, next it waxeth ‘black.’ Is not Food (Solid, Earth) as plain now here to see? So ‘red,’ ‘white,’ ‘black,’ are only graspings by The voice, nought else than putting of these names; The truth, reality, is just these three That constitute the world. And so hath gone The sunhood from the sun.”

Third, the Moon.

“The moon next view. Perchance it riseth red. See ‘white’ set in, As if into a goblet deftly held On high ‘t were slowly poured, until all ‘white’ It shines, and then as slowly wane, as if From that high held-up goblet white again At the same measure were oblate; what but The waters teeming in and filling up And passing out again? And when these out Have gone, all ‘black’ we see. Plainly ‘t is Food (Earth, Solid) come to view. So ‘red,’ ‘white,’ ‘black’ Are nought but seizings made by voice, Just putting of these names; the truth we see Is just Heat, Waters, Food. And so hath gone The moonhood from the moon.”

Fourth, the Lightning.

“Alert, next watch Break-in the lightning, unexpected when, Whence, whither. Ho! the ‘red’! What else but Heat?

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 105

Next see the fans of 'white' that open out

Across the sky, as might a river, loosed

On sudden from the hills, o'erflood the plain;

And jets of 'white,' the flying life-sap launch:

The Waters! Note the 'black' where down the tree

The dazzling 'white' has travelled; what that but

Food (Earth, the Solid)? Here again are 'red'

'White,' 'black' but captures by the voice, no more

Than putting of these names; the truth is just

Heat, Waters, Food. These three constituents

That make the world are the reality.

The lightning-hood hath from the lightning gone.

"In sooth just this the great householders versed

In sacred lore did know when thus of old

They claimed: 'No one may now bring up to us

That which hath never met our ear, our thought

Hath never entered, never hath by us

Been understood,' for they from these three forms

Knew everything. Whatever 'red' appeared

They knew was form of Heat, whatever 'white'

The form pronounced upon the Waters, 'dark,'

Wherever seen, the form of Food. And thus

What did un-understood appear they knew

A combination just to be of just

These three divinities."

The Names and Forms of the World-Forms in their

grasp upon the Person.

"And now, my dear,"

Uddālaka continued, "understand

From me, in what conditions each of these

Divinities, Heat, Waters, Food, that form

The world, are found when, reaching forward, they

Have seized upon the person; three the names

And forms on each pronounced—coarse, medium, fine—

Three sortings.

"So, my dear, the passage note

From coarse to fine from dense to subtle, just

As with coagulated milk, when churned,

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Doth all that finest essence is ascended

And make itself above the thickened curd

A crown of shining lambent butter, fit

To pour upon the leaping altar flames,

That these may, eager carriers, bear it up

To feed the gods.

"Mark then of Food

When eaten, three constituents—the coarse,

The excrement, its riddance gladly made;

The medium, next, the flesh, the tender wrap

That clothes the bones; the next and innermost,

And so from grasp of these divinities

That seize upon the person most removed,

The fine, the mind, that in the heart with glow

And thought and purpose doth bestir.

"Next note

The Waters. See how they, when drunk, become

Apportioned; first, the coarse, a noisome thing,

And so, set in the bilge for riddance; next

The medium that doth surge the heart within,

A tide of warming crimson; next, the fine,

The breath, of texture rare indeed, that sends

Beneficent its various winding spires

Throughout our frame.

"So too doth Heat become,

When eaten, three: the first part coarsest, bone;

The next, the medium, marrow; then—the fine,

The voice.

"For know, although not manifest

Are these, the mind is made of Food, the breath—

Of Waters, voice—of Heat.

"And so again,

Is separation nothing else discerned

To be than pendant simply on the voice

The putting merely of a name; the truth,

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 107

Reality, of these is these three forms,

Heat, Waters, Food, that did in sequence come

From Being, when it did bethink itself

'O let me many be,' and now compose

The whole wide world we see.'

"O sir, do thou,

Who with this doctrine so enlightenest me,

Cause me to understand yet more."

"So let it be,' Uddālaka replied.

The Further Enlightenment of Śvetaketu.

But not by mere description did he next

His son instruct, but by experiment

By means of which he showed a person doth

Of sixteen parts consist; and then did he

On sleep hunger and thirst discourse; and then

Detailed what happens when a person dies.

What happens when a person dies.

"When here a person is deceasing, goes

His voice into his mind," my dear; "his mind—

Into his breath; his breath then into heat;

Then into the highest divinity

The heat proceeds.

"Thus into that

Divinity, e'en Being, do return

Food, Water, Heat successively in these

Three forms refined, now named mind, breath, and heat.

A threefold devolute, each into that

Reverting out of which it did proceed,

When these, a threefold evolute, did out

Of Being rise, when it bethought itself

'O may I many be' and thus produced

The world."

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The Secret Announced.

The Secret then the sage disclosed:

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is, That—the Self;

That art thou, O Śvetaketu.

At that in Śvetaketu stirred

A strange expectancy, but yet he felt

His heart's door closed.

"O Sir," said he, "just more

Make me to understand."

"So let it be,

My dear," his father said, and then did these

Enigmas following now put forth, that they,

The secret holding or to serve it bent,

Might waken wonder, and that wonder, roused,

Might at his heart's door knock, and so his mind,

By wonder made alert, might forward step,

And ope the door and let the secret in.

Riddles of Being.

The First Riddle: The Trees and the Honey.

"O Śvetaketu, lift thine eyes! The tree-tops hold in view!

See how the trees their flowering there display against the

blue—

Mark dazzling white, mark scarlet like a flame—

Thus holding up

Within each cup

The essence of each mighty leaf-clothed frame!

But list, O Śvetaketu, to the murmur of the bees!

What do they in the sunshine that is beating on the trees?

These juices making run

All to a honey one;

So, none of these proud trees can say, arrived that honey at,

'Behold, this tree so great am I!' 'And I, behold, am that!'

Just so, my dear,

All offsprings here,

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 109

That in deep sleep, or at their dying, into Being go,

Do not, though Being they have reached, 'We have reached Being' know.

And tiger, lion, wolf, boar, worm, gnat, mosquito with its hum,

Whatever in this world they be, they That again become.

Now then, to this I said apply thy mind:

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is, That—the Self;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu.'

"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

The Second Riddle: The Rivers and the Gathered

Waters.

"Behold the eastern rivers, dear, how swiftly east they go

The western next, how strongly they to opposite do flow !

Come from the gathered Waters all these streams, howe'er

diverse

The paths be ta'en

By which they speed, into the gathered waters to immerse

Themselves again;

Yea, just those very gathered waters they become to which

they hie,

Therein to know not 'I this mighty river am,' 'That river—I.'

Just so, my dear,

All offsprings here,

Although, when out of dreamless sleep they wake or born they be,

From Being do arrive, yet know not they 'Arrived from Being we.'

And tiger, lion, wolf, boar, worm, gnat, mosquito with its hum.

Whatever in this world they be, they That again become,

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is; That—the Self;

Thou art Thou, O Śvetaketu."

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"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

THE THIRD RIDDLE: THE TREE.

"If one upon this tree—root midst or top—a blow should give,

There, at that point, the tree should bleed, but yet the tree would live,

For in the Self, shown in the whole, the tree doth stand alive,

Rejoicing, moisture drinking in, and all its good derive.

And, if the life doth leave one branch, that branch doth wither quite,

A second left and then a third, each perishes outright,

Yet not the tree: but, if such fate the whole should come upon,

Which is the Self's embodiment, we say ‘The tree is gone !’

The form doth linger. True ! But network bleached and gaunt

Without the Self is not adept the tree to be to vaunt.

The life that as the Self doth move did make that form the tree;

Life gone, no more—the tree, although as erst the form may be.

Life gone, yet say not ‘perished life.’ The form by life is left

And perish shall—so too this body when of life bereft—

But life is more than that which meets the eye

And life as life shall never die.

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the real is; That—the Self;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu.

"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply, "So let it be."

THE FOURTH RIDDLE: THE SEED OF THE NY-AG-RODHA BERRY.

"Our Fig-tree's scarlet berry now bring me."

"'Tis here," "Divide it." "Now, what dost thou see?"

"These fine deposits, as it were." "Of these

Fine seeds now split but one, and tell me, please,

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA III

What thou dost see." "Not anything," said he.

"That finest essence not perceived by thee,

In sooth from that ariseth this [his hand upward swept] with height so grand,

With vast outspreading dark-leaved crown,

That sends all round its tendrils down

And doth with stems fetched-up comprise

Well-nigh a forest to thine eyes,

The ny-ag-rodha tree ! Believe

Me then, my dear. The truth receive.

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is; that—the Self;

That are Thou, O Śvetaketu."

"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

The Fifth Riddle: The Salt in the Water.

"Into the water put this salt," said he,

And in the morning come, my dear, to me.

He did as told. His father then did say

"The salt thou placedst over-night, I pray,

Now bring to me." To grasp it then he sought,

But not a grain could to his touch be brought;

Completely was the salt dissolved. "A sip

From this end take; how is it?" "Salt." "Now dip

In midst thy finger. There how doth it taste?"

"There too 'tis salt." "The far end next be traced;

How tastes it there?" "Salt, too." "More salt now cast

And come again." "How now?" "Just as the last.

'Tis salt, yea salter. Always is it so."

"Just as thy grasp and sight—this therefore know—

The salt thou castedst in did not retrieve,

So, sooth, thou dost not Being here perceive;

Yet that the salt is present taste makes clear;

So verily indeed is Being here.

That which is the finest essence : That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is ; That—the Self ;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu."

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"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

The Sixth Riddle: The Blind-folded Foreigner on the Windswept Plain.

"It is, my dear, as if one did this story tell:

'Suppose to some wild spot where no man dared to dwell

One led away, with eyes close bandaged, pinioned fast,

A man of the Gandhāras; there, to every blast

That swept across, abandoned him, left there to go

To east or north or south just as the wind might blow;

And one should come and tear the bandage from his eyes

And set him free and say "In that direction lies

The land of the Gandhāras. Holding that, walk on!"

Would he, village to village he should come upon

Inquisite of his way, upon that line contrive,

Learned were he and wise, and home indeed arrive.'

Even so, caught in the cyclone that here ever blows,

(Pushed this way, that) a person with a teacher knows

'Shall this, for just so long as unreleased I be,

Entoil me. Once set free, arrival sure for me!'

That which is the finest essence : That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is ;

That the Real is ; That—the Self ;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu."

"O Sir, make me just more to understand," said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

The Seventh Riddle: The Kernel of Consciousness.

"View now, my dear, the sick man taken sore to task,

Death nigh. His kinsmen, one and other, round him ask

'Me dost thou know?' 'Dost thou know me?' That man

doth know

So long as not his voice into his mind doth go,

Into his breath his mind, his breath then into heat,

Heat the highest divinity into. But mete

That course its way (when voice doth into mind retire,

10—THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA 113

Mind into breath, breath into heat (a sinking fire !),

Heat the highest divinity into): come so

The inner man to be, then ceaseth he to know.

That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is; That—the Self;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu.'

"O Sir, make me just more to understand" said he.

To which his father did reply "So let it be."

Eighth Riddle: The Invisible Protection in Life's Ordeal.

"This also. They lead up, seized by the hand, a man;

Call 'He hath robbed; a theft committed!' Nathless they can

No proof adduce. The deed they name he doth deny.

So 'Heat the ax. Let that him test!' they cry.

Now note, if he in verity the deed did do,

He hath by his denial made himself untrue,

Thus making with untruth himself identified,

Untruth as covert taking, within which to hide.

Fallacious trust ! The heated ax by him is ta'en

And he is burned therewith, and presently is slain.

But if that man the deed accused of did not do,

Then by his protest he himself now maketh true,

And, he himself thus with the truth identified,

Within his covert, truth, he doth secure abide.

That man the heated ax doth grasp, but not burned he,

And so not led to slaughter, but forthwith set free.

As did that man, made one with truth, continue whole,

Its course this world, with That, e'en Truth, its soul

And finest essence, holds unbreakably secure.

'T is truth alone that matters. Nothing else is sure.

With truth around thee wrapped, thou shalt thyself maintain

Through life's unceasing ordeal; untruth-clad, be slain.

Know then Thyself and Truth to be identical.

That is the secret. Nothing then appal thee shall.

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That which is the finest essence: That which hath

that Essence as its soul this whole world is;

That the Real is; That—the Self;

That art Thou, O Śvetaketu."

The Secret Realised.

'T was now perchance the lighted countenance to him came,

That won for Śvetaketu (Radiance White) his name

(Or had erst hope or portent bade that name bestow ?),

For now did shine from him, we may surmise, the glow

Of Spirit-Knower. Fled at this his doubtful mood.

We read "he understood him; yea, he understood."

I I

THE BIRD OF PARADISE

From The Secret Teaching for the Tonsured

Also found in

The Secret Teaching of the Possessor of the White Mules

and given point to in The Secret Teaching of Maitri

The Bird of Paradise

THE SIGHT OF THE TRANSCENDENT SELF DELIVERS.

The Disciple Quotes the Ballad.

Here, Sir, is the ballad our seers hand us down

Of the bird in the tree and the bird on its crown.

The Ballad.

Two bright-feathered birds clasp close the same tree

And companions fast bound to each other they be.

One eats the sweet fruit, that doting upon;

The other bright bird without eating looks on.

The Disciple’s Comment and his Question.

So This who eats none is on the tree-top

And is quite undisturbed, while That one doth flop

From twig on to twig, with quiver all rife,

On sea-saw forever, afraid of his life;

With wings all a-flutter and twittering voice,

With his constant engagement the delicate choice

Of the dark-purple berries he gulps down like pelf,

Yet satiate ne’er nor content in himself,

Too engrossed to discover that far o’er his head

His Companion is stationed with nothing to dread,

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O ! so brilliantly gay in sunshine up there

In peace all serene in the far upper air.

Your pupil, O Sir, is anxious to know

What cure there may be for this Person's sad woe.

The Teacher's Interpretation.

O pupil, the lilt on this old poet's tongue

But dissembles with lightness solemnity sung,

That, snatched not by dullards, it meet no surprise,

But be guessed in its hiding by humble and wise;

For this Bird so resplendent on top of the tree,

The Maker Lord Person and Spirit-source He,

The One Bird and only, e'en That set on high,

That can any, in thinking or doing, espy.

Who, then, catcheth sight of that far-away Bird,

The Only that is, is by no ill bestirred,

For that Bird so resplendent on top of the tree

Can be none but himself, yea none other than he.

How then lures in the boscage, and shadows so grim,

And self so distraught ?—they are not his nor him;

For he is the Bird on that grand station far,

Shaken off good and evil and all that doth jar,

Poised safe above sund'rance, yea, blent into one

The opposites all, howe'er contraire they run.

O blessed the peace of him who here fares

When his is the knowledge this doctrine declares !

12

THE INSTRUCTION YAJNAVALKYA GAVE

TO JANAKA, KING OF THE VIDEHAS

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest

The Instruction Yājnavalkya gave to

Janaka, King of the Videhas

THE FIRST INSTRUCTION.

The Sage's Resolve and his Repentance of it.

The Sage approached the King with this in mind:

"I will not speak [these problems to unbind]

Regarding which he talketh overmuch,

[These mysteries 't is not for his proud caste to touch]."

But at the sacrifice, when—morn, noon, eve,

At sun's arrival height and taking leave—

The earthly fire by us with milk is fed

And worshipped, the sage repentant said

"O zealous King, what boon wilt thou I offer thee?"

To which the King: "O Sage, suffice it me

To ask thee questions." "Ask me then," replied

The sage.

The King's Question.

Forthwith the eager monarch cried:

"What is the light of man?"

The Sage by his partial answers draws from the King renewed

request for information, which information prepares the

King's mind to receive at last the true Answer to the

King's Question.

With still in mind

His first resolve an answer much confined

The sage returned, "The sun, O King. Thereby

117

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Sits man moves round and works and home doth hie.

Whereat the King again inquired: “But when

The sun hath gone, O sage, what lights man then?”

“The moon, O King, is man's light then. Thereby

He sits moves round and works and home doth hie.”

But yet again, the King: “O Yāinavalkya, when

The sun and moon have gone, what lights man then?”

“The fire, O King, then lighteth man. Thereby

He sits moves round and works and home doth hie.”

“But tell me, sage,” said Janaka again,

“The sun and moon retired, fire out, what then

Is light of man?” “Speech is his light, O King;

For, sight he not his hand, let voice then ring,

To whence it comes his footsteps he doth guide.”

But yet the King did not content abide.

“O sage, when sun and moon withdraw and when

The fire is still, voice hushed,” cried he, “what then

Is light of man?” “The Self, O King. Thereby

He sits moves round and works and home doth hie.”

THE SECOND INSTRUCTION.

The King's Further Question.

“Which Self is this?” asked, yet unsatisfied,

The King.

The To-and-Fro Movement of the Intelligential Self.

“This person here,” the sage replied,

“Among the senses”—at this on breast he laid

His hand—“who of intelligence is made,

The light within the heart, that same doth keep

Through alternating wake and sleep;

In touch with both this world and that beyond,

Doth move along, deeming himself in bond

Of change to be. So when to sleep he falls

Deflecteth he from this sad world that palls

With forms of death. Thou wilt confess that he,

As born and thus with body come to be,

Hath joined him with tumultuous ills, and when,

At dying, out he steps, he leaveth them

These ills behind. Yet now in touch he keeps

With both these worlds. The border where he sleeps

12—THE INSTRUCTION TO JANAKA 119

Is marge of both, so when in sleep he stands

He prospect over both these worlds commands,

With steps this side or that doth take in view

The joys of that world, this world's evils too.''

The Condition of Dreaming.

''So, when from wake to sleep he crossing makes,

With him the measure of this world he takes,

This all-containing world, himself he beats

Asunder what he takes, himself he metes

It out. He doth across with brightness fare

And light that are his own, and reigns he there,

In sleep, himself the light. No teams are there,

Nor paths, nor blisses joys delights; nor streams

Tanks lotus-pools; but from himself projects

He these. Their maker is he there. Affectes

That state this canzonet:

The One Bird of Passage.

He doth in sleep

His boisterous brood at last compel to keep

Their quiet, all the bodily down doth smite.

Far poised, the golden person waxeth bright,

Upon the sleeping peering. Then through air

The one and only swan doth back repair.

The breath left guardian of his nest below,

Out of the nest doth that Immortal go.

Now high now low as he doth choose,

His lonely way the only swan pursues.

And so flights up and down in sleep he takes.

A god, forms many for himself he makes,

Himself with joyance doth 'mong women please,

And laughs and shudders too at sights he sees.

His revelry the multitude descries,

Yet on himself hath no man set his eyes.

Therefore 't is said 'Not unrestrainedly

Arouse a sleeper. Hard to heal is he

To whom he no return doth make.'

Yet some protest 'Nought else than state awake

Returned is this! What erst had met his sight,

That now he sees.' 'Not so!' cry we. 'The light

In dreams is he himself.''

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The King's Largesse

And his Request to be told the Higher for his Soul's Release.

"A thousand cows I give thee, reverend sir,

But higher tell me for my soul's release."

The Teacher continues his Description of the To-and-Fro Movement of the Self.

Yet still of that the teacher held his peace.

Continued he: "Now doth this person haste to go

From sleep wherein he travelled to and fro,

Beholding as it were the good the bad,

To where he origin and entrance had,

Yet bringeth with him nought him following;

To such as he can nothing ever cling."

The King repeats his Largesse

And makes again his request to be told the Higher.

Again did joy the King to give arouse.

"Your reverence, pray, accept a thousand cows;

But tell me higher for my soul's release,"

But yet of that the sage maintained his peace.

THE THIRD INSTRUCTION.

The Description of the To-and-Fro Movement continued.

"Again," said he, "this person hastes to go,

Again he sleeps, so travels to-and-fro.

As doth within a stream a great fish veer

From bank to bank, at first along the near,

Along the farther next, both sides to keep,

So this one crosswise moves to wake and sleep."

Dreamless Sleep.

Discoursed the teacher then of Slumber Deep:

"As in the lift above us with his sweep

And tacking wearied, hasteth, wings compressed,

Eagle or hawk to bear him to his nest;

So this one now descends to meet where he

In sleep knows no desire, no dream doth see.

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His true form this, wherein is craving passed

By speedy runner, evil from him cast,

No haunting fear. A man, embraced about

By wife he loves, nothing doth know without

Nor yet within: so he, who thus hath met

With Self intelligential round him set,

Belike embraced, to same condition brought,

Doth nought within him know, without him nought.

Indeed his true form this, his one desire,

The Soul, attained, and so without desire, from fire

Of grief estranged.

The Root beneath all Divergence.

"A father There is not

A father; a mother—not a mother; what

Once worlds now worlds no more; and gods now There

No longer gods; nor thief a thief; doth bear

He that an embryo's death hath enterprised

That horror There no more; a birth despised—

No more a birth despised; nor begging-saint—

More begging saint; nor who, by fierce restraint

The flesh to master, ascete hath professed—

An ascete longer. Yea, none is There oppressed

By good or evil's constant pestering more.

Behind is left at last the flaming shore

Of all heart-burnings.

The Source of Consciousness.

"Read his condition so:

He sees not with the eyes, yet surely know

He sees; a break of seeing cannot be;

He, only seer, cannot cease to see,

And yet no second thing, no make or mould

Dispart from him himself, can he behold.

He smells not there and yet the while doth smell;

Of that sense too may none disruption tell;

He cannot cease who only catcheth flair;

Yet, while he smelleth, only he is there.

He tasteth not with tongue and yet tastes he;

Must taster one imperishable be;

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Yet, while he tastes, another is not there,

He only of himself can be aware.

So stand all other powers he doth possess;

Not one of these can sink to nothingness.

Be it he taste, speak, hear, think, know, or touch,

Since he alone can taste or speak, can perish never such.

Keep in thy mind this axiom ever clear:

'Tis nought beside himself he knoweth near.

Were there another present, as it were,

Then might on him that other impress bear.

But if beside him not another be,

Whom other is there then to taste hear see?

Thus doth within himself his world compose

The Lord of all the known who only knows.

THE MAN WHOSE WORLD IS SPIRIT.

"Consider him whose world is Spirit, one

And only one. In him, howe'er they run,

All currents do in one become combined,

He self in each, they self in him, to find;

For one in all and all in one is he,

As gathered flood, wherein duality

Is not, where, be there calm or dip and swell,

All entrants one unbroken water dwell,

Met in the only Seer. Highest path

Is this of man, the topmost goal he hath,

Best world. Yea, on a portion just of this

All other creatures live, the highest bliss.

THE BEATIFIC CALCULUS.

THE BLISS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD,

Estimated according to the relative value of the worlds in their

upward succession.

"O sovran, count

The blisses," cried the sage; "in fancy mount

The heights. Of bliss of men the highest state

That man's we deem who is both fortunate

And wealthy, lord of others, and with joys

Of man provided best. The glad employs

Of those who win the fathers' world behold.

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One bliss of these contains a hundredfold

The bliss of men. Raise yet thine eye.

Survey the elves that sing in heights of sky.

One bliss of their fair world of rapturous love

Counts hundredfold the fathers' bliss above.

Gods view who have by deeds their godhead gained.

Surpasses but one bliss by these attained

The bliss of elves a hundredfold. View next

The gods born gods, by striving never vexed.

One bliss of these a hundredfold exceeds

The bliss of gods who gained their place by deeds.

Consider next Who creatures all creates,

Father and Lord. One bliss of his elates

With joy a hundred times above the bliss

Of gods by birth. Yet joy as great as this

So lofty bliss must hundred times be told,

Of Spirit-world a single bliss to hold."

Cried out the King his rapture to relieve:

"A thousand cows, your reverence, receive."

Yet would not from his old petition cease:

"The higher tell me for my soul's release!"

THE FOURTH INSTRUCTION.

"This sapient King," the teacher now confessed,

"Hath me from all my hiding-corners pressed!"

Yet not at once did he the knot untie,

But first depicted what it is to die.

The Soul at Death.

"As lurching, creaking, forges loaded cart,

Behold the bodily self work out its part,

Tremorous, wheezing, when one goeth hence,

The Self intelligential, wrought intense,

Upon it mounted up. As round a King

At his departure thronging nobles ring,

And policemen, chariot-drivers, village heads,

So round the soul that sternly from them treads

The senses gather. Then, to weakness brought,

Be he with weight of years or sickness fraught,

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As from the branchèd tree doth take release

The mango, fig, or berry, so decease

Makes he from these his limbs, bending his track

To entrance whence he came, again hastes back

To live another life.

Becoming One.

"Now mark crowd in

The senses, watch their king his fight begin,

Uphold him to their utmost in his bout.

Press too his neighbours on him from without

And cry, when those who come perceives not he,

"He is becoming one; he does not see."

["Not see!" protest we. Rather sees he, know.

It must with him the only seer be so.]

Cry they, when blooms he scents not, once loved well,

"He is becoming one; he cannot smell."

["Not smell!" Fragrance he catcheth still, be told.

He that alone doth smell, his power must hold.]

Cry they, dainties ignored when gently placed,

"He is becoming one; he doth not taste."

["Not taste!" He tastes. Tasting, be certified,

Must e'er with only taster be allied.]

Cry they, when voice he seems in vain to seek,

"He is becoming one; he cannot speak."

["Not voice possess!" Be sure indeed that he

The only speaker still must speaker be.]

Again they cry, when nought awakes his ear,

"He is becoming one; he cannot hear."

["Not hear!" How can be non-responsive found

The only one that apprehendeth sound?]

They cry, when this with that he cannot link,

"He is becoming one; he cannot think."

["Not think!" Shall that one's power of thinking be

dissolved

By whom alone all thinking is resolved?]

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Note they that no response he makes when kissed.

"He is becoming one, for touch is missed."

[Shall he whose touch alone we mortals share

Of touch himself be ever unaware?]

Cry they when he no consciousness doth show.

"He is becoming one; no longer doth he know."

["Not know!" Shall vacancy that one betide

In whom alone cognition doth reside?]

The Rallying of the Basal Powers.

"The Self apparently, beneath this stress,

Thus come to weakness and confusedness,

Now inward turns the person in the eye,

And outward forms thus ceaseth to descry;

And down into the heart the Self retires,

As cordon takes the functions' basal fires,

For breath still moves; and list! the heart doth beat.

The Desire to Acquire Another Body.

"Would that this man from all desire retreat

Had ta'en, save from desire for no desire;

So had he found beneath heart's throbbing fire

The cool retreat, e'en now, where dwells the Root

In calm deep set, that hath as bloom and fruit

Life's myriad forms, and knowing It indeed

From his attachment to these forms been freed!

But no! with this poor man it is not so.

The Setting-out to Acquire Another Body.

"At heart's point springs a forward-reaching glow

And through that lighted door he makes resort

By eye or head or other bodily port

Back to the surge that held him thrall before.

And after him, e'en through that lighted door,

The central breath, doyen of life, forth leads.

Upon it close its retinue proceeds,

The other, comrade, breaths. All hurry hence.

The flesh is left, and with intelligence

At one he doth become. So is there gone,

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When he is gone, intelligence. Upon

Him then his knowledge and his doings press,

And his experience in bygone stress,

[For arbiters and ushers these of where

In life's wild spin shall be again his share.]

The Acquirement of Another Body.

"As caterpillar, come to verge, non-plussed,

Together draws itself, thus based and trussed,

To launch forth other blade of grass to find,

May haply prove him for next progress kind;

This Self the body so thrusts down, to make

Next step non-knowledge bids departure take,

Himself together draws.

As, deft hands laid,

An artist takes a piece of rich brocade,

Unweaves its beauty, then doth it restore

To newer form and lovelier than before,

Just so this Self of this body doth strike down,

Dismiss non-knowledge, fashion then for crown

Another form, newer, more fair, than this,

Such form as of the fathers in their bliss

Of sky-elves or of gods, or, might one dare,

What might the Creatures' Lord or Spirit bear,

Or form may be of other beings wrought.

The Comprehensiveness of the Self.

"Yea, what from out this Self may not be brought,

A matrix rich? Spirit is This. Inbound

Are knowledge, mind, breath, hearing, seeing, found;

Earth, water, wind, space, strength, non-vigour too;

Wish, wish-not, wrath, not-wrath, what one may do,

And do may not; yea, everything in this is blent.

Here meet we what the old-time adage meant:

'There's this, there's that, there's all intilt.'

Acts decide the Sort of Man:

"The sort

Of man the acts whereto he doth comport

Decide. The man who in the life he leads

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127

Does good, doth good become, who—evil deeds,

Evil becometh he. His deeds—to me

'T is plain—do make the man. As deeds, so—he.

The doer is the man that comes to be.

Desire is the Source of Acts.

"But people say 'Not so we understand.

The "This and that"—our adage—makes demand

For man of "This or that". This person not

Of acts is made; but of desire, we wot,

Construct is he, yea of desire alone."

'Made of desire' he is at first, I own;

But choice produceth doing, doing—deed;

Himself-fallen-in-with-that is then his meed.

The Pull of the Deed.

"Mark now, O sovran, that the following verse

That direful course describes in fashion terse:

Goes with the deed just where be mind attached

The germ within of him thus inly latched.

End of his act in yon world gained,

Whate'er was here below attained,

Back from that world above he then

Comes to this world of act again.

Such he who doth desire.

The Attainment of Him Who is Without Desire.

"But now the lot

Of him take measure, who desireth not,

With no desire, but with desire removed,

Desire obtained, yea Soul alone approved.

From that man with their hurrying rout

His life-breaths make no questful progress out.

Spirit being, the Soul his one desire,

Within, to Spirit, doth that man retire.

Therein, O king, thou dost the secret hold.

Here is a verse in which it is enrolled:

All the desires at last unloosed

That in his heart had found their roost,

Mortal, immortal come to be,

Spirit now attaineth he.

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The Dissolution of the Body of Him who is without Desire.

"What of the body? As of snake the slough,

A narrow house within which long enough,

If called to mind, then only to despise,

Lies on an ant-hill, so this body lies.

Again, the Attainment.

"Yea, lo! thus bodiless and freed from death,

Spirit and Glory now, the viewless breath!"

The King's Largesse again.

Whereat did joy again the king bestir.

"A thousand cows I give thee, reverend sir."

THE FIFTH INSTRUCTION.

The Glory of the Self.

Did next the sage, attained this consummate,

Upon the glory of the Soul dilate:

"The great the unborn Self in verity

We here bespeak. Among the senses he

(The teacher while he spake did make to rest

As at the first his hand upon his breast)

And of intelligence is made. The space

Within the heart he holds as resting-place

And all commands, lord he of all, of all,

Yea, overlord, to whom doth not befall

Increased to be by deed ignoble wrought,

Nor less be made by ill to triumph brought;

The beings' overlord and guard; the dyke

That holds the worlds apart, yet doth not strike

Asunder.

Toil and Denial.

"Him the divines do seek to know

By Veda-repetition they bestow,

By sacrifices, gifts, austerity,

And fasting. Knowing simply such as he,

Possessed enthusiasts keep them dumb.

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Perpetual wanderers do men become,

Just on the quest for him their world to be.

The men who lived in ancient days we see,

This having known, no wish for offspring frame,

But ‘What with offspring shall we do’ exclaim,

‘Whose is this Self this world?’ Such men as they

Stood up from wish for sons, fared forth away,

Eke from desire for wealth, for worlds, to go

Upon the course of life that beggars know;

For they in wish for sons, as wish for gain,

And wish for gain, as wish for worlds, each twain,

Did but the weaving of desire detect.

The Ungraspability and Independence of the Self.

“All designation is upon him wrecked.

‘Is this he? That—he?’ ‘No!’ and ‘No!’ ‘T is so

Alone, can those reply who that Self know;

Not seizable, for none with hands to take;

Not to be crushed, and so for none to break;

Attached to nought, and so by nothing held;

Unbound, sways not, compelled

By neither ‘Hence1 performed I wrong’ nor ‘Hence1

Achieved I right,’ but, crossing over thence,

The done and not-done burn him not; behind

He leaveth both. This verse hath that in mind:

He that, within a Brahmin dwelling, makes him great,

Acquires by deed no greater and no minished state.

The Self it is, that doth the path to him make clear.

Who knoweth this, the evil deed doth not besmear.2

Again, the Glory of the Self.

“Therefore, made calm, subdued, a knower-thus,

Within himself at ease, to suffer strenuous,

Composed, doth in the soul the Soul perceive,

Sees all as Soul. No ill him crosses; leave

He takes of evil all. Imparts no scorch

To him the flame of ill; yea evil’s torch

1 A scholiast interprets ‘Hence’ to mean ‘because I am in the body.’

2 The original of this quotation, which the translator believes to be what was originally quoted, is here translated. See Note.

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He doth torment with fire his own. Set free

From evil, passion dark, and doubt, doth he

Become a Brahmin. Here, O king, behold

The Spirit-world before thy gaze." Thus told

At last his secret Yājnavalkya.

The Submission of Janaka.

Rapt

With climax such, the king cried, kingship sapped,

"I the Videhas do for thraldom give,

Myself as well, to thee, thy slaves to live,

O reverend sir."

The Reply of the Sage.

To which the sage replied.

"The great the unborn Soul, so glorified,

Is none but he that eateth common food

And doth dispense the manifestly good.

The man who this doth know, the good doth find."

The Envoy.

This as his envoy then the sage consigned:

"Spirit is this, the great, the unborn Soul,

Ageless, deathless, who never fear need thole;

Yea, not one fear can there in Spirit be.

And O! the man who knows this: Spirit—he."

13

YĀJNAVALKYA'S LAST TESTAMENT

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest

Yājnavalkya's Last Testament

YĀJNAVALKYA MAKES KNOWN TO MAITREYĪ THE ARRIVAL FOR HIM OF THE FINAL STAGE OF LIFE.

"The time, O Maitreyī, to us has come

From thee to part and from Kātyāyanī,"

Said Yājnavalkya. "Nought may be unsparred,

This pleasant house, these richly yielding kine

That low around, the neighbours known so long,

Thee and Kātyāyanī, consorts to me

In this my well-filled term of fleeting life;

All must be left. The closing stage its call

Makes clear. Into the wilderness I fare,

To place of session in the forest find,

Where, far removed from all that doth distract,

I may cut off all knots, yea finest threads,

That hold my soul a captive, for it yet

Doth cling (tho' conscious in itself that such

Dependent state doth not the Self befit)

Upon the hampering ever-pulling web

Of circumstance; and woe betide me, if

I be not free before death come. So haste

I now to this my task. But first must I

With thee and with Kātyāyanī conclude

A final settlement."

'The Question of Maitreyī.

Now Maitreyī

Upon philosophy was wont at times

To make discourse. Kātyāyanī

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No more than women for the most part do

Gave thought to that.

So now said Maitreyī

"My lord, were at this moment all this earth

Replete with acquisitions mine, should I

Thereby become immortal?"

The Sage's Answer.

"Nay," replied

To her the sage, "Just as the life of those

With ample means, so then thy life would be;

But in possessions is there found no hope

Of immortality."

Maitreyī's Request.

Said Maitreyī

"With that whereby immortal I can not

Become, what can there be for me to do?

Just what my lord doth know, pray, sire, tell me."

The Sage's Satisfaction.

Exclaimed the sage, "Ah ! Lo ! Dear always thou,

Dear as are dear the words thou now dost say,

That make to me more clear, far as words may—

For words for this fall short—thyself. Come near,

Sit down. I will explain: but, pray, seek thou

To ponder for thyself, while I to thee

Those things show forth as best I may.

The Cynosure.

"Know then,

Not is the husband for love of the husband dear;

It is love of the Soul that makes the husband dear.

Nor is for love of the wife the wife held dear;

Love of the Soul it is that makes her dear.

Nor are for love of sons the sons held dear;

Love of the Soul it is that makes them dear.

It is not for the love of gain that gain is held dear;

Love of the Soul it is that makes gain dear.

Nor is for love of the priesthood the priesthood dear.

Love of the Soul it is makes priesthood dear.

13—YĀJNAVALKYA'S LAST TESTAMENT

Nor is for love of chiefdom the chiefdom dear;

Love of the Soul it is makes chiefdom dear.

Not for love of the worlds are the worlds held dear;

Love of the Soul it is that makes worlds dear.

Nor is it love of the gods the gods makes dear;

Love of the Soul it is that makes gods dear.

Not for love of the beings are the beings held dear;

Love of the Soul it is makes the beings dear.

It is not for love of the All that the All is held dear;

It is love of the Soul that makes the All held dear.

THAT WHICH IS NOT KNOWN IN THE SOUL DESERTS US.

"O Maitreyī, him who the priesthood knows

In aught else than the Soul the priesthood hath

Abandoned. Him that doth the chiefdom know

In aught else than the Soul the chiefdom hath

Cast off. The worlds have discarded the man

Who them in aught else than the Soul doth know.

Who knows the gods in aught else than the Soul

The gods have given up. The beings him

Relinquished have, who knows them otherwise

Than in the Soul. Yea, hath the All him that

The All in aught else than the Soul doth know

Left derelict. So, let be known to thee:

The priesthood, chiefdom, all the worlds, the gods,

Beings around, yea, everything in this

Wide world is what, just what, the Soul is.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING ATTENTION TO THE SOUL.

"So,

The Soul indeed it is that should be seen,

Be hearkened to, be thought on, pondered on.

With seeing, hearkening to, and thinking on,

And understanding of, the Soul, behold,

This great World-All is known.

ANALOGIES.

"It is as, when

A drum is being beat, one could not grasp

The sound, unless one seized and held the drum

Or held the player. Then should sound be grasped.

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It is as, when a conch is being blown,

The sounds one could not hold, unless one seized

And held the shell or held the blower. Then should

Sound be held.

It is as when a lute

Is being played. The sounds one could not grasp,

Unless one seized and held the lute, or held

The player. Then should one grasp the sound.

It is as when with fuel damp a fire

Is laid and from it clouds of smoke ascend,

So many rolling spires; thus have been breathed

Out of this Being great the Vedas three

(To wit, the Verses, Formulas, and Chants),

The spells we Atharvāngirasas name,

Legends, and Ancient Lore, and Sciences,

The Upanishads we divulge to those

Initiate and deemed prepared to hear,

And Verses, Aphorisms, Addita

To Commentaries, Commentaries. Yea,

This world, the other world, and beings all

Are all from him breathed out.

The One Rendezvous.

"It comes this way:

As is the sea the meeting-place of all

The waters; so the skin is meeting-place

Of touches all, the tongue—the counting house

Of all the tastes, the nostrils—rendezvous

Of all the scents, the eye—uniting point

Of all the forms, the ear—home of all sounds,

The mind—location where intentions all

Are set, the heart—the trysting-ground

Of all the sciences, the hands—resort

Of all the acts, the generative means—

The root of all the bliss, the vent—outlet

Of all riddance, the feet—uniting-point

Of all the goings, speech—the treasury

Wherein are all the Vedas stored.

13—YĀJNAVALKYA'S LAST TESTAMENT

The Constitution of the Self.

"It is

As if a lump of salt in water cast

Did through the water right dissolve that so

No grain of it might, as it were, be seized

And taken forth, yet, sip the water where

One will, the water tasteth plainly salt;

For lo, this Being great, that hath no end

Nor is by farther bank confined, is found,

When reconnoitred, this, nought else, to be—

Just an amalgam of discernment.

The Ceasing of Consciousness.

"So

It is with us. As comes to consciousness

The salt, tasted within the lifted hand,

And when returned is in the water lost,

Ungraspable, nor possible for sight;

So out of just these beings one stands up,

Then into them one vanishes away.

At that, mark thou, for him that goeth forth

There is no consciousness. Lo! thus say I."

These were the words that Yājnavalkya spake.

Maitreyī's Bewilderment.

Exclaimed then Maitreyī: "My lord hath now

Indeed bewildered me by this his speech,

That there should be for him that goeth forth

No consciousness."

The Self in Itself.

Then Yājnavalkya said:

"Lo! verily what here I speak gives not

Bewilderment, but is sufficient for

Intelligence. This Being contemplate,

The One, the only, in himself complete,

All his outbreathing. Where is, as it were,

Duality, one doth another see,

One doth another smell, another doth

In speech address, upon another think,

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Another understand; but where indeed

Hath everything become nought else than just

One's self, whereby and whom should one then smell?

Whereby and whom should one then see? Whereby

And whom should one then hear? Whereby should one

Then speak and whom address? Whereby should one

Then think and on whom then give thought? Whereby

And whom should one then understand? Whereby

Shall one Him understand by means of whom

One understands this All? Lo! Say whereby

One may the Understander understand?

Herein is Immortality.

Not this, not that, the Soul; unseizable,

Not seized can be; yea, indestructible,

It cannot be destroyed; and unattached,

For it doth not attach itself; unbound,

It trembles not, and is not injured. Thus

Is, Maitreyī, to thee th' instruction told.

Lo! Here indeed is immortality."

The Departure of Yājnavalkya.

Then Yājnavalkya, spoken that, withdrew.

14

THE WORLD BEYOND:

From The Secret Teaching in the Chant.

The World Beyond

The Dividing Dike.

Behold the Soul !—the dike held up to part

These worlds asunder. Cross nor day, nor night,

Nor death, nor grief that burns, nor deed well done,

Nor deed done ill, the rampart narrow. Yea,

All ills at it turn back. For that bright world

Across the sharp-set edge, the Spirit-world,

Is free from evils all.

The Result of Crossing.

And so, That crossed,

The blind becomes no longer blind, doth lose

The wounded man his wounds, the man that is

With sickness scorched his fever knows no more.

Yea, night hath slipped entirely into day,

For here the sun in making day makes night,

But there, beyond the day and night, doth he

Unbroken shine; yea, holds that Spirit-world

A light perpetual.

The Possessors of the World Beyond.

And they alone

That Spirit-world possess who do it seek

And find within the life of discipline

Pursued by those who students are professed

Of Spirit. These alone it is who may

In all the worlds go wandering where they will.

137

15

THE SECRET TEACHING TO THE GODS AND DEMONS

BY THE LORD OF CREATURES REGARDING THE TRUE SELF:

From the Secret Teaching in the Chant.

The Secret Teaching to the Gods and Demons

BY THE LORD OF CREATURES REGARDING THE TRUE SELF:

The Counsel of the Lord.

"The Self from evil freed, removed from age

And death and grief, for whom the Real is his desire

And his conception, seek ! Let no man tire

To search him out and know ! That lore obtained,

Then all the worlds and all desires are gained."

Thus spake the Creatures' Lord.

The Resolve of the Gods and Demons.

That message heard,

"Come, let us knowledge of this Self attain,

Therewith all worlds and all desires to gain."

Deputies of these become Disciples of the Lord of Creatures.

Indra the gods dispatched. The demons sent

Virocana. Each, upon one mission bent,

The other found, without co-planning, stand

138

15—TEACHING OF THE LORD OF CREATURES 139

Before the Lord, each holding in his hand

The wood to light his wished-for teacher's fire;

Accepted, lived with him, with one desire

Consumed, the life for two and thirty years

That is pursued with self-restraint by those

Who study sacred lore.

The Lord's Inquiry.

Asked then the Lord

"Ye twain, for what came ye?"

The Answer of the Two Disciples.

With one accord

Said they " 'The Self from evil freed and age

And death and grief, dispart from hunger's rage

And thirst's, for whom the Real is his desire

And his conception, seek! Let no man tire

To search him out and know! That lore obtained,

Then all the worlds and all desires are gained.'

Thou spakest thus, men say. O Lord, have we,

Him seeking, spent this course with thee."

The Lord's General Announcement of the Self.

Said he "That Person in the eye appears.

'Tis he, learn ye, that knows not death or fears.

Lo! Spirit—he."

The Self Seen in Reflexion.

The Experiment.

"And this then whom we see

In water and in mirror, who is he?"

"That person in the eye," the Lord replied,

"In all reflectors certes is descried.

This dish of water take. Let each survey

The self therein, and then to me each say

What of the `Self he does not understand."

They looked within the dish upheld in hand.

"What see ye?" asked the Lord. "We see," said they,

"The Self itself in miniature display,

140

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

Each item clear, to hair and nails. "Now don,"

Said he, "your garments rich, put jewels on,

Attire yourselves with care and nicety.

Look in again and say what now ye see."

So out at once the two went forth to don

Their garments rich and jewels to put on,

Attire themselves with care and nicety,

And then looked in. "What see ye now?" asked he.

Said they: "Our self again we look upon,

In garments rich, with jewels now put on,

And all attired with care and nicety."

"That is the Self of which I spake," said he,

"The Person not by death or terrors seized,

Lo! Spirit—he." Heart-quieted, much pleased,

They went.

The Lord's Verdict.

But, as they went, the Lord upon

Them looked and said "Behold these two have gone,

The Self not grasped or understood. All they

That hold That secret doctrine fall away."

The Doctrine thus announced Virocana transmits

to the Devils.

Virocana, when to his host he came,

To them did, tranquil still, that lore proclaim:

"Just this, the Self which with our eyes we see,

That is the Self which should exalted be

And waited on. The man who That deems great

And waiteth on, both this and yonder state

He gains."

That explains present-day use of the exclamation

"Devilish-he!"

That shews why now we fling the name

"Devilish" on that man with sharp-cut blame,

Who gives not, hath not faith, no offering bids.

"Devilish he!"—our cry. When such one rids

Him of his mortal shell, his pals it deck

15—TEACHING OF THE LORD OF CREATURES 141

With begged-for dress (or “ornament”—so reck

They that !); for with such trash these foolish feign

That they the world that lies beyond shall gain.

But Indra Discovers Danger in the Doctrine.

But Indra, ere he at the gods arrived,

Saw plainly error was in this connived.

"This body richly clad, adorned, and tired,

In its reflection is indeed admired,

But blind or lamed or maimed this fleshly frame,

This reflex shows itself in each the same,

And should this body perish with decay,

Completely This in consort falls away.

Nought to enjoy I see."

So he Returns to the Lord of Creatures.

So turned he back,

Untold the news in which he saw such lack.

With fuel for a teacher's fire in hand

He took again before the Lord his stand.

At the Lord's Inquiry he makes Complaint.

His late disciple then the Lord addressed:

"Thou, O Munificent, thy heart at rest,

Departedst with Virocana. What then

Doth bring thee back, a suppliant again?"

Said he, "If be this body richly tired,

The Self seen in reflection is admired,

But blind or lamed or maimed this fleshly frame,

This reflex shows itself in each the same;

And, should this body perish with decay,

Completely then doth this one fall away.

Nought to enjoy I see."

The Lord Invites him to a Second Course of

Discipline.

"With him," said he,

"Munificent, 't is so. I will to thee,

However, more concerning this explain.

Dwell with me two and thirty years again."

142

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

The Self in Dreams.

This second term of discipline passed through,

The Lord declared "The Self that doth pursue,

Exuberant, in dreams his glad career,

That is the Self that knows not death or fear."

Indra is again Disappointed.

So forth, heart-quieted again, he went,

But e'er he reached the gods felt discontent:

"Indeed, this Self in dreams, not blind is he,

Nor lame, though blind or lame this body be.

Be there defect through which doth suffer This,

Consorts not That to likewise be amiss.

Yea, be one murdered, yet that self survives

(See him then enter dreams of other lives).

Nathless he, as it were, hath pain, is killed,

Naked is stripped, with nausea thrilled,

Yea, weeps. Nought here enjoyable I see."

So, he returns again.

Hied back the chief of gods accordingly,

Again to take a would-be learner's stand,

A wished-for teacher's fuel in his hand.

The Lord invites him to a Third Course of Discipline.

Again the Lord the suppliant addressed:

"Thou, O Munificent, thy heart at rest

Departedst thence; pray tell me then

Desiring what, thou comest back again?"

"This self in dreams, whom thou commendedst me,

Though blind this body be, not blind is he;

Nor lame if this be lame; defect in this,

Finds not That one himself in that amiss.

Yea, be one murdered, yet that Self survives

(For enters he the dreams of other lives).

Nathless he, as it were, hath pain, is killed,

Naked is stripped, with nausea thrilled,

Yea, weeps. Nought here enjoyable I see!"

"Munificent, 't is even so," said he,

"With him. But yet again as pupil dwell

Years two and thirty. More I thee would tell."

15–TEACHING OF THE LORD OF CREATURES 143

The Self in Dreamless Sleep.

So with the Lord he spent a session third.

Then said the Lord, “When by no dream bestirred

One sleepeth sound, composed, in settled ease,

That is the Self nor death nor fear can seize,

Lo! Spirit—he”

Indra is a Third Time Disappointed.

Again content,

The chief of gods to meet his host then went,

But yet again, before he saw the gods appear,

Saw in the message that he carried fear:

“This Self knows not himself as ‘I am he,’

Nor any beings here; hath gone, I see,

To perishment entire. Nought to enjoy

For me!” With that, stopped short in his employ,

He turned, before the Lord again to stand,

A wished-for teacher’s fuel in his hand.

The Lord Invites the Envoy to Dwell with Him Five Years more.

Again the Lord the suppliant addressed:

“Thou, O Munificent, thy heart at rest

Departedst hence; pray tell me then,

Desiring what thou comest back again.”

Said he “This Self himself as ‘I am he’

Knows not, nor beings here; hath gone, I see,

To perishment entire. Here to enjoy

Is nought for me! Held back in my employ,

I back to more of thee inquire have fared.”

“Munificent, with him,” the Lord declared,

“‘T is even so. But more there is to tell,

Past which—no more. Five years yet add, to dwell

With me.”

The One-hundred-and-one Years’ Course.

Five more did Indra spend; which done,

The total reached one hundred years and one.

Hence people say “The One Munificent

As pupil with the Lord of Creatures spent

One hundred years and one to learn the lore

Of Spirit.”

L

144

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

THE TRUE SELF.

The True Self Described.

That completing period o'er,

The Creatures' Lord gave forth his last and best.

"Munificent," said he, "by Death possessed

This body is, and yet the Self in it holds sway,

The Bodiless that knoweth not decay.

Possess the man that in a body dwells

Pleasures and pains. None these expels

While in a body; but their dire stress

Hath no affect upon the bodiless.

The wind no body hath. The clouds and flash

Are bodiless; so too—the thunder crash.

When these past yonder space arise and reach

At last the highest light, then steps forth each

In form its own. With him it is likewise.

Dreamless his sleep, serene he doth arise

From out this body; highest light he gains;

Consort therewith, the form his own attains;

Person supreme, supremely makes his way,

Laughing and making sport, with women gay,

With chariots, or with friends. No more he heeds

His comrade old, his body. Here certes leads

The breath a draught-beast's life in body's yoke!

The Functions of the Self.

"Now, when toward space [here gazed forth he that spoke]

The eye is set, the Person in the eye

Looks out, the means by which he doth descry—

The eye. Mark, too, it is the Self as well,

That knows, the nostrils used, 'This let me smell;'

The Self again, that knows, on utterance bent,

'Now let me this express!' his instrument—

The voice; also the Self, that 'Let me hear!'

Doth know, for that—his instrument, the ear;

He too, that knows 'This let me think,' the mind—

His means, his 'eye divine'—that name assigned,

For gods the mind as eye have ta'en, where through

They may—he too—of things around take view;

And by that eye, the mind, desires he sees

And, by his choosing, takes his gladsome ease.

15—TEACHING OF THE LORD OF CREATURES 145

The Reverence for the Self.

"The gods who in the Spirit-world do dwell.

This Self do hold in reverence, truth to tell.

From Him as source they all the worlds do take,

And all desires. And he who search doth make

For Him and Him hath found and understands,

He all the worlds and all desires commands."

Signature.

Thus spake the Father of all Creatures. Yea,

These are the words the Creatures' Lord did say.

16

THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S NATURE:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Advantage of Knowledge of One's Nature

What should be Ascertained.

Who the young steer, his house, roof, post, rope, knows,

Keeps off his cousins seven, who are foes.

The Information Given.

The breath that moves within the mouth, then, know,

With constant current through it, to and fro,

The vital breath: That is the pushful Steer;

The House in which he dwells—one's body here;

Roof of the House—one's head; the breath that through

One's body moves—the Post dravé down to hold him to;

Food as the Rope attached to that we find,

Which to his house the pushful Steer doth bind.

The Seven Gods and the Child.

But hath, with that but little yet been told,

For next is here a wonder to unfold,

For by the Child do Seven in worship stay,

No one of which submitteth to decay,

And, while they pay to him their reverence,

Their several powers do they in him dispense,

By these themselves unto the Child do bind,

Yea, do themselves within the Infant find.

146

16—KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S NATURE

Extendeth in the eye's red branching streaks

Rudra, the Lightning-god, who vengeance wreaks,

With shrieks, as down he dives from stormy wrack

With flaming scarlet back and belly black—

See charred the scar that ripped the giant tree!

And o'er the eye the water wells; there see

The God of Rain. And that diminutive

In the eye's chamber we who watch see live,

That to his window steps and out doth peer

And restless moves as we to him draw near,

What is he but the Sun-god in the sky,

There in the dark, the while supreme on high?

Gleams in that dark a spark of love or ire;

Who in that kindles but the God of Fire?

In constrast with the black, behold the white;

What that but Indra, Chief-god's, realm, who might

Doth vaunt within the re-illumined sky,

The darkening serpent slain, erst coiled on high,

The cows set free that give the rain? See thrid

The Earth its weft along eye's under lid,

In upper lash the Heaven on him its hold

Maintain.

The man, who knoweth, be it told,

That these do thus in him for help avail

And worship him, his food shall never fail.

17

THE EIGHT WARDENS OF THE HEAD:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Eight Wardens of the Head

This verse we find:

"There is a cup

With opening downward bottom up."

"Within it," it proceeds to tell,

"Doth every form of glory dwell,

And round its rim seers seven sit,

Their ward to keep: three pairs—to wit

The pairs that hear and see and smell—

And one who tastes. And mark thou well,

That voice doth there an eighth seer make,

Whom Spirit doth for comrade take."

148

18

THE HOMAGE OF ALL THINGS TO HIM WHO IN ALL THINGS SEES THE SELF:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Homage of All Things to Him who in All Things sees the Self

As nobles, policemen, chariot-drivers, heads

Of villages, alert, his journey's dreads

O'ercome, wait on their King seen drawing nigh,

With gifts of food, drink, lodging, this their cry—

"Our King, our King, he comes!" So all things wait

On him who sees in all things small or great

The Self. "The Spirit comes!" the cry they lift,

And glad is he, glad—all, at each their gift.

19

THE MEANING OF THE THUNDER:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Meaning of the Thunder

INTRODUCTION.

Now learn what means that sharp portentous cry,

The "Da! Da! Da!" repeated in the sky.

THE LORD'S PARTING WORD.

Unto the Creatures' Lord in ancient day

His threefold offspring—gods, men, demons they—

As humble pupils came with him to stay,

That he might them in sacred learning ground

(Just as in custom now our youths are bound);

And, when their course of studentship expired,

Each company a parting-word desired.

THE "DA!" TO THE GODS.

First came the gods their farewell-word to seek:

"Last counsel now we would his honour speak."

But nought to them on wait he utter would

Save "Da!" and asked "Now, have ye understood?"

"We have his honour understood," said they;

"Thou 'Dāmyata!' (subdue yourselves!) didst say."

THE "DA!" TO MEN.

Men next drew near their farewell-word to seek:

"Do thou a valediction to us speak";

But likewise nought to them vouchsafe he would

150

19—THE MEANING OF THE THUNDER 151

Save “Da!” and asked “Now, have ye understood?”

“We have his honour understood,” said they;

“His honour ‘Datta!’ (Give!) to us didst say.”

THE “Da!” TO THE DEMONS.

And next the demons came his word to seek:

“Will now to us his honour deign to speak?”

But nought again to them announce he would

Save “Da!” and asked “Now, have ye understood?”

“We have his honour understood,” said they;

“Thou ‘Dáyadhvam!’ (Be kind!) to us didst say.”

So, still we hear reverberate on high

That three times “Da!” throughout the sky.

A COMMENT BY THE WEST.

Did thus these Easterns recognise,

As urgent bidding from the skies,

That even gods must practice “Be subdued!”

Would they not be by whelming fate pursued;

That men who would as human beings live

Must make the motto of their conduct “Give!”;

That demons too, would they not uproot find,

Must with their torments ever mix “Be kind!”

So each give ear

That now doth hear

That sharp portentous sound!

Be god, or man, or demon thou,

At this loud cry from heaven bow!

Let charity be found!

Perchance ’t is hinted: Gods and demons yet

Their saving motto keep, but men forget.

20

THE SUPREMACY OF THE REAL:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Supremacy of the Real

This world at first have seen should we,

Had we been there the sight to see,

The Waters, nothing else, to be;

Witnessed their seeming-vacuous surge

From out itself the Spirit urge;

For be, my dear, this known to thee

Spirit the Real indeed to be;

Seen Spirit from itself make rise

The Lord of Births before our eyes;

Next viewed that Lord the gods produce,

Great powers from out himself let loose

That hold the Real as Real in awe.

Such was the sight our seers saw.

152

21

THE FALSE IN TRUTH'S EMBRACE:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The False in Truth's Embrace

Now note three syllables we find

In Satyam (Truth, the Real) combined,

First sa, ti second, yam the third.1

That ti means 'falsehood' be inferred

(Since element in an-rtam,

The which is 'falsehood,' ti doth come).2

So, sat-plus-yam (the True) is seen

With 'falsehood,' ti, put in between;

Thus Truth, as shown by verbal make,

Doth o'er the False preponderance take,

And in the Real False holds its place

Because within the Real's embrace,

And, not thus held, could never be.

'T is plain. No satyam, then no ti.

The man who this relation knows

The False harms not as on he goes.

1Satyam is thus regarded as tri-syllabic—'sa-ty-yam.'

2The explanation in brackets is not in the Upanishad, but is given,

Hume at this place tells us, by the Commentator.

22

THE SUPREME AUSTERITIES:

From The Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.

The Supreme Austerities

Say ye? "High ascete, he who stands

Showing the crowd his bony hands

And staring ribs; so wins surprise

By these self-pressed austerities."

Nay! Rather he who stems life's ills,

Abjures dark passions, spites their thrills,

By sickness broken, bears the blow.

Say ye? "Great master, who doth go

Within the forest from his own

To merge his thoughts in session lone."

Nay! This, the dead man carried there,

Who be his bearers unaware.

Say ye? "Supreme—he who desires

Hath quenched in serving altar fires."

Nay! This, the dead upon the wood,

Whose flesh the fire consumes as food,

Thus bearing, as its flames ascend,

The flesh entirely to its end.

Outlined in each of these see ye

An acme of austerity.

If wit of that hath entered in,

That man the world supreme doth win.

154

23

THE SIN-DETERRENT FIRE :

From The Secret Teaching of Maitri.

The Sin-deterrent Fire

That they who do the Spirit know

Are set secure this verse doth show.

As with the kindled mount, when flames ascend,

No longer beast nor bird seek covert there;

So too with them who Spirit apprehend,

No more do sins, to hide within, repair.

24

THE NECESSITY THAT THE SELF SHOULD REVEAL ITSELF TO ITSELF:

From

The Secret Teaching of the Possessor of the White Mules,

The Secret Teaching by Katha, and

The Secret Teaching to the Tonsured.

The Necessity that the Self should reveal itself to itself

A. The Misery of the Individual Soul ignorant of its true Self.

Within the all-things-quickening reel,

In all things set, the Spirit-wheel,

Deeming, through that so dazzling art,

The Driver and himself apart,

Flutters the swan.

Lo! welcomed by Him graciously,

He enters immortality,

His anguish gone.

B. The Necessity of Abstention from Evil, of Intent Will, and of Peace.

Not he who hath not made to cease

His ways from ill, in will not tense,

Nor hath in mind reached calm and peace,

Can gain Him by intelligence.

C. This Self not gained by Learning.

This Self—not by instruction gained is He,

Nor by much hearing, or sagacity.

156

24–THE REVELATION OF THE SELF TO ITSELF 157

Whom He doth choose, 't is he that doth Him take,

Whose body He doth choose His own to make.

D. The Revelation in the Heart.

Smaller than world's minutest part,

And past the greatest great as well

The Self within the creature's heart,

Set down within the hidden cell,

The Effortless, the creature sees,

And lo! thereat his sorrow flees;

The greatness of the Self descries

Made manifest before his eyes

By the Implanter's favour kind,

To him thus graciously inclined.

E. Characteristics of the Self and the Effect of

Thinking upon the Self.

Him, sitting, that doth far pursue,

And, lying, everywhere doth hie,

The god of joy and not-joy, who

Can other claim to know than I?

Among th' embodied bodiless,

Among th' unsteady ever staid,

That outward doth His presence press,

The Self, whom, viewing in one's mind,

As He His glory doth unbind,

Means burning grief as ashes laid.

Notes on the Selections

I. THE WORLD AS THE HORSE-SACRIFICE.

BAU. I.I.

The Horse-Sacrifice, aśva-medha (áśva, m. horse [Cp. Gk. hippos, dialectic íkkos; Lat. equus]; médha, m. (1) juice of meat, (2) sap and strength, essential part, esp. of the sacrificial victim; (3) sacrificial victim; animal sacrifice).

[L.]

Winternitz tells us that the Horse-Sacrifice was one which "only a mighty king, a powerful conqueror, or lord of the world might offer. Old sagas and epic poems report kings of old time, who fulfilled this offering, and it meant the highest fame for a ruler if one could say of him 'He has offered the horse-sacrifice.'"1

L. D. Barnett, in his Antiquities of India, informs us that the stallion chosen for sacrifice was, after certain offerings had been performed, brought out and, after further ceremonial, allowed to roam about for a year at its own free will, guarded by a troop of youths who protected it from harm.2

The mode by which the claim was secured which the performance of the sacrifice implied is thus described by Arthur W. Ryder: "If a king aspired to the title of emperor or king of kings he was at liberty to celebrate the Horse-Sacrifice. A horse was set free to wander at will for a year, and was escorted by a band of noble youths who were not permitted to interfere with its movements. If the horse wandered into the territory of another king, such a king must either submit to be vassal of the horse's owner or must fight him. If the owner of the horse received the submission, with or without fighting, of all the kings into whose territories the horse wandered during the year of freedom, he offered the horse in sacrifice and assumed the imperial title."3

As to the spiritual efficacy of the horse-sacrifice Winternitz quotes this from the Śata-patha Brāhmaṇa: "Verily he who performs the horse-sacrifice makes Prajā-pati [the

1 Winternitz, Geschichte der Indischen Literatur, I, 151-.

2 See L. D. Barnett, Antiquities of India, p. 169-.

3 Arthur W. Ryder, Kālidāsa, p. 128.

158

NOTES ON SELECTION I

159

Lord of Creatures] complete and himself becomes complete1; and this, indeed, is the atonement for everything, the remedy for everything. Thereby the gods redeem all sin, and he who performs that sacrifice redeems all sin."2

"The Flood," sam-udrá, m. a gathering of waters. [‘a confluence,’ √ud, ‘spring; flow.’ (Cp. Lat. und-a, ‘wave’; Gk. hud-ōr; Eng. wat-er) + sam, ‘together.’] [L.] See p. 208.

"mother-place," yoni, ‘womb.’ See p. 183.

"elves in sky," Gandharvas. See Vocabulary.

"As he the rider, so his world."

In a lecture delivered in Moscow in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, in memory of Leo Tolstoi, at a public session of the Society of True Freedom, Valentine Bulgakov, who, Dr. Hans Hartmann tells us, was “Tolstoi’s last secretary and the whole time of Tolstoi’s end shared Tolstoi’s life inner and outer,” gives a description of the great Russian’s message that corresponds to the teaching here. “It is an error,” says Bulgakov, “to think that Tolstoi makes a summons only to organise agricultural communities, to abstain from flesh, to wear a blouse, and put on peasant’s boots. The cry he raises is not for external renunciation, but complete inner transformation. It is in so far as the individual transforms himself, that he is adapted to become helper to the transformation of the world” [emphatic printing in German translation, from the original Russian].4

"Seem these two twilights in our eyes to glow with blood of Sacrifice." “So did these men the Law descry: ‘The All to be the All to be must die!’”

Compare Robert Bridges’s lines in The Testament of Beauty:

delicat as the shifting hues

that sanctify the silent dawn with wonder-gleams,

whose evanescence is the seal of their glory,

consumed in self-becoming of eternity;

till every moment as it flyeth, cryeth "Seize,

Seize me er' I die! I am the Life of Life." (ll. 1351-6.)

1 The universe was regarded as the Evolution of Prajāpati. A mode of that Evolution is described in Selection 2 (BAU. 1.2).

2 Winternitz, A Concise Dictionary of Eastern Religions, Art. “Aśva-medha.”

3 Dr. Hans Hartmann in Foreword to the pamphlet antitled Leo Tolstoi und die Gegenwart, which contains the lecture here quoted and others by Bulgakov regarding Tolstoi.

4 P. 11 of said pamphlet.

M

160

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

"To meet the cost—the placid depth of Endless Peace."

Contrast with the omnipotent sacrifice arising out of the ocean of eternal peace, that is taught in this Upanishad, the "omnipotent pleasure" with "divination of Love" that arises out of the same Nature's calm according to Robert Bridges's teaching in his Testament of Beauty:

the oceantide of the omnipotent Pleasure of God, flushing all avenues of life, and unawares by thousandfold approach forestalling its full flood with divination of the secret contacts of Love,— of faintest ecstasies aslumber in Nature's calm. (ll. 1344–8.)

2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS.

BAU. I.2.

"O mark thou well how much doth Voice,

When we her words inspect, make known."

The profound way in which these ancient Āryans regarded the announcements of Voice seems to be well illustrated by Coleridge's meditations on grammar in the Greek Grammar he prepared for his son.

And from this last distinction, or species of causative motion, stepping into life or existence, expressed as a simple act of being, or say, rather, words that express being as an act, these are very significantly called verb-substantive (I am), even as when a mathematician conceives a line as existing in consequence of the motion or fluxion, that is, the perpetual flowing-in, of its constituent points, but conceive it as one motionless whole, and you have then the noun.1

"Arká," the gleam (√rc, beam; sing [praise]). [L].

Hillebrandt quotes an account of the creation in The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa ("the Sacred Teaching in a Hundred Paths,") X. 5.3. Iff., in which it is said that the mind becoming possessed of a body beheld its 36,000 arká fires, which were formed of mind, and arranged in mind, and states that Eggeling remarks on that, upon the basis of the Indian commentary, that the 36,000 fires are the days of a man's life, the years being computed at 360 days and a man's life at 100 years.2

1 Times Lit. Supplement, 7 Nov., 1929.

2 Alf. Hillebrandt, Aus Brāhmaṇas und Upanishaden, pp. 24 and 171.

NOTES ON SELECTION 2

161

"the waters' son," apāṁ nápāt.

Macdonell infers from this deity having three times applied to him in the Rigveda the epithet "swiftly-speeding," which in its only other occurrence in the Rigveda refers to Agni, the Fire-god, that Apāṁ napāt appears to represent the lightning form of Agni that lurks in the cloud. He tells us further that this deity goes back to the Indo-Iranian period, being found in the Avesta as a spirit of the waters who lives in their depths and is said to have seized the brightness in the depth of the ocean.1

"He steadfast in the waters stands."

There can be little doubt that the image in the speaker's mind is that of a great ox standing in water, as one of a people who were cow-farmers would see him stand on some hot day. The waters here referred to are the primeval waters. The ox is thus a representation here of the world. Specifically, the bull of the herd was the creature in this imagery, the virile productiveness of the bull presenting the abundant productiveness of the universe. Note the detailing of the image in What Certain Creatures of the Wilderness taught Satyakāma, Selection 7, where each of the four quarters of the world-ox is named.

The primeval waters which are here represented are regarded by these ancient philosophers as the waters we now behold still with us and still connected, and thus yet one flood, although in the great masses of the clouds and the ocean2 and in the lesser volumes of lakes and in the runlets of the streams they are subdivided, albeit momentarily; for these allocates were observed to be perpetually passing into and out of each other. For these philosophers, with this unity of the waters ever in their mind, the waters came to be regarded as the standard image of the One.

Here, then, we have in the ox standing in the pool an image of the world as still stationed in the great primeval waters from which it arose (see the Supremacy of the Real, Selection 20). There is no doubt also the idea in the

1 A Vedic Reader for Students, p. 69.

2 Note the same unity and the same distribution in Gen. i, and for the more particular distribution described by the early Indians, see ap in Voc.

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speaker's mind of the sacrificial horse representing the

universe, and he comes to that at the close of the

Upanishad as it is now put together. But it looks likely

that either the more familiar image of the ox rose at this

moment into his mind, or that this part of the Upanishad

was of different origin from the latter part, and the

two parts came eventually to be joined into one.

"Loving to raise a crooning voice."

The collusion of the movement of the air with movement

of the sun at rising or setting which the Upanishads

pointedly make note of is well pictured by Edgell Richwood

with regard to the sunrise.

Dawn is a miracle each night debates,

which faith may prophesy but luck dictates.

How long can Earth, our old and heavy dame,

keep at her tumbling trick and not fall lame?

Yet every morning like a girl she lands,

sweeps the hair from her eyes with windy hands,

then, smiling at her men on hill and plain,

dries off the dew and turns to toil again.1

The Western poet's comparison here of the dawn to a

maiden is, of course, it may be added, a fondly dwelt-upon

conception in the Rigveda. See hymns quoted in A. A.

Macdonell's and in E. J. Thomas's Selections from the

Rigveda.

"For man and wife were not . . . as yet dispart."

BAU. 1.4. describes the Self (Ātman) as "alone, in the

form of a person;" then, first attributing to him fear because

he was alone, and, next, fear departing for he thought

"Of what am I afraid?" proceeds to say: "Verily he had

no delight. Therefore one alone has no delight. He

desired a second. He was, indeed, as large as a woman and

a man closely embraced. He caused that self to fall (√pat)

into two pieces. Therefrom arose a husband (pati) and a

wife (patnī). Therefore this [is true]: 'Oneself (sva)2 is like

a half-fragment,' as Yājnavalkya used to say. Therefore

this space is filled with a wife."

1 In his Invocations to Angels and the Happy New Year.

2 Note the form of this idea in Gen. ii, 21-23.

NOTES ON SELECTION 2

163

"cried Bhān!"

Here is the psychic self refusing to give itself for absorption by the Absolute which is in this Upanishad regarded as Death.

We may with the fear of absorption here depicted compare the fear of the present moment in the appeal (noted already in notes on No. 1), Robert Bridges describes the present moment addressing to the psychic life to seize it, that is, to use it to the full, so that not only it, the present moment, may live, but that the psychic life itself may live, because the present moment, when seized, is its life. The Absolute is regarded by the Western Poet in the same manner as it is our Upanishad, as the past to be absorbed into which is regarded as death:

"Seize! every moment as it flyeth, cryeth 'Seize! Seize me er' I die! I am the Life of Life.'

The Testament of Beauty, ll. 1355-6.

"immediate from himself the verses."

Here the Rigveda ("Knowledge put in Verses")—see Veda in Vocab.—is the first utterance of the Creator's voice.

This belief was succeeded by a later view which became the orthodox view, which Professor Dasgupta explains in his book on Hindu mysticism. According to this later view, he tells us, the sacred verses and the sacrificial manuals came from no author at all, human or divine. They were uncreated. They were divine in themselves. Their commands were regarded as categorical in nature and eternal in character. No one, not even such a high personality as the Original Source, uttered them. Here then was a literature existent in itself and transcendent. Its content was the secret laws of the universe. He points out how different this is from the Christian conception of Revelation of the Word, in which the existence of a living God is posited, who is able and willing to reveal his will. In this specific Hindu view there are laws but there is no lawgiver.1

"formulas wherewith

We bend the gods . . . the Yajur-Veda."2

Professor Bloomfield thus describes the formulas of the Yajur-Veda: "They are in prose, often more or less rhythmic,

1 Hindu Mysticism, pp. 7, 8, 15. 2 See Yajur-Veda in Voc.

164 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

often brief and concise, mere dedications or swift prayers, accompanying an action, and sometimes hardly addressed to anyone in particular. So, for instance, 'Thee for Agni !' or 'This to Agni !' indicate that the object is dedicated to the God of Fire; or 'Thee for strength,' a brief prayer or rather magically-compelling wish that the use of a certain article by the sacrificer may give him strength. But from this brevity they swell out to long solemn litanies that betray at times such a measure of good sense as may be expected at best in these doings, but often sink to the deepest depths of imbecility, mere verbiage intent upon silly puns on the names of things that are used at the sacrifice. When an animal victim is tied to the post, we find the priest addressing to the rope these words: 'Do not turn serpent, Do not turn viper !' "1

"to sport in pattern moulds of music . . . the Sāma-Veda."2

"In the Veda of Music," Professor Bloomfield tells us, "there are no connected hymns, only more or less detached verses, borrowed in the main from the Rig-veda. Even the sense of these verses is subordinated to the music to which they are set. There are two forms of stanzas. One with the text and the musical notes. The other with certain phantastic exclamatory syllables introduced, such as om, hau, hai, hoyi or him; and at the end of the stanzas certain exclamations, such as atha, ā, īm, and sāt. They remind us in a way of the Swiss and Tyrolese 'yodels,' introduced into the songs of these countries as a sort of cadenzas to heighten the musical effect."3

"Fame and Forcefulness," yaśo-vīryam.

yaśas, n. fame, honor [L].

vīryá, n. (1) 'manliness, courage, strength'; (2) (concrete) 'heroic deed' [Note vīrá, m. 'man,' esp. 'man of might.' Cp. Lat. vir]. [L].

"child of morning mist"

See on p. 160 Hillebrandt on arkā.

"son of the Thundercloud"

See p. 57, ll. 31–33 and on p. 161 Macdonell on apā́m̐ nāpāt.

1 Religion of the Veda, p. 33. 2 See Sāma-Veda in Voc.

3 Religion of the Veda, p. 37.

NOTES ON SELECTION 2

165

"Here then is sacrifice . . . and there reward."

These lines embody the interpretation of Saṁkara who comments thus: "He who is the sacrifice which is performed by means of animals is also described as the visible reward in the words 'He is the Aśvamedha.' Who? The answer is: He who 'shines,' viz. Savitṛ (the sun), who manifests the world by his splendour. 'His body,' that is, the body of him who is at the same time the reward and the sacrifice, 'is the year.' Because the sacrifice which represents him is only performed by means of fire, the reward is described by the symbol of the sacrifice. This terrestrial fire arká is the cause of performing the sacrifice. . . . The fire and the Āditya [the sun] are arká and Aśvamedha, the sacrifice and the reward. Arká, the terrestrial fire, as the visible action, is accomplished by fire. Because the reward (Savitṛ) is the effect of the sacrifice, it (the reward) is described by the emblem of sacrifice. Therefore it is said Āditya is the Aśvamedha."1

These Two Fires are One Divinity.

Saṁkara explains that here we are told that " 'They,' that is Agni [Fire] and Āditya [sun], that is cause and effect, sacrifice and reward, 'are one divinity.' " The 'one divinity' here meant, he goes on to say, is Death. 'Being one before, he is now divided to correspond to the division: sacrifice, performer, effect; and thus becomes threefold; but, when the ceremonies have been accomplished, he again becomes one divinity, viz. Death. Death then represents the reward."2

The Triumph of Him who knows this.

Saṁkara thus interprets: "Whosoever knows him, the Aśvamedha, as one deity in this manner: 'I am this death, the Aśvamedha, one deity; this state is gained by me as being like the Horse and the Fire;' that man overcomes the second death. That is to say, having once died, he is not born again for the second death. We read 'Death does not obtain him.' Why? Because 'Death becomes his soul,' that is the soul of him who knows death in this manner; or,'death becoming thus the reward, 'he becomes one of these deities,' the which is his reward."3

1 Translation in The Twelve Principal Upanishads, pub. by Rajaram Tukaram Tatya for the Bombay Theosophical Fund, Bombay, 1906, p. 79.

2 Id., p. 80.

3 Id., p. 80.

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Compare with the above these lines of E. G. A. Holmes in

The Creed of my Heart.

I breathe the breath of the morning. I am one with the

one World-Soul.

I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living

Whole.

I am more than self: I am selfless: I am more than self:

I am I.

I have found the springs of my being in the flush of the

eastern sky.

I—the true self, the spirit, the self that is born of death—

I have found the flame of my being in the morn’s ambrosial

breath.

I lose my life for a season: I lose it beyond recall:

But I find it renewed, rekindled, in the life of the One,

the All.1

3. THE EMANATIONS FROM AND THE RETURN

TO ITSELF OF THE UNITIVE SELF.

TU. 2. 1–5, 8c; 3. 4b–5, 6.

For origin of the name, Partridge Disciples, of those for

whom this Upanishad was intended, see Taittirīyas

in Voc.

om, see Voc.

"existence, consciousness, the infinite."

These three Belvalkar and Ranade, translating satyam,

jnānam, an-antam, ‘truth, knowledge, infinity,’ hold are

each meant to be a complete expression of the Absolute,

not simply a third part thereof. [CP. p. 388.]

"that doth its tremor ken," vipaś-cit, ‘knowing inspiration’

[M].

vipas, n. ‘inspiration’ [M]. From √vip, ‘be in trembling

agitation’; ‘tremble or shake.’ [Cf. Lat. vibrāre, ‘shake,

brandish’; Eng. ‘waver’; Eng. frequentative ‘whiffle,

veer about, blow in gusts’; ‘whiffle’-tree, so called from

its constant jerky motion (-tree means ‘wooden bar.’)’]

[L].

√cit, (1) ‘look at, notice’; (2) ‘be intent upon’; (3) ‘under-

stand, know.’ [L.]

person, puruṣa. See Voc.

1 Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.

NOTES ON SELECTION 3

167

The Five Increasingly Ethereal Persons of the Return.

Belvalkar and Ranade explain these successive forms of person to be simply "allegorical representations of certain psychological conceptions." All that is meant is that man is "made up of a physical body, of vital air, of mind and intellect, and of the faculty which enables him to enjoy an ecstatic theōria." They protest against the occultist's discovery here of "various bodies included one within the other, as a Pandora's box, namely, the physical, astral, mental, intuitional, and beatific bodies."1

While sharing this view so far as the occultist's 'bodies' are concerned we would protest against merely certain psychological conditions being meant. Plainly we have successive modes of person here. We recollect Aristotle's doctrine of the three souls in a man, and how we read in Scripture of the 'will of the flesh,' 'the body of death,' 'the new man created from above,' forms of existence that are not simply psychological conditions, but modes of personality.

See summary of characters of these five persons in note on puruṣa in the Vocabulary.

"And delved . . . bird-shaped . . . the altar-bed."

The name given to the altar was vedi. Originally it was a space excavated two or three inches into the ground; in which space the fire was set. Round the space was spread grass as a seat for the gods and the offerers. In later times we find altars built of bricks. The different shapes in which these might be built are mentioned as early as the Taittirīya Collection (Samhita) of Sentences, of which the Taittirīya Upanishad is the illuminative conclusion (which every Upanishad attached to a 'Collection' is designed to be). We find in course of time "a falcon-shaped altar built of square bricks or an altar of the shape of a falcon with curved wings and outspread tail; a heron-shaped altar with two feet; one of the shape of the forepart of the poles of a chariot, an equilateral triangle; another of the form of two such triangles joined at their bases; several wheel-shaped or circular altars, tortoise-shaped, etc. "The area of the

1 CP., p. 250-1.

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earliest species of altars was to be 7½ square puruṣas, the

term puruṣa (man) denoting the height of a man with

uplifted arms." [See J. Jolly in Hastings's Encyclopædia

of Religion and Ethics, art. Altar.]

Praise of Food.

"Hence we it 'annam!' ['eatin' !] greet."

There is here a play upon the common name for food—

'annam'; based upon the fact, one would suppose, that

annam in Sanskrit has resemblance to both a past participle

and a present participle. So, 'eatin,' which brings to mind

both 'eaten' and 'eating,' would represent in English the

play here.

The Third Form: Made of the Gain-seeking Mind.

"Atharvāngirasas," a collection that has come to be known

as the Atharva-Veda.

The Atharvans and Angirases were two mythical families

of priests descended from Atharvan and Angiras respec-

tively, these two being supposed to be the authors of the

Atharva-Veda. Atharvan is supposed to mean 'having to

do with fire'; and Angiras, 'messenger' between gods and

men (note the Greek angelos, 'messenger,' 'angel'). [See

Atharvan, Atharva-Veda and Angirases in Voc.]

"teaching," ādeśa.

Deussen and Hume think that probably the Brāhmaṇas

are here referred to, which contain 'teaching' concerning

the sacrifices. [See Brāhmaṇa in Voc.]

The Song of the Unitive Self after it has Returned

to Itself.

With the Song cp. the lines quoted from E. G. A. Holmes's

Creed of my Heart on p. 166.

"Food-eater . . . I abhoro them."

Compare the opening lines of the same poem:

A flame in my heart is kindled by the might of the morn's

pure breath

A passion beyond all passion. . . .

A love that consumes and quickens.

NOTES ON SELECTIONS 4

169

Also these lines from Edith Matilda Thomas's Spirit to

Spirit :

I am the flower by the wood-path. . . .

The bird in its nest in the thicket,

The planet that leads the night-legions.

And I am the soft-dropping rain, the snow with its

fluttering swarms;

The summer-day cloud on the hill-tops. . . .

The wind from the south and the west, the voice that

sings courage in storms.1

"law," ṛta. (See ṛta in Voc.)

"I am food and the eater of food I eat."

That is, as Ranade puts it: "I am Death to the very God

of Death."2

4. MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM.

BAU. 5.5.3-4.

"Bhūḥ ! bhuvah ! svah."

Vocatives, written bhūs, bhuvaḥ, svar: the three sacred

and mystic utterances, 'earth ! atmosphere ! sun !'

Bhūḥ, 'the place of being, the world, space'; plur., bhuvaḥ,

'worlds, spaces,' interpreted as 'air' or 'atmosphere' when

taken as the utterance between bhūḥ ! and svaḥ ! [√bhū,

'become; come into being; arise, happen, take place; exist.'

Cp. Gk. ephu, 'became, grew'; Lat. fuit, 'was'; Eng. be.]

Thus bhūḥ and bhuvaḥ mean originally 'an existing' and

'these which exist,' and then 'place or places of existence.'

So, Eng. dwelling and abode, and Lat. mansio, which mean

originally 'a waiting,' 'an abiding,' and then 'an abiding

place, mansion.'

Svar, pronounced suar in the Veda, 'the sun.' [Cp. Gk.

Seir-ios, Seir, 'sun, dog-star'; sel-ēnē, 'moon'; Lat. ser-ēnus,

'bright'; sōl, 'sun'; Eng. sweal, 'burn, glow, waste away by

heat,' whence sweltry or sultry.] [L.]

"these do answer each to each."

This reminds us of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa's (1401-

1464. statement that each thing in the universe is a special

contraction of the whole (omnis res actu existens contrahit

unversa, ut sint actu id quod est), and more completely than

1 Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.

2 CS., p. 100.

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in other beings does the world mirror itself in man; briefly

put, man is "the world in miniature" (a parvus mundus).1

5. THE OPEN WAY AT DEATH.

BAU. 5.5.2.

"See This from That his life-breaths bring,

While That sends rays on This to cling."

"Life-breaths," prāṇa. See Voc.

This act of the sun is presented on a monument of King

Aken-aten (Amenhotep IV), about 1370 B.C. in Egypt.

Rays ending in hands are sculptured, stretching down upon

the King from the radiant disk (aten) as he presents offerings.

From the disk and also from the hand that is immediately

in front of the King hangs the ankh, the symbol of life.2

It is well to point out, however, that, while in the section

of the Brāhmaṇa that is here presented a person is depicted

as resident in the sun, the religion portrayed on the Egyptian

monument was protestant against such conception. Flinders

Petrie tells us that the Aten, the radiant disk, was "entirely

separate from the theology of Rā, the sun-god. The disk

was never represented by any human or animal figure, and

by the devotee of the Aten the worship of Rā was proscribed.

The object of worship indeed was not so much the disk as

it was the rays or radiant energies that proceeded from the

sun, these being shown [as in the monument above described],

each ending in hands that gave life and dominion and

accepted offerings." This purified form of devotion con-

nected with the sun was "restricted," he tells us, "within

half a century or less, the first traces appearing under

Amenhotep III, the full development under his son Aken-

aten [depicted on the monument already referred to], and

the end of it under Tut-ankh-amon."3

The idea of hands that touch is found in connexion with

the moon in one of the Seven Hundred Strophes in the

Māharāshṭrī dialect collected by King Hāla, who probably

1 Ueberweg-Heinze on Nicolas Cusanus in Gesch. d. Phil., III, 50.

2 The monument is pictured in article "Aegypten' in Religion in

Geschichte und Gegenwart,1 edited by F. M. Schiele.

3 Article, "Egyptian Religion," p. 248, by W. Flinders Petrie, in

Hastings's Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

NOTES ON SELECTION 6

171

reigned in the first or second century of our era,1 in this entreaty of a love-struck maiden to the moon:

O holy lucent Forehead-sign

And Crown, Thou Moon, of Heaven above,

On me too lay the shining hands

Wherewith thou nearer drawest my love.2

6. THE CREED OF ŚĀNDILYA.

CU. 3.14.

"purpose," kratu. See p. 204.

The comprehensive power we find here attributed to the soul in the Creed of Śāṇdilya is well expressed by Loerke, one of the so-called cosmo-centric school of poets in Germany after the Great War, in this verse of his, which evidently depicts the confusion of the nations that followed that catastrophe:

Peoples like a surging main,3

So much blood and so much pain !

Tumult vast ! yet doth it all

In one's loneliness befall.4

We may notice also how distinctly Emerson's description of the Soul within us as being properly what he calls the Over-Soul, agrees with the above teaching of Sāṇdilya:

"All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ at all, but animates and exercises the organs; it is not a faculty, but a light; it is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will—is the vast background of our being, in which these lie—an immensity that is not possessed and that cannot be possessed. Man is thus a stream whose source is hidden, his being is descending into him from whence he knows not. . . . I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine. As with events, so is it with thoughts.

"The Supreme Critic on all the errors of the past and the present, and the only Prophet of that which must be, is that Great Nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and

1 Helmuth von Glasenapp in Otto von Glasenapp's Indische Gedichte, p. xxv.

2 Otto von Glasenapp's Indische Gedichte, p. 71.

3 Steigender, stürzender, Völker beharrendes Bild.

4 In "Hinter dem Horizont" in Der Längste Tag (Berlin: Fischer).

172 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

made one with all other; that Common Heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is the submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is.

"Let man learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; this, namely, that the Highest dwells with him, that the sources of nature are in his own mind when the sentiment of duty is there."

Such a doctrine as Sāndilya's seems to be in Alliotta, the Italian philosopher's, mind, also, as Crespi describes his teaching: "Religion remains for Alliotta as the immediate experience each soul possesses of its essential unity with the whole of Being, as the longing after ever more intimate forms of such unity."1

In the Bhāgavata Purāna (X. 7. 34-37), considered by Helmuth von Glasenapp2 to have to be composed about the ninth century A.D., we have this unity with the whole of Being depicted as possessed by Krishna, whom that Purāna specially celebrates among the incarnations of the god Vishṇu. Yashodā was the wife of the shepherd Nanda and the foster-mother of Krishna, and how she regarded the child she fostered is thus described:

Took once Yashódā Krishna on her lap to rest. The child would drink and lovingly she gave to him her breast. Then drank the child and oped his mouth—a lightsome yawn. Caressing him the mother then his fair face gazed upon. O wonderful! in that one look she all the world did see, Air sun moon stars beneath heaven's canopy, And sea earth hill and stream, e'en all that earth doth hold, Yea, everything that rests or stirs she saw itself unfold; Clear-eyed yet trembling viewed in that one moment all; Then let her eye-lids, love-and-laughter weighted, fall.3

Compare also this of Crashaw's entitled On the Blessed Virgin's Bashfulness.

That on her lap she casts her humble eye, 'Tis the sweet pride of her humility.

1 Crespi, Contemporary Thought of Italy, p. 219.

2 Helmuth u. Glasenapp's Introduction in his father Otto's book, Indische Gedichte aus vier Jahrtausenden.

3 Anglicising of Otto Glasenapp's translation in the said book.

NOTES ON SELECTION 7

173

The fair star is well fixed, for where, O where!

Could she have fixed it on a fairer sphere?

'Tis heaven, 'tis heaven she sees, heaven's God there is;

She can see heaven and ne'er lift her eyes.

This New Guest to her eyes new laws hath given:

'Twas once "Look up," 'tis now "look down" to

heaven.

The difference between the doctrine of Śāṇdilya and the

later doctrine of Śaṁkara, who, born 788 A.D., systematised

and promulgated the doctrine he regarded as the Vedānta

(the end or essential doctrine of the Veda) and whose

writings are the canonical documents of what is called

Vedānta to-day, is noted by E. W. Hopkins, who points

out that Śaṁkara taught that the One Spirit alone exists,

and that accordingly the individual spirit is nothing else

than the passing impress of the One Spirit, while the

teaching here ascribed to Śāṇḍilya depicts the individual

spirit to be in the present order distinct from the Supreme

Spirit, although ultimately to be absorbed into it.1

7. WHAT CERTAIN CREATURES OF THE WILDER-

NESS TAUGHT SATYAKĀMA.

CU. 4.4–9.

The Bull, the Fire, the Swan, the Diver-Bird.

These are creatures a tender of cattle in the wilderness

would be well acquainted with. As creatures in intimate

contact with the great world around them, in contrast to

man who dwells so much in shelter, and consequently

supposed, in the bent of ancient thought, to have a deeper

insight into nature than man has, these successively an-

nounce here to the herdsmen the contents and the name of

each quarter of the brahman, the Spirit, the mysterious

invisible force of which the Upanishad teachers maintained

the world to be the manifestation.

The Bull.

The great world with its wonderful productivity is well

conceived by these thinkers of ancient Hindustan as the

Bull, the strongly productive creature, pictured gigantic,

standing firm upon its four feet in the swirl of the

1 E. W. Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 221, note.

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primeval waters which still circulate, and in which in the beginning the earth was formed (see Selection 2 [BAU. I.2], p. 58).

Pāda, ‘foot’ (cp. Lat. pē(d)s, pĕdis), is the word frequently used as here to designate the limb of a quadruped and so ‘a fourth part,’ ‘a quarter.’ Compare Lanman’s remark that we in English conversely use ‘a quarter,’ a fourth part, to designate a limb.

What of the Swastika? It is, of course, Sanskrit: su, prob. akin to āyú ‘lively,’ from √i, ‘go’; and to Gk. eu-, ‘strongly’ which has become generalised into eu, ‘well’ [L]; + ás-ti, ‘is’ (cp. Gk. es-ti, ‘is,’ ‘exists’; Eng. ‘is’ [L]); and + the adjectival suffix ka. How far does it go back? Are we to gather its meaning from the image here of the universe as a Bull; that is to say, that the Swastika’s four feet are the four feet of the Universe, the composure and progress (well-being, swastiká) of which is assured for him to the wearer of the swastika? True, a bull has not human feet as the swastika has, but hoofs; yet the Macrocosm, came to be set in tally with the Microcosm, In the Puruṣa-hymn of the Rigveda (10.90), we have the world conceived as a giant, whose eye is the sun, the air his chest, and so on. (See puruṣa in Voc.)

“supported,” “Possessing a support” [H]. Sanskrit, ā-yát-ana-vant.

ā-yát-ana, n. a support fr. ā-yat, reach to, attain, fr. √yat, join [perh. orig. ‘reach out after’]; +ā, ‘hither,’ ‘from’ (first ‘all the way from,’ then ‘all the way unto’). [Cp. Lat. ā.] [L.]

“. . . cloud.” Sanskrit, sam-udra, literally ‘gathering of the waters.” See sam-udra in Voc.

“I see thee shine like Spirit-Knower.”

Thus we find, as Belvalkar and Ranade point out, the worship of the four quarters of Brahman, with the understanding of them as here laid down, is regarded as preparation for further knowledge of the Brahman.1

We are not told what the further teaching was that Hāridrumata gave to Satyakāma, but we may infer that it

1 CP., p. 390.

NOTES ON SELECTIONS 8 AND 9

175

was the knowledge, which we are informed in the passage immediately following, Satyakāma declared to his own pupil when he himself had become a teacher. Yet what we find given there is not that high instruction regarding the Self which we find in the supreme parts of the Upanishads.1

8. HOW SPIRIT BECAME THE ALL.

BAU. I.4.10.

"Knowledge-of-Spirit," brahma-vidyā, is explained in the comments brought forward by S. C. Vasu, on p. 86 of the edition of this Upanishad in the Sacred Books of the Hindus, edited by B. D. Basu, I.M.S., retired, to mean 'the direct perception of God as opposed to belief in God.'

Vāma-deva, a seer, son of Gotama, and composer of the Fourth Mandala [division or book] of the Rig-Veda. [M.]

Manu, the first of men living on the earth, progenitor of mankind. [VM.]

9. THE SELF CREATIVE.

BAU. I.4.5, 6.

"Churning with his lips."

Madhu, the elder brother of the great commentator Sāyana, and, like Sāyana, minister to Bukka I (1350-79), wrote a Commentary on the Upanishad from which this selection is taken. Bukka belonged to a family which, throwing off the Moslem yoke in the earlier half of the fourteenth century, founded the dynasty of Vijaya-nagara ('city of victory'), now Hampi (in ruins), on the Tungabhadrā, in the Bellary district. Madhu died as abbot of the monastery of Śṛngeri.2

We quote from an edition of this Upanishad, p. 73, in B. D. Basu's Sacred Books of the Hindus, Madhu's comment on this description of the creative act of the Self: "Thinking 'Let me create food and the eater of food,' he churned his two lips with the palms of his two hands. From that rubbing of the lips with the palms of the hands there arose fire from inside his mouth and hands."

1 CP., p. 222. 2 A. A. Macdonell's Sanskrit Literature, p. 275.

N

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In a parenthesis in this translation of Madhu's Com-

mentary it is explained that "This was the generation of

the fire of digestion."

Soma, m. 'extract' (from √su, to extract [L.]): the juice as

extracted with much ceremony from the internodia or

shoots (āṅśu)-1 of a certain plant by a company met

together to worship the gods. What the plant was is

not known. We learn from the Rig-veda that both the

plant and its juice were of brown, ruddy, or tawny

colour. It is described as growing on the mountains

and in the waters. Already it was prepared and

celebrated in the community of the Indo-Europeans

that settled in Persia before the detachment left that

settled in India, among whom were the Rig-veda poets.

The mysterious effect of the juice on mind and energy

led to its being regarded by those poets as a divine

draught that conferred immortality.2

"Which doth in those who quaff, etc."

These lines are inserted by the present writer as a para-

phrase of RV. 8.48. where the worshippers gathered together

exclaim, "We have drunk Soma. We have become immortal.

We have entered into light. We have known the gods."3

creation, sṛṣṭi, f. a letting-forth, discharge; ordinary meaning,

creation [M.]. From √sṛj, let loose, dart, hurl; throw,

pour out (streams, rain); (discharge from one's self and

so) procreate, engender, create. [L.]

super-creation [H.], higher creation [M.], ati-sṛṣṭi. ati, adv.

across, beyond, past, over, as verbal prefix; in com-

pounds, to excess, excessive; as preposition, beyond,

over. [Cp. Greek eti, further, besides; Lat. et, besides,

and.] [L.]

"He, mortal, hath immortals brought him forth."

The significance of this with regard to art is thus stated

in a note on this passage on p. 71 of B. D. Basu's edition of

this Upanishad: "The art is immortal, the artist mortal.

The production of an artist is therefore an ati-sṛṣṭi."

1 āṅśa, m. (that which one gets, i.e.) one's portion;

and so, generalised,

portion, part, [√aś, get]. aṅśú, m. juicy intermedium or shoot of the

Soma-plant. [L.]

2 VM., pp. 104-115.

3 VM., p. 109.

NOTES ON SELECTION 10

177

10. THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY UDDĀLAKA TO HIS SON ŚVETAKETU.

CU. 6.

Uddālaka.

One of the most prominent teachers of the Vedic Period, a Brahmin of the Kuru-pañcāla people who occupied the upper plain of the Jumña and Ganges, the teacher of Yājnavalkya. His son Śvetaketu is reported by Āpastamba, a teacher, to have become in the later time in which he lived an avara (later authority).1 (See Uddālaka Āruneya in Voc.

Only Being in the beginning (CU. 6. 2.1).

Literal translation: “simply Being (sat eva), simply One (ekam eva) and so without-a-second (a-dvitīyam) was this world at first.”

“simply,” eva, for which see p. 189.

Here we have the foundation axiom of Hindu religion. It has proved, if taken mathematically, a difficult foundation on which to build the world. If Being be a mathematical One, then all plurality is a delusion. This came to be taught in later days, finding its final and most exact proclaimer in Śaṅkara.2 But evidently for Uddālaka Being is not abstract.3 Nor is the One mathematical. It ‘bethinks itself’ (p. 101). It recognises itself as ‘this living self’ (p. 102). Although certain objects (e.g. the sun) are simply compounds of the elements, the elements themselves are evidently real. They beget one the other, and Being enters them ‘with this living self,’ and, dwelling in them, makes out name and form. Apparently clay, iron, copper exist, although objects made thereof are ruled out, as being simply ‘puttings of a name.’ Uddālaka’s successor cleared his master’s teaching by proclaiming the Self to be the core of Being, the inner thread, by being strung on which the world and every item therein exists.

“Name and Form,” nāma-rūpe, one word of dual number, composed of nāma, ‘name,’ as in English, and rūpa, ‘outward ‘look’ or ‘appearance,’ as well ‘color’ as ‘form’ or ‘shape’ [L].

1 Vedic Index, arts. “Uddālaka” and “Kuru.” 2 See p. 173. 3 That Being (sat) is not abstract in Hindu thought in general, see sat in Voc.

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"goblins," yaksa. See p. 30.

The Śata-patha Brāhmana, II.2.3, thus describes the advent of Name and Form:

"Verily, Spirit was this world at the beginning. It created the gods. After it created the gods it set them over these [three] worlds, Agni over this world, Vāyu over the air, and Sūrya over the heaven. . . . But It itself went into the half beyond. . . . After it went into the half beyond it thought ‘How can I now into these worlds descend?’

"Into these worlds it descended by means of two, that is to say, by means of both Form (rūpa) and Name (nāma). Therefore to whatsoever thing a name belongs, that is its Name; and what thing has no name, and one knows its form and says ‘Its Form is so,’ that is its form. For this world extends just as far as name and form do.

"These two are the two mighty dreads [a-bhva, literally ‘non-being’] of Spirit. He who knows these two mighty dreads, a mighty dread himself becomes.

"Also, these are the two mighty sprites [yakṣa] of Spirit. He who knows these two mighty sprites, himself a mighty sprite becomes.

"Of these two the more powerful is Form, for where there is the Name [of a thing] that is tantamount to its Form. He who knows that more powerful [of these two] becomes himself more powerful than him over whom he wishes more powerful to be '1

Heat, Water, Food.

Belvalkar and Ranade explain that Heat (tejas) signifies the invigorating, energetic principle; the Waters (āpas)—all liquid existence; Food (anna)—whatever is solid. They point out that thus the primary elements of the world according to Uddālaka are only these three: (1) Energy or force, prominently manifested in fire and light, (2) liquid existence, and (3) solid existence; and that, further, according to his teaching later on in this Upanishad, evolution progressed from what is fine to what is coarse.

It would seem, our two scholars go on to say, that Uddālaka thought that all the objects of phenomenal existence were the product of a suitable and judicious

1 Quoted in Deussen, Allgemeine Einleitung und Philosophie des Veda bis auf die Upanishads, p. 259-.

NOTES ON SELECTION 10

179

combination of these three principles, fire (energy), water (what is liquid), food (what is solid or earthy), informed and invigorated by Being (spirit); and that objects were known to be more fiery, more watery, or more earthy, according as the principle of fire water or earth predominated. Thus we here meet the doctrine according to which there was a portion of everything in everything—except Being, which alone stands outside and is transcendent. In this scheme as a partite scheme we see the basis on which the doctrine of five primary elements—ether, air, fire, water, earth—was taught in later Indian thought and in early Greek philosophy” [Cp. p. 226]. There is more particularly, when we note the theory of the inclusion of all in all, the striking coincidence with the doctrine of Anaxagoras (who lived from about 499-8 to 428-7 B.C. [Ueberweg-Heinze]) of Klazomenai, an island-town on the Gulf of Smyrna, according to whom the smallest portions (‘seeds’ he called them) of matter contained a portion of everything, that is, of all the opposites, although in different proportions. Because his atoms thus contained a portion of everything Anaxagoras called them homoiomerē (‘like parts’).1

"That which is the finest essence: that which hath that [finest essence] as its soul this whole World is. . . . That are Thou, O Śvetaketu." "finest essence," animā2; has-that-as-its-soul etad-ātmyaṃ; etad, ‘that’; ātmyaṃ, ‘possessing as soul (ātmā)."

This stanza is the refrain of each of the Riddles that follow. In the light of the preceding instruction it may be put in this form: That finest essence, namely, Being, out of which proceeded heat, water, food, which constitute this whole world, is (which might have been inferred, seeing it thus is the source of all) the soul or self of this whole world. That finest essence alone is real (which, if we carry logic to conclusion, has indeed been already said, seeing it is called ‘Being’).

That is the Self.

Professor Schayer tells us that the Self (ātmā) really meant for these ancient thinkers simply ‘myself.’ That at all events is a better translation, he says, of ātmā than

1 See John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 306. 2 For animān, see p. 39.

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'the Self' understood in the abstract significance the term

has come to possess, after these many centuries of thought,

for thinkers of to-day.1 Yājnavalkya speaks of the

intelligential self as 'this person here, the light of the heart,'

laying his hand the while upon his breast [p. 118 (BAU.,

4.3.7)]. Aśvapati stretches his fingers across his forehead

to indicate where the self that is common to all men

resides (p. 245 CU., 5.18.1.)]. Keeping in mind the warning

of Schayer's, we venture thus to paraphrase the teaching of

Uddālaka to his son: "That finest essence, that which is the

Self of the World and alone Real and is myself: That art

Thou, to whom I speak"; or, in other words, "Myself is thy-

self". The sum of all which assertion is that the Self of the

World, of him who thinks, and of each human being around

us is the one and the self-same Self and it alone is real.

"gathered waters," sam-udra. See pp. 161 and 208.

Second Riddle (CU. 6.10).

Third Riddle (CU. 6.11).

Ranade thus explains this riddle: "The subtle essence

which Uddālaka here declares to underly all phenomena is,

considered biologically, the supreme life-principle which

gives life to the universe. The branches of a tree may die

and yet the tree lives; but when the tree dies, the branches

die also. Similarly the universe may vanish, but God

remains; but God cannot vanish, and hence the latter

alternative is impossible."2

Fourth Riddle (CU. 6.12).

ny-ag-ródha, m. Ficus Bengalensis, banyan tree.

ny-ag-rodha means 'growing, bent down, into.' From ni,

prep. 'down; in, into' (cp. Eng. ne-ther, be-nea-th + ag

(√ac or anc, bend) + √rudh, 'grow' (cp. Lat. rud-is,

fem. 'rod, staff') [L].

Ranade points out that the teacher here declares that it

is of the very subtle essence which his pupil "does not

perceive" in the seed that the great ny-ag-rodha tree is

made. So does he teach that here is an existence that "can

be grasped only by faith." Further, it is declared that this

subtle, unseen essence that displays itself in the great tree

1 Schayer, Jahrbuch der Schopenhauer Gesellschaft, 1928. 2 CS., p. 55.

NOTES ON SELECTION 10

181

is to be "identified with the Self, and his pupil must identify

himself with it. So we see made clear in this parable the

limitation also of a merely cosmological conception of the

underlying essence of all things. We are warned that

cosmology must invoke the aid of psychology, and that it is

only when we suppose that the same subtle essence underlies

both the world of nature and the world of mind that we find

the whole Universe to be one."1

A. M. Church thus describes Ficus Bengalensis: "Of

Sub-Himalya and S. India. It is greatly planted, and

grows to 100 ft. high with descending aerial roots as 'props.'

Given time there seems to be no limit to the lateral extension

(assisted). Calcutta tree, seedling of 1782, 100 yards

diam. and 464 props, 1900. Nerbadda tree, covering

nearly 1 sq. mile. It attains a great age, 2200 years being

recorded. Fruit small, globose, half to three-quarters

inch, scarlet when ripe."2

Fifth Riddle (cu. 6.13).

This Riddle Professor Ranade explains thus: "Meta-

physically, the subtle essence underlying phenomena, which

is identical with the Self, pervades all. As salt may pervade

every particle of water into which it is put, so the Ātman

fills every nook and cranny of the universe. There is

nothing that does not live in the Ātman."3

Sixth Riddle (cu. 6.14).

Here we are taught that a teacher is necessary.

"Gāndhāras."

The later form of the name Gāndhāris which designates

in the Rigveda the most north-westerly of the many Āryan

tribes that are mentioned.4 The good wool of their sheep

is referred to, and it is related that they took part in 'the

great battle' of 'the ten Kings'5 against the chief of a tribe

apparently settled to the east of the Paruṣṇī (Rāvī, Irāvatī).

Zimmer, we are told in Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index,

considers that they were settled on the south bank of the

Kubhā (which is no doubt identical with Kabul river of

1 CS., pp. 55 and 257.

2 Introduction to the Systematy of Indian Trees, p. 40.

3 CS., p. 55.

4 Macdonell in Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. II, p. 223. 5 Id., p. 222.

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to-day) down to the point where it joins the Indus, and then down the side of the Indus for some distance. Their name is still preserved in the form Kandahār.1

Eighth Riddle (cu. 6.16): The Invisible Protection in Life's Ordeal.

This brief description of the Riddle is given by Ranade: "Viewed from the moral point of view the Ātman is truth. One who makes alliance with truth, makes alliance with the Ātman also."2 And Belvalkar and Ranade thus put its lesson in more detail: "We are taught here that the Self and Reality are identical. It is only when we 'cover ourselves with the truth of the Ātman' that we are able to face boldly the ordeal of life. If we cover ourselves with unreality, there is no hope for us. It is Truth, therefore, which ultimately matters. Truth is identical with the subtle essence of the universe, and that is the Ātman. 'That THOU art' is the recurring instruction which Āruṇi gives to his son Śvetaketu."3

Note, as supporting this identification of truth with the essence of the universe, what Dr. Crespi tells us is the teaching of the Italian philosopher Antonio Aliotta (The Idealistic Reaction against Science, 1912): "Aliotta has it that while there are levels and degrees of reality and truth, the higher including the lower and resting thereon, truth itself is the one ever-receding and yet ever-impelling final goal of life in each of its myriad forms."4

II. THE BIRD OF PARADISE.

Muṇḍ. 3.1–3; ŚU. 4.6–7; Maitri. 6.18b.

"The Song" is RV. 10.164.20.

The bird that "eats the sweet fruit" is the Self as realised in Individual separateness. The bird that "without eating looks on" is the Transcendent Self.

"the dark-purple berries," berry, pip-pal-a, m. pippalā is found, Macdonnell and Keith tell us, in two passages in the Rigveda as meaning ‘berry’ with a mystic significance, but with no certain reference to the berry of a

1 Macdonnell in Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. II, p. 222.

2 CP., p. 55.

3 Id., p. 230.

4 Contemporary Thought of Italy, by Angelo Crespi, 1926, p. 219.

NOTES ON SELECTION II

183

fig-tree. They point out, however, that in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa it perhaps means the berry of the fig-tree, called the Berry-Tree (Peepul) in India to-day (the Ficus Religiosa).

It was no doubt a common tree in North India in these ancient days as it still is to-day. It is the tree still preserved in Buddh Gayā, where the Buddha received his Awakening. A. H. Church describes it as a wide-spreading tree with foliage like a poplar's, tremulous, with long drip-tips, 1–2 inch, and with fruit half-inch in diameter and of a dark purple colour.1

The translator here has accordingly assumed that the Peepul is the tree intended in the Old Ballad, and describes its berries as dark purple.

"this Person's sad woe," 'person,' puruṣa. (See Voc., p. —.)

"Spirit-source" brahma-yoni, literally 'Spirit-womb.' In B. D. Basu's edition of the Muṇḍaka with Madhu's commentary, 'the cause, the source, of Brahmā,' the clause in which the word occurs is translated 'the Person from whom Brahmá comes out.' This substitution of the personal Brahmá for the impersonal or semi-personal bráhman is in accordance with Madhu's theology. For Madhu see p. 175. For bráhman and brahmá, see Voc. See also p. 30.

Yóni, m.f. lap; womb or birthplace ['the holder' of the born or unborn babe, √yu, hold.] [L].

"Poised safe above sund'rance." 'sund'rance,' a-vy-ayam, 'the Inconvertable' [CP]; 'the Imperishable' [H], from a, negative prefix + vi, prep. 'apart, asunder, away, out' + √i, 'go.'

In the previous section (2, 1.2) of the Muṇḍaka Upanishad from which this selection is taken the superiority of the Person to the a-vy-ayam is stated:

Heavenly (divya) without form (a-mūrtta) is the Person (puruṣa).

He is without and within, unborn.

Without breath (a-prāṇa) without mind (a-manas), pure (śubhra)

Higher than the a-vy-ayam.

1 Introduction to the Systematy of Indian Trees, p. 40.

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"shaken off good and evil."

It will be the hope of those who find in Upanishad teaching so much that enlightens, that here is meant only that superiority of the Supreme according to which out of personal will the Supreme decides the good and the evil and accordingly reigns above both: but we are to remember that there runs throughout the teaching of the Forest Fathers the strange and subversive doctrine that the highest condition of the Self is a condition of such thorough passivity that it is indifferent to either the good or the evil that it does. We quote on p. 185 the opinion of our two so often cited Indian scholars with regard to that doctrine.

The Italian philosopher Croce, as his teaching is summed up by Crespi, has it indeed that "each distinct concept—the beautiful, the true, the useful, the good—is the concrete synthesis of two concepts, two opposites, each of which, taken by itself, is a mere abstraction and is real only in synthesis with the other." But, he insists, Crespi points out, that a struggle is going on of the positive over its negation. Thus "beauty has ugliness, its opposite, as an element within itself, which it seeks to overcome, truth has falsehood within itself and also is the overcoming of falsehood; worth is the overcoming of worthlessness; goodness the overcoming of evil. That is to say, opposition is not between the different moments of the life of the mind, but within each of them, just as life carries death, its negation, within itself, and is the struggle to overcome it ; while both life and death have really no meaning apart from their opposites."1

Croce has it that this struggle is ever going on, reality thus growing out of itself in infinite time. Reality thus for him is History. In this Upanishad we have it on the contrary displayed as the Static. In such a presentation the danger is that the true relation and action of the opposites to each other, if Reality in its true nature is to be attained, may be forgotten. H. R. Mackintosh censures McTaggart for wasting time and ingenuity in seeking to find in Omnipotence "the power of combining two operations which are both metaphysically and ethically incongruous."2

1 Contemporary Thought of Italy, 1926, p. 70.

2 In The Christian Apprehension of God.

NOTES ON SELECTION 12

185

12. THE INSTRUCTION YĀJNAVALKYA GAVE TO JANAKA, KING OF THE VIDEHAS.

BAU. 4.3-4.

The King's Question (bau. 4.3. 2-6).

"The Self, O King."

As Ranade points out [CS., p. 40] Yājnavalkya has here adopted the regressive method of instruction, which "takes the form of many successive questions, every new question carrying us behind the answer to the previous question." When Janaka asked what is the light of man, he answered that it was the sun. Janaka had then to retire behind answer after answer of the sage—from Sun to Moon, from Moon to Fire, and so on, until his ceasing to repeat the question shows him that the sage had at last given him the true answer, the Self, which exists behind all, the Light-in-itself.

Ranade thus summarises the teaching of this section: "The Ātman is the ultimate light of man; all other lights are lights by sufferance. When Ātman is realised as the light of man, one reaches self-consciousness" [CS. p. 57].

The To and Fro Movement of the Intelligential Self (bau. 4. 3.7).

"Among the senses." (See prāṇa in Voc.)

The Root beneath all Divergence (bau. 4.3.22).

"... Nor thief, a thief; doth bear He who an embryo's death hath enterprised, that horror There no more."

Belvalkar and Ranade describe the absence here of differentiation in the beatific condition as "the dangerline of Upanishad ethics." They remark that "to say that the Ātman [that is, the Self] dies not, is legitimate. To say that weapons cannot cut him or fire burn him is only a legitimate varying of the phrase. But to argue that therefore the muderer is no murderer—as is done in the Kaushi-taki Upanishad ('Whoso were to know me [that is, Indra, representing the Self], not by any action of his whatsoever can his world be injured; not by murdering his mother or his father, not by stealing or by killing an embryo. Nor can anybody observe any pallor or darkening of his face even though he were to do what is ordinarily regarded as

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sin or crime.' [Kaush. 3.1.])—and therefore nobody is really responsible for his actions, is to carry this doctrine to a point which, if seriously preached, would be subversive of all established social institutions and religious sacraments. And that is exactly what things were drifting to at the time when this teaching was promoted."1

Perhaps at first sight we will see in the passage before us simply such a description of the condition beyond the bourne of space-time as is given by Job, when he cursed the day of his birth, wishing he had died from the womb and so had "slept and been at rest . . . where the wicked cease from troubling [that is, as Davidson explains 'from the unquiet of their own evil'] and the weary are at rest; where the prisoners are at ease together and hear not the voice of the taskmaster; where are the small and great, and the servant is free from his master" (Job 3. 11–19), that is, a condition in which the Self is resting in itself, free from trouble. But, while the Book of Job has as its great theme the sense of the moral imperfection that haunts a man as he considers the holiness of God, we find Yājnavalkya later on, when he describes the Independence of the Self (p. 129), teach just what is so dramatically taught in the passage our two Indian scholars quote from the Kaushītaki, that a man who has attained to the true height of the Self is quite indifferent as to the good or the evil that he does.

The Man whose World is Spirit (BAU. 4.3.32).

"As gathered flood," salila, 'flood, surge' (M); fr. √sr (p. 227.)

"One unbroken." This is a paraphrase of a-dvaita, 'without duality.'

For the idea see p. 161. It is illustrated by the following verse of the Bhagavad-gītā2: "He whom all desires enter as the waters enter the full and firm-established sea, wins peace; not so the desirer of desires" (BG. 2.70).

W. D. P. Hill, from whose translation of the Bhagavad-gītā the above lines are taken, explains in his Introduction

1 CP., p. 399.

2 Composed, according to W. D. P. Hill (The Bhagavad-gītā, p. 18), not later than 150 B.C., that is, some five centuries after the expiry of the Upanishad period. Upanishad ideas have been perpetually in the Hindu mind since they were promulgated, in fact, form the very core and marrow thereof.

NOTES ON SELECTION 12 187

(p. 61) that this refers to “the placid serenity of the true

Ascetic. The things of sense, the desires that enter the

mind affect him not. As rivers pour their waters into an

ocean that yet remains unmoved and ever the same, so the

influx of desires cannot move him.”

The Source of Consciousness (bau. 4.3.23-31).

Note as throwing light upon these announcements the

description by Angelo Crespi of Bernardino Varisco’s

philosophy:

“Being on the one hand must be: it cannot but persist in

existing. The thought of Being as no longer being is a self-

contradictory thought. On the other hand, Being exists

only as the common feature of all other realities, i.e. of its

determinations, just as the triangle exists only in its deter-

minations, the isosceles scalene and equilateral triangles.

That means that it is necessary that there should be deter-

minations of Being in order that Being may be. Without

these determinations there would be nothing. On the

other hand, the existence of these determinations follows

out of the necessity that Being, which cannot but be, should

realise itself by emerging from its indeterminate and purely

logical existence and by determining itself so-and-so as

the system of the universe.” [A. Crespi: Contemporary

Thought of Italy (1926), p. 227.]

The Beatific Calculus (bau. 4.3.33).

Belvalkar and Ranade report with approval this title.

“Elves” is Professor Helmuth Glasenapp’s translation of

gandharvas, “the singers of Indra’s court,” as Lanman

describes them. Originally there was only one gandharva,

and Lanman conjectures that he was the deity of the moon.

(See gandharva in the Vocabulary.)

A clause—“and of him who is learned in the Vedas, who

is without crookedness and is free from desire”—closes

the description of each of the last three blisses. It is

evidently an insertion into the text, and is therefore omitted

in our translation.

In The Soul at Death (bau. 4.3. 35-38) there is a

paragraph (bau. 4.3.37), which is regarded by Deussen

as an insertion. It is accordingly kept by itself and

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translated on p. 149 under the title The Homage of All things to him who in All things sees the Self.

Becoming One (bau. 4.4.2a).

The criticism in brackets on the neighbours' remarks is by Deussen's advice inserted in accordance with the teaching of The Source of Consciousness, p. 121 (bau. 4.3.23-31).

The Setting-out to acquire another Body (bau. 4.4.2b).

"the surge that held him thrall before." (See saṁsāra in Voc.)

The Acquirement of Another Body (bau. 4.4.3-7).

Upon this section Ranade has this striking comment: "This passage is important from various points of view. It tells us, in the first place, that a Soul finds out its future body before it leaves its former one: in fact, it seems that the passage calls in question a 'disembodied' existence. Then again, it tells us that the Soul is a creative entity, and, in Aristotelian fashion, that it creates a body as a goldsmith creates an ornament of gold. Then again, the passage says that a Soul is like a Phoenix which at every change of body takes on a newer and more beautiful form. Next, it regards the Soul as amenable at every remove to the law of karman, and tells us that it receives a holy body if its actions have been good, and a sinful body if its actions have been bad."1

The successive embodying of the Self by the Self is thus alluded to by Kālidāsa.2

Sight charming dost thou see, entrancing tones perceive, Thyself indeed deem blest, and yet most strangely grieve? Unwitting, thou, in spirit, friendship old rememberest, Out of some earlier life of thine, deep-rooted in they breast.

With this doctrine of the acquirement by the soul of another body, and thus its continuance after death in this

1 CS., p. 156.

2 "The greatest poet of the country of the Ganges, in whom Indian poetic art attains its perfection. In all probability he lived in the first half of the fifth century A.D. in the court of the Emperor Gupta, who then ruled a mighty kingdom in the east of India." [Helmuth von Glasenapp's Indische Gedichte aus vier Jahrtausenden, from whose book these lines are taken, translated by the author of this work.]

NOTES ON SELECTION 12

189

world, compare the teaching of what is called, on account of its author being unknown, the "Orphan Quotation":

"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show, to my fellow creatures, let me do it now; let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Desire is the Source of Acts (bau. 4.4.5c).

"deed; Himself fallen-in-with-that is then his meed," yat karma kurute, tad abhisampadyate. Rendered by Hume: "what action he performs that he procures for himself" or "into that he becomes changed"; and by Otto: "zu solchem Dasein gelangt er."

The Pull of the Deed (bau. 4.4.6a).

"germ within" is ventured upon as a translation of lingam. Hume's translation is 'the inner self.' The word is derived from √lag, which means 'to attach or fasten oneself to' [L], and thus means etymologically 'anything attaching to an object' [M]. It has as its simple meaning 'mark (by which one knows or recognises a thing)'; 'kennzeichen, characteristic' [L]. Here it means 'the subtle body,' of which a description is given under the word puruṣa in the Vocabulary.

The Attainment of him who is without Desire (bau. 4.4.6b, 7a).

"life-breaths," prāṇa. See Voc.

"Spirit," brahman eva. 'Spirit' is printed in italics to indicate the emphasis that eva attaches to brahman.

eva, 'just, exactly,' etc., requires the most various translations—sometimes mere stress of voice: 'precisely; no more no less than; nothing short of; merely; quite.' [L.]

"doth retire," apy-eti. See Note, p. 43.

"Mortal, immortal come to be, Spirit now attaineth he."

Literal translation: "Then a mortal immortal becomes; therein he reaches brahman."

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'Then,' átha, adv., expresses a sequence temporal or resultant: 'then; so then; accordingly; thereupon.' [L.]

'Therein,' atra, adv. (1) 'in this case; on this occasion, at this juncture.' (2) 'in this or that (place); here.' [L.]

"attaineth," sam-aśnute. See Note, p. 43.

The Dissolution of the Body and Again the Attainment

(BAU. 4.4.7b).

Literal translation: "As the slough of a snake lies on an ant-hill, dead, cast off, even so lies this body. But this incorporeal, immortal, breath is brahman indeed, is glory indeed."

"viewless breath," prāṇa.

"Spirit and glory pure," brahman eva, tejas eva. See eva in Note on previous stanza, and tejas on p. 37.

Ranade thus summarises the passage: "As to the man who has no desires left in him, who is desireless because he has all his desires fulfilled, his desires being centred only in the Self, the vital airs do not depart: such a man, being Brahman (while he lived) goes to Brahman (after death).... And as the slough of a snake might lie upon an ant-hill, dead and cast away, even so does his body lie. Being verily bodiless he becomes immortal; his vital spirits are (merged in) Brahman and become pure light."

The King's Largesse Again (BAU. 4.4.7c.).

Certain verses (BAU. 4.4.8-11) that follow this stanza are almost entirely found in other Upanishads, and are consequently considered by Deussen to be an insertion. They are accordingly here omitted.

The Glory of the Self (BAU. 4.4.22a).

On the statement "Nor less be made by ill" see note on ". . . nor thief, a thief," p. 185.

The Ungraspability and Independence of the Self

(BAU. 4.4.22d,e, 23a,b).

"All designation is upon him wrecked . . . 'No!' and 'No!' 'Tis so Alone, can those reply who that Self know," etc.

1 CS., p. 156. "vital airs, vital spirits," prāṇa. "pure light," tejas eva.

NOTES ON SELECTION 12

191

We shall remember that the Self or Soul (Ātman) which the Upanishad fathers of the classical period declare to be our true self is the Transcendental, the Universal, Self. Reading the quaint sentences of this paragraph in which they express their inability to describe it, we are reminded of what Westcott calls the 'negative theology,' as contrasted with the 'positive theology' in his Essay1 on the writings of the Neo-platonic Christian mystic, the so-called 'Dionysius the Areopagite,' who had so much influence in the Church of the Middle Ages. In that mystic's writings these two methods of describing the Infinite are set forth. According to the one, as Westcott says "everything which is may be affirmed of God, because, so far as it is, it exists in Him. According to the other, everything, so far as we are cognizant of it, may be denied of God, because our conception of it introduces the element of limitation, which cannot be applied to Him. Thus on the one hand He is Wisdom and Love and Truth and Light, because the absolute ideas belonging to these words are included in His Being; and, on the other hand, He is not Wisdom, not Love, not Truth, not Light, because He is raised infinitely above the notions with which the words are necessarily connected by men. The latter statements are in themselves more true, but the former are better suited to the common discipline of life."

"Compelled By neither 'Hence performed I wrong' nor 'Hence I did the right' . . . Behind He leaveth both." (See note on ". . . nor thief, a thief," p. 185.)

"The Self it is, etc."

In this line the translator adopts the reading tasyaivātmā in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, 3.12. (translated on p. 263 of the First Part of Deussen's Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie), inasmuch as the Taittirīya reading, when compared with that in the Upanishad, seems to be the more consonant with the teaching for which the Upanishad desires support.

1 "Dionysius the Areopagite," in Religious Thought in the West, p. 159-.

0

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13. YĀJNAVALKYA'S LAST TESTAMENT.

BAU. 2.4=4.5.

Here we have Yājnavalkya announcing his resolve to withdraw from his home to spend in the recesses of the forest a life apart of meditation on the deep problems of existence.

Belvalkar and Ranade note how in the Brāhmaṇas until a late period it was required of a man to keep faithful to household life; he was bidden to perform the household sacrifice to the end of his days. But "in the later Brāhmaṇas a life of penance in the forest is recognised and recommended, and we have sections of the Brāhmaṇas—called Āraṇyakas or 'Forest Portions'—which seem to have been specially designed for that purpose." There are seen arising in fact great numbers of wandering ascetics who keep themselves clear of all social intercourse. When we come to the Upanishads, we find a life of meditation spent in the seclusion of the forest held in high regard. We note accordingly how Yājnavalkya here takes it up and how reverently wandering ascetics are spoken of in his teaching to Janaka (No. 12, p. 129, BAU. 4.4.22-).

This sudden and widespread adoption of a solitary life as a profession, Belvalkar and Ranade can account for only by the supposition that the Āryans on their advance through India came in contact with people who led a wandering life apart from mankind in general, it might be "a people reduced to homelessness by the conquering Āryans themselves, or—and that would be just as likely—a people who had not got beyond the stage of nomad mountaineering life, such people as are not yet extinct in India," and the many eager thinkers of the Brāhmaṇa period, coming across these apart-communities, and forecasting that such a life would give them just the apartness and quiet they needed for their own discipline and meditation, adopted it, at all events for their closing years, and so came indeed to teach that such a life was the highest mode of life and indispensable for those who would deliver their souls.1

The Cynosure (BAU. 2.4.5a=4.5.6).

Ranade thus explains this paragraph: "Yājnavalkya here tells us that all things are dear for the sake of the Self.

1 CP., p. 80.

NOTES ON SELECTION 13

193

In every act of mental affection the Ātman is calling unto the Ātman. The realisation of the Ātman is the end of all endeavour." [CS. p. 56.]

"Atharvāngirassas." See Atharva-Veda in Voc.

Analogies (BAU. 2.4.7-10).

The One Rendezvous (BAU. 2.4.11 = 4.12).

The teaching here is thus put by Deussen: "The Ātman, as organ of sense (that is, in the form of the particular sense-organs), is the uniting point of the corresponding relations of the outer world." (Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda, p. 415.)

Compare the Saying (handed down by Sextus Empiricus) of Xenophanes of Kolophōn in Ionia, near the east coast of the Aegean Sea (born about 580–77 B.C. [Ueberweg]), who later settled at Elēa in Lower Italy, of whom Aristotle says that he was "the first among the Eleatic philosophers to uphold-the-One [henisas] for, looking away [from the earth] into the whole heaven [ouranos], he said that the One was God"1: As a whole [oulos2] he sees, as a whole he thinks [noei], as a whole he hears.3

The term used in this Section for the centre is ekāyanam, here translated variously 'meeting-place,' 'counting-house,' 'rendezvous,' etc., literally 'one going, one path' (eka, 'one'; ay-ana, 'going').

'The mind,' manas. It is to be remembered that manas has the meaning of 'mind' in the English expression: "I have a mind to do that," in which will and feeling are predominant in the thought. (See manas in Voc.)

'Sciences,' 'heart.' The word here translated science is vidyā, 'knowledge.' It is to be remembered that the knowledge sought by the ancient Hindus was knowledge as power, that which the manas could take up and use, and that the prime use, in view was the gaining of salvation; as Stanislav Schayer says, "Indian philosophy is in its first line a metaphysic of deliverance."4 It is to be noted in this connection that manas is regarded in the Rigveda as residing in the heart.

1 Arist. Metaph., I, 5, 967b, 21, quoted in Ueberweg-Heinze, Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. I, p. 54.

2 For Attic holos.

3 Ueberweg-Heinze, I, 55.

4 Jahrbuch der Schopenhauer=Gesellschaft, 1928, p. 60.

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The Constitution of the Self (BAU. 2.4.12a).

"amalgam," ghaná, m. a compacted mass, lump.

[√ghan, i.e. han, smite.]

"discernment," vi-jñāna, m. knowledge (by noting distinctions). [√jnā, know + vi, apart, asunder, away.]

For jnā and vi-jñāna see vi-jñāna in Voc.

The Ceasing of Consciousness (BAU. 2.4.12b).

"consciousness," sam-jñā, knowledge (by placing things together). [jnā+sam, 'together,' expressing union or completeness. [M.].]

"bewilderment"; 'because this seems contradictory to the former statement that the Self is ghana vi-jñāna.'

[Note in Bombay Edition of The Twelve Upanishads.]

14. THE WORLD BEYOND.

(CU. 8.4.)

15. THE SECRET TEACHING GIVEN TO THE GODS AND DEMONS BY THE LORD OF CREATURES REGARDING THE TRUE SELF.

CU. 8.7-12.

"The Creatures' Lord," Prajāpati. (See Voc.)

Indra. (See Voc.)

Vi-rócana. (See Voc.)

"That is the Self of which I spake" . . .

But as they went the Lord upon

Them looked and said, "Behold these two have gone,

The Self not grasped or understood."

Ranade points out that the ad-hoc or temporising method is often adopted by Upanishadic philosophers. They then show themselves "absolutely pertinent and never illuminate on any topic except that which is immediately before them and then according to the capacity of the learner." He points out here accordingly, "Their preceptor, Prajāpati, does not tell Indra and Virocana the secret of philosophy all at once, but only when either of them has prepared himself for receiving the wisdom to be imparted. It thus happens that Virocana is completely satisfied with the first answer of Prajāpati, but Indra is not, and presses his Master again and again for the solution of his difficulties,

NOTES ON SELECTION 15

195

Prajāpati disclosing the secret of his philosophy only ulti-

mately." (CS. p. 39.)

"That shews why now we fling the name

'Devilish' on that man with sharp-cut blame who gives not,"

"'Devilish he' our cry."

The Sanskrit terms devá and ásura, translated in our

version of this story 'god' and 'demon' or 'devil,' respec-

tively, have an interesting history.

Each of the terms originally meant 'god,' deva, which is,

Lanman tells us, perhaps from the noun dīv, which means

'sky,' 'heaven,' and is found in the Greek Zeus, (*Djēus);

and in the 'Jū' of the Latin Jū-piter, 'Heaven-Father,'

and in deus, 'god.'

The meaning found for ásura by Böhtlingk and Roth in

their great Sanskrit Dictionary, published at St. Petersburg

in 1855, is, when it is used as an adjective, 'living,' as applied

to incorporeal life. Keith and Lanman think a connection

with as-u breath is possible, which word again is based

upon the √as, which means 'to be, exist.' Böhtlingk and

Roth tell us that it signifies the essential difference between

immaterial divine existence and visible earthly existence,

and is used so in the Rigveda of gods in general and,

when applied to individual gods, chiefly of Varuṇa or

Mitra-Varuṇa and Agni, and especially of Heaven and the

'highest spirit' ruling there, the highest conception of

which is Varuṇa. At that point B. and R. note in com-

parison the Avestan epithet 'Ahura Mazdā.' So the adjective

comes to mean incorporeal, superhuman, godly in general.

When, however, ásura is used as a noun a remarkable

change sets in. At first it has the same meaning as the

adjective, 'spirit,' 'heaven,' and 'the highest spirit' ruling

there; but it comes to be used later of an incorporeal

being, spirit or ghost, of evil sort, a demon; in some cases,

of an unnamed uppermost of evil spirits, in other cases of

either individual spirits or hosts of spirits who are opposed

to the gods. This change takes place especially in certain

passages of the tenth book, one of the late books of the

Rigveda. This so different use is very frequent in the

Atharva-Veda. It is the use in all the Brāhmaṇas and

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throughout the whole following literature. Numerous allegories and myths, B. and R. further tell us, concerning contests between the gods (devas) and these asuras, are brought forward in the Brāhmaṇas in order to link with the determined opposition now apparent between devas and asuras certain customs and statements of belief.

A further point is that Belvalkar and Ranade see in these devas and asuras not simply spirits, but two sets of human beings. We read in the Brāhmaṇas that the devas were at first in a minority, and for a long time the asuras got the better of them; but eventually the gods, the devas, won. So our two scholars take it—and they regard the above quoted passage in this Indra-Virocana story as confirming their supposition—that the asuras were professors of a long-established religion, the devas—innovators. There was not much external difference indeed, they aver, between the two groups. Both bodies practised magic, but the asuras laid greater stress on the materials used in the sacrifice and the movements made, while the devas were insistent rather on “earnestness in sacrifice, and faith in the omnipotence of the object of worship.” So it was to a certain extent a matter of my-doxy is orthodox and thy-doxy is heterodox, as our two scholars remark; and certainly (which our scholars note is not uncommon in such contests) the devas came to give (as this Indra-Virocana story, these scholars hold, bears witness) a thoroughly opprobious significance to the high-sounding name of their foes. That the devas received their own back from the unprogressives is probable, and may be said to be proved by the next points of interest we note.1

For Belvalkar and Ranade bring forward as ‘not improbable in itself’ the suggestion made by R. G. Bhandarkar that these asuras were originally Assyrians, the word asurya, ‘demonic,’ applied to them being “philologically identical with the word Assyrian,” y and u being interchangeable as in Greek. Belvalkar and Ranade add, however, that it will answer all that we find in the Brāhmaṇas, if the asuras are supposed to be simply “of the same stock of people as the devas, and, if not actually resident in

1 For these suggestions of Belvalkar and Ranade, see CS., p. 157, note, and CP., pp. 54–56.

NOTES ON SELECTION 15

197

Assyria, possessing at least 'a religion and worship largely patterned after and influenced by the religion and worship of the Assyrians.'

A striking confirmation of this supposition of the locale of the original asuras and their strife with the devas is found in the fact that in the Avesta, the sacred book of Assyria, the word daeva has come to mean 'demon' or 'devil'; for there we have indication of what, as we have just said, might well be expected, namely, that the asuras paid the devas back in the devas' own coin.

Here is the strife we described in our Introduction (pp. 10, 11) between those, here denominated 'devas,' who received the new god Varuṇa as the true Asura, and those who maintained the old way of thinking and the Asura of the old days.

"O Munificent," maghavan.

Macdonell tells us that this adjective, maghavan, 'bountiful,' is applied to Indra with great frequency in the Rigveda, and gives so clearly his distinctive character that it becomes there almost the monopoly it is for him in Post-Vedic Literature (Vedic Mythology, p. 63).

"form his own."

Ranade points out that Prajāpati by his ad hoc, point-by-point, method, has led his pupil Indra stage by stage, demonstrating to him, first, that the true Self is not a mere bodily double; next that it is not identical with the Self in dream; nor, next, with the Self in deep sleep; now finally disclosing to him that the true Self is the Self that is identical-with-itself [CS., pp. 39-40]; or, in other words—to quote from Ranade and Belvalkar's joint work—“the ultimate Reality must not be mistaken for bodily consciousness, nor dream-consciousness, but is that pure Self consciousness which transcends all bodily or mental conditions" (Cp. p. 238).

"supremely makes his way."

The lines from this point to the end Belvalkar and Ranade view as "too sensuous in colouring" [Cp. p. 373], and

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Deussen, for that and other reasons, regards them as an addition [Sechszis Upanishads des Veda, p. 195].

16. THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S NATURE.

BAU. 2.2.1,2.

"The breath that moves within the mouth" and "the breath that through one's body moves" are represented by the same word, prāṇa, in the original; but it is evident that prāṇa at its former occurrence has the first significance mentioned, and at its latter occurrence the second significance. (See note on prāṇa in Voc.)

The Seven Gods and the Child.

I. Rudra, the God of Lightning.

Described in the Rigveda as of a dazzling shape, possessing hands and arms and limbs, a thousand-eyed, and so on, with his belly black and his back red, dwelling in the mountains; not purely maleficent like a demon, being besought not only to avert calamity, but also to bestow blessings. But his weapon, the thunderbolt, is maleficent. The deprecation of his wrath gave rise to the euphemistic epithet śiva, 'kind,' which became the name of the great god Śiva of post-Vedic mythology, who is, as Professor Macdonell expresses it, "Rudra's historical successor."1

Professor Lanman tells us that the Hindus connect the word rudra with √rud, cry (cp. Lat. rŭd-ere, 'roar'), and so understand it to describe Rudra as 'howling, roaring, terrible,' as indeed with the same adjective Agni (Fire) and other gods are described; but the true meaning of the word, Lanman says, is uncertain.

II. The God of Rain, Parjanya.

In the Rigveda also an appellative of the rain-cloud. In some cases it is hard to tell whether the god or the cloud is meant. Parjanya is represented not only in human form, but also in animal form, as a roaring bull (rain heavy), or as a barren cow (rain nil). The shedding of rain is his most prominent characteristic.2

1 VM. 2 Id.

NOTES ON SELECTION 16

199

The derivation of the word is uncertain, Professor Macdonell tells us, but is usually identified, owing to the similarity of character of the god, with the name of the Lithuanian thunder god Perkúnas, although the phonetic difficulties of identification cannot be explained.1 We find the same root in Gk. perdix, partridge; from perdomai, to break wind; Eng. partridge.

III. The Sun-god Āditya (the word here used).

The term Ādityas is used not infrequently in the Rigveda to describe the gods in general. When meaning a group of gods it is the gods of celestial light, sun, moon, stars, dawn, that are meant. Naturally, the sun, being the chief god of celestial light, is usually intended.2

The name is clearly a metronymic formation from that of their mother Aditi, with whom they are often invoked. (See Aditi in Voc.).

We find in the Rigveda three gods connected with the sun.

(a) Sūrya. This word is not only the name of the god, but also the common name for the sun itself. In fact, it is in many cases impossible to tell whether the god or the luminary is intended.

The god is presented driving in a car, but sometimes he is referred to as a bird, a bull, a white and brilliant steed, a gem, a brilliant weapon.

His eye is several times mentioned. He is far-seeing, the spy indeed of the whole world,3 who beholds all beings and knows both the god and the bad deeds of mortals. The affinity of the eye to the sun, an affinity touched upon in the Upanishad section here versified, is indicated in one passage, where the eye of the dead man is conceived as going to Sūrya (RV. 10.16,3; cp. 90.3, 158.3,4)3, a conception frequently found later, for example in BAU. 3.2.13.

With the word Sūrya Lanman compares the Gk. Seir-ios, Seir, 'sun, dog-star,' and the Lat. sōl.

(b) Savitṛ, a golden deity in human form, golden-eyed, with golden hands, tongue, arms, yellow-haired, driving in a golden car ; the sun's divine power personified, savitṛ meaning 'stimulator.'4 It is derived from √su, impel [L].

1 VM. 2 Id.

3 Id. 4 Id.

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(c) Vivasvant. The name of this deity means 'shining forth'; √vas, 'grow bright, light up (of the breaking of the day), dawn' + vi, 'forth, away.' [L.]

On account of this meaning and the connection of this god with morning deities and the sacrifice, Macdonell thinks that he most probably represented originally the rising sun. Most scholars, however, he adds, take Vivasvant to be simply the sun.1

With √vas Lanman notes as cognates, Lat. us-tu-s, burned; Eng. east; Easter, etc.

IV. The God of Fire, Agni.

He is the terrestial deity of primary importance in the Rigveda, inasmuch as he is the personification of the sacrificial fire which is the centre of the ritual poetry thereof. Indeed, next to Indra, he is the most prominent, Macdonell tells us, of all the Vedic gods.

Agni is the name of fire as well as of the God of Fire, which means that the anthropomorphism of his physical appearance is quite rudimentary. It is to the sacrificial aspect of the terrestial fire that such bodily parts as he possesses mainly refer. Thus he is butter-backed, butter-faced, beautiful-tongued, butter-haired (in allusion to the butter dropped as an offering into the flame). He is also often likened to various animals, in most cases doubtless with a view to indicate his functions rather than his personal form. Thus he is a bull, a horse with an agitated tail (doubtless his flame), an eagle, once—a raging serpent. He is frequently compared with inanimate objects.2

Lanman conjectures that Agni means 'the quickly moving or agile one' from √aj; set in motion, drive. With agni he compares Lat. ignis, fire; agilis, agile, and with √aj, the Lat. ago, lead, drive, and Gk. agō, lead.

V. Indra. (See Voc.)

VI and VII. Heaven and Earth.

Earth was regarded as Mother, Heaven as Father, a widely spread idea among mankind (See VM., p. 8).

Dyaus, the word here for heaven, is connected with √div, shine [L].

1 VM.

2 Id.

NOTES ON SELECTIONS 17, 18, 19, 20 AND 21 201

Prithivī, the word here for earth denotes the earth as "the wide and the broad." With the word, cp. Gk. platys, 'wide,' and the akin Ger. Fladen, 'broad, thin' cake. [L.]

17. THE EIGHT WARDENS OF THE HEAD.

BAU. 2.2.3.

"Spirit doth for comrade take," brahmanā sam-vidānā; 'mit dem Gebete verbunden' [D.]; 'united with prayer (brahman)' [H.]; 'communicating with Brahman' [S. C. Vasu in B. D. Basu's Sacred Books of the Hindus].

18. THE HOMAGE OF ALL THINGS TO HIM WHO IN ALL THINGS SEES THE SELF.

BAU. 4.3.37.

See Note "That is the Self," on p. 179.

19. THE MEANING OF THE THUNDER.

BAU. 5.2.

"The Creatures' Lord," Prajāpati. (See Voc.).

20. THE SUPREMACY OF THE REAL.

BAU. 5.5.1a.

"The Real," satyam; "The True" [CP]. (See Voc.)

"Spirit," brahman. (See Voc.)

21. THE FALSE IN TRUTH'S EMBRACE.

BAU. 5.5.1b.

Other etymological solutions of satyam are given in CU. 8.3.5. and Kaush. 1.6.

an-ṛtam. (See an-ṛta in Voc.)

(a) "[The Truth] doth preponderance take."

(b) "And, not thus [that is, by the Real] held, [the False] could never be."

These represent two interpretations of the Sanskrit word here used, bhūyam. The word is evidently derived from √ bhū, 'become' [cf. Gk. ephu, 'became, grew'; Lat. fu-it, 'was'; Eng. 'be.' [L.]]

(a) "preponderance take." The form of the word recalls the comparative adjective bhū-yas, 'more, greater.' That

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that gives the meaning is supposed in Basu's Sacred Books of the Hindus, which translates the passage thus: "This word Satyam consists of three syllables: Sat is one syllable; T is another letter; and Ya is the third syllable. The first and last syllables form the word Satya. The middle one is useless. Therefore this useless syllable (T or false knowledge) is encompassed on both sides by this Remover of Darkness, called Satyam. So there is the predominance of Satya. False knowledge never does him any harm who knows it thus."

It will be noticed that Satyam is presented here as Satyam, and that the threefold division is sat-t-yam, not sa-ti-yam. The commentator tells us that it is because t has "no vowel or truth in it " that it is to be taken as " expressive of false knowledge."

Roer (in the Twelve Upanishads ed. by R. T. Tatya) also understands that the word refers to bhūyas, translating thus: " Falsehood is on either side encompassed by truth. There is therefore a preponderance of truth."

(b) "could never be." The word may be a qualitative adjective based upon √bhū and therefore mean, 'having being as its quality.' Hume so understands, translating thus: " That [namely Satyam] is trisyllabic: sa-ti-yam. Sa is one syllable. Ti is one syllable. Yam is one syllable. In the middle is falsehood. This falsehood is embraced on both sides by truth. It partakes of the nature of truth itself. Falsehood does not injure him who knows this."

22. THE SUPREME AUSTERITIES.

Bau. 5.II.

23. THE SIN-DETERRENT FIRE.

Maitr. 6.18c.

24. THE NECESSITY OF THE REVELATION OF THE SELF TO THE SELF.

A. ŚU. 1.6.

"Spirit," brahman. (See Voc.)

The stanza here versified follows immediately these two descriptions of the Self:

(a) As a Wheel (ŚU. 1.4). "We understand Him [as a

NOTES ON SELECTION 24

203

Wheel] with one nave and a triple tire,1 with sixteen end-parts,2 fifty spokes,3 twenty counter-spokes,4 with six sets of eights,5 whose one rope6 is manifold, which has three different paths,7 whose one illusion has two conditioning causes."8

(b) As a River (ŚU. I.5). "We understand Him as a River of five streams,9 from five sources,10 which make it fierce and crooked; whose waves are the five vital breaths;11 whose original source is the fivefold alertness; with five rapids,12 an impetuous flood of fivefold misery, divided into five distresses, with five branches."13

B. KU. 2.24.

C. KU. 2.23 = Muṇḍ. 3.2.3.

"Whose body [tanu] He doth choose His own to make."

This is E. W. Hopkins's translation in Note on p. 233 of his Religions of India.

Hume has "To such a one that Soul (Ātman) reveals his own person."

Deussen has in the text: "To him the Ātman reveals his Being (Wesen)," and in a note "Or: 'His self the Ātman chooses as His own.' " (Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda, p. 275). tanu or tanū f. body; person; one's own person, self; outward form or manifestation. [prop. 'stretched out,' √tan, stretch; cp. Lat. tenuis, thin; Eng. thin; Germ. dünn, thin.] [L.]

1 The Three Qualities of the Universe: purity, passion, darkness [H].

2 That is, the five elements of the material world, the five organs of perception, the five organs of action, and the mind (manas) [H].

3 The fifty conditions of the Sānkhya philosophy [H].

4 The ten senses and their ten corresponding objects [H].

5 That is (i) the eight causes that produce the world; (ii) the eight constituents of the body, (iii) the eight forms of superhuman power; (iv) the eight conditions; (v) the eight gods; (vi) the eight virtues [H].

6 Desire [H]. The Cosmic Person [CS., p. 34].

7 Different meanings are given. See H in loc.; CP., p. 126; CS., p. 34.

8 The consequences of good and of evil deeds [H].

9 The five senses.

10 The five elements.

11 See prāṇa in Voc.

12 The kinds of grief caused by generation, existence, transformation, declination, decay, which entangle a man into them. [CS., p. 35.]

13 The five tides of periodic overflow: birth, childhood, manhood, old age, and death. [CS., p. 35.]

The above translation and interpretations are taken from H. and CS.

204

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

D. KU. 2.20=Śvet. 3.20.

"The Effortless," a-kratum, accusative case. So in ŚU.

KU has nominative, which indicates that the individual

soul is depicted as the effortless. The version of ŚU.

seems preferable, for the point of the stanza evidently is

that it is by the revelation to it of the Unitive Self as

effortless, and as being the verity of the individual self,

that the individual self attains effortlessness.

a, privative prefix. krátu m. 'power,' whether of mind or

of body or of both. √kr̥, 'do, effect.' [cp. Gk. kratus,

'mighty'; Eng. hard]. [L].

"favour kind," prasāda.

prasāda, m. grace; favour.

pra-sad, be favourabe, gracious; from √sad, sit.

• pra (forward, cp. Gk., Lat., pro, forward, fore).

We may therefore infer that behind the meaning 'be

gracious' there is the meaning 'settle forward, incline

towards' (e.g.) a suppliant. [L].

E. KU. 2.21, 22.

Vocabulary of Some Important

Sanskrit Words

THE SANSKRIT ALPHABET

Giving Order of the Words in the Vocabulary.

Vowels: a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ e o ai au

Hard breathing: h

Nasal signs: ṅ ṃ

Mutes: { guttural k kh g gh ṅ

palatal c ch j jh ñ

dental t th d dh n

labial p ph b bh m

Semi-vowels: y r l v

Sibilants { palatal ś

dental s

Aspiration: h

(For Pronunciation see note prefacing the Versification.)

LIST OF WORDS

PAGE

PAGE

Átharvan .. 206

Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka-Upaniṣad 218

Á-diti

bráhman, brahmán,

án-ṛta .. 207

brāhmaṇá, bráhmaṇa

Angirases

mánas .. .. 222

Ātman

Mitra

Atharva-Veda

Munḍaka Upaniṣad

ap, samudrá .. 208

Yājna-valkya

Índra .. .. 209

Varuna .. .. .. 223

Uddālaka Āruṇeya

vi-jnáṇa .. .. 224

upa-ni-ṣad

Vi-rócana

ṛtá .. .. .. 210

véda, Ṛg-veda, Yajur-veda,

oṁ

Sāma-veda, Atharva-veda

kárman .. .. 211

Śata-patha Brāhmaṇa .. 225

gandharvá

Śāṇḍilya

Gautama

Śveta-ketu .. .. 226

Chāndogya Upaniṣad .. 212

sat

Janaka, Kurupancālas,

sat-tva

Kosala-Videhas

sat-yá

Taittirīyas

Satya-kāma .. .. 227

púruṣa .. .. 213

saṃ-sāra

Prajā-pati .. .. 215

Hāri-drumata

prāṇá, apāná, vy-āná, ud-āná, sam-āná .. .. 216

N.B.—The words in this List and other words explained in the course of the book are included in the General Index.

205

206

[Atharvan—Atharva-Veda—Ā-diti]

Ātharvan, an ancient mythical fire-priest.

The name in the singular denotes the head of a semi-divine family of mythical priests. In the plural the family as a whole is meant. The Atharva-Veda calls them gods and describes them as dwelling in heaven.

In the Rigveda Atharvan is described as bringing Agni (Fire) by rubbing it out of the fire-stick. Agni thus brought forth becoming the messenger of Vivasvat the sun-god. The Atharva-Veda recounts other marvellous deeds.

The cognate word in the Avesta, āthravan, signifies ‘fire-priest’; and the Avestan ātar (for āthar) ‘fire,’ is the same as the Vedic athar; which also occurs in athar-yú, flaming (said of Agni, RV. 7.1.)1

Atharva-Veda. The Collection of Spells, named Atharvāṅgirāsas [Hymns], the most prominent names among the ‘seers’ being Atharvan, Brahman, Atharvāṅgiras, and Angiras.2

Ā-diti—‘the Infinite.’

Aditi is a goddess in the Rigveda. Her name means Liberation, literally ‘Un-binding,’ being derived from √dā, ‘bind’ (cp. Gk. deō, didēmi, bind), and a, privative.

Macdonell supposes this goddess to have originated from certain great gods, especially Mitra and Varuṇa, being regarded as deliverers of their worshippers from the bonds of sin, and hence classed together as ādityas, that is those connected with a-diti, liberation or deliverance. So did A-diti, Liberation, come to be considered their Mother and was given the rank of a goddess and herself appealed to to deliver her worshippers from their sins.1

She is described as bright and luminous, a supporter of creatures, mistress of wide stalls, belonging to all men, widely expanded, sometimes as herself the wide earth or ‘the boundless sky,’ although sometimes distinguished from them both. As to her form, we find her addressed as a cow; and we can understand that, when we remember a favourite view of the universe was to regard it as a great ox whose head was the east, tail the west, and quarters the quarters of the heaven (see Selection 2 [BAU. I.2], p. 58, and Selection 7 [CU. 4.4–9]). This all-inclusive conception of Aditi is set out in detail in the passage, RV. 1.89.10: “Aditi is the sky; Aditi is the air; Aditī is the mother father son; Aditi is all the gods and the five tribes; Aditi is whatèver has been born; Aditi is whatever shall be born.”1

The philosophers of the Upanishads have left these deities of their forefathers behind them, and it is not as a goddess, but simply as the Infinite, regarded as the Perpetual Casting off of Bonds or Limitations, we are to understand Aditi at the

1 VM.

2 See Lanman’s notes on p. 1039 of his Whitney’s Atharva-Veda.

[An-ṛta—Angirases—Ātmán]

207

occurrence of the word in "The Evolution of the Cosmos,"

p. 65. It will be observed that, in order to enforce the

teaching of the passage, the word is divided not according to

its proper division, A-diti, but Ad-iti, 'eating,' 'consuming,'

from √ad, 'eat' (cp. Gk. and Lat. ed-o).

An-ṛta, neut., untruth, wrong (an, negative, and ṛta, which see).

[L.]

Angirases, the sons of Ángiras, a race of semi-mythical beings

mentioned in the Rigveda.

Marvellous deeds are told of them: how they found Agni

(Fire) hidden in the fire-stick and thought of the first ordinance

of sacrifice, and were famous for the power of their songs; how

by sacrifice they obtained immortality as well as the friendship

of Indra, the chief of the gods; how they indeed assisted Indra

in his great exploit of slaying the sky-serpent and releasing

the sky-cows (the clouds) he had imprisoned [see Indra] and

so on.1

Macdonell considers it probable that the Angirases were

originally 'conceived as a race of higher beings intermediate

between gods and men, and as such were attendants on Agni

(Fire), the messenger between heaven and earth; and that it

was later on that they came to be regarded as priests. They

were possibly, he thinks, personifications of the flames of the

sacrifice from these being regarded as messengers to heaven.

This view is borne out, he says, by the etymological connection

of angiras with the Gk. angelos, 'messenger.'2

Ātmán, m. 'Self,' 'Soul.'

Two roots are thought by Belvalkar and Ranade to have quite

probably an equal share in making up this meaning, namely,

√an, to breathe, and tman, which the Rigveda frequently has

in place of ātman, and which means 'one's self.'3 This latter

derivation Deussen adopts and, applying it precisely, asks

whether it may not be the case that, as perhaps in the Greek

autos, two pronominal stems are enclosed in ātman, namely, a,

as in the Sanskrit a-ham, which means 'I,' and ta, 'this,' so

that the original significance accordingly was 'this I,' 'my

proper self.' And 'this I,' 'my proper self,' he finds to have

four forms of meaning, each asserting the contrast of self to

not-self.

I. The body, that is one's own body, in contrast to the world

outside.

II. The trunk of one's body in contrast to one's limbs.

III. One's soul in contrast to one's body.

IV. One's being or essence in contrast to what is not essential.4

1 VM. 2 Vedic Index and VM. 3 CP., p. 357.

4 Deussen : Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, I, I, pp. 285, 6.

P

208

[ap]

Belvalkar and Ranade point out that it is the recognition of the Atman or Self as 'the highest cosmological principle' that is the culminating point of Upanishad philosophy, and they rightly maintain the 'venturesomeness' of the conception, involving as it does that 'the energy we feel throbbing within us is not only identical with the energy that keeps the world without us moving, but creates and sustains it.' The origin of the idea they attribute to the constant pairing we find in the Brāhmaṇas of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the power and functions of the one being found in the other. This meant indeed at first a dualism, the microcosm being within, and its co-ordinate macrocosm without. But the dualism was in time overcome by making the Ātman, the One Self, the root-cause of all that is.1

ap, f. 'water ; waters:' plural only. sam-udrá, 'gathering of waters:' see p. 159.

(a) natural significance. Water or waters, be it cloud or river. It is a moot question whether the Upanishad Fathers knew the sea. Their ancient forefathers had entered India at the North-West far from the ocean and the eastward extending people among whom these Fathers lived were still at the middle of the plain of the Ganges on its course from mid-Himālaya to the sea.2

(b) cosmological significance: the primeval waters, the original form of the world.3 [Compare 'the deep' of Gen. i.]

(c) earlier-scientific significance. The waters are regarded as the essence of vegetation. They are believed to possess a generative power, a power also to heal and to lengthen life.4

(d) mythical significance. The waters are regarded as the elixir of immortality. Both the waters and the juice soma are believed to dwell in the highest heaven, where Yama, the first man, presides at the festival of the fathers. Thence are the waters, as life-sap, brought to earth by the Gandharvas and Apsarases (sky-elves and water nymphs) and introduced by them into men animals and plants.5

(e) later-scientific view. All liquid existence is included under the term āpas. That is the meaning of the tèrm in the teaching Uddālaka gives to his son (Selection 10, CU. 6).

1 CP. p. 358–9.

2 See article "Sam-udra" in Vedic Index, for discussion on this.

3 See paper on " Yama, Gandharva, and Glaucus," by L. D. Barnett (who gives references) in Bulletin of School of Oriental Studies, London Institution, Vol. IV, Part iv, p. 706.

4 Id.

5 VM.

[Índra-Uddālaka Āruneya—upa-ni-ṣad]

209

Índra, the Storm-god, of tawny colour and gigantic size, with the thunderbolt as his weapon. His great exploit, which the Ṛigveda poets are never weary of celebrating, was his slaying of the demon-serpent of drought, who rested on the waters of the sky, named Vṛtra (the Obstructor). Vṛtra had imprisoned in the aerial mountain on which he rested the cows, the clouds, which pour down their rains, as cows do their milk. Indra released the cloud-cows, and thus brought to an end the drought—a mythological presentation of the effect of the yearly monsoon.

As the Āryans proceeded eastward through the Panjāb, having occasionally heavy encounters with the peoples they had dispossessed, Indra became the national war-god who enabled them to have victory.

Thus he came to be an eager and strong fighter, fulfilling mighty exploits; not only a fighter but drinking the Soma to help him to accomplish his triumphs; a braggart withal and, when under the excitement of Somaphs, boasting impossible feats.

As harmonises well with such a character, he was greatly generous, the term maghávan (munificent) being applied in the Ṛigveda almost exclusively to him in comparison with the other gods. We will notice that he is so addressed in the Indra-Virocana story (Selection 15, CU. 8-7-12).

Eventually he became the chief of the gods, as we find him in that story.

The origin of his name is doubtful, but Macdonell thinks it likely that it is connected with indu, 'drop.'

See also Introduction, p. 14.

Uddālaka Āruneya (descendant of Aruṇa) was of the Gautama family (see Gautama) of the Brahmins, and one of the Kuru-Pañcāla people, who dwelt in the upper plain of the Jumna and Ganges. These Brahmins for centuries had taught the knowledge handed down to us in the Brāhmaṇas, discourses which describe the marvellous powers of the sacrifice; but Uddālaka tells us in Selection 10 (CU. 6) that a new school of thought had arisen in his day which he himself accepted, that left this trust in the power of ritual behind and propounded the deeper knowledge communicated in the Upanishads. We find in that Selection Uddālaka teaching the new knowledge to his son Śvetaketu.

Yājnavalkya of Selections 12 (BAU. 4.3-4.7, 22-25) and 13 (BAU. 2.4=4.5) was also a pupil of Uddālaka's.

upa-ni-ṣad, 'a secret communication.'

In the Brāhmaṇas the word, Macdonell and Keith tell us, normally denotes the 'secret sense' of some word or text, sometimes the 'secret rule' of a mendicant.1 In the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad it is, however, already used in the plural,

1 Vedic Index.

210

[ṛtá—oṁ]

and has come to mean discourses spoken in secret. The natural derivation of the word is from √sad (cp. Lat. sedeo), sit+ni, down+upa, near, that is, 'sit down, settle oneself, near (a teacher),' and this derivation gives it its first meaning, as Prof. Keith puts it, of 'a session of pupils in process of instruction round a teacher.'1 Hence comes readily the meaning 'secret doctrine,' and, from that, 'a compendium of secret doctrine.'2

ṛtá, adj. 'fit,' 'true,' as neuter noun, 'established order.' [prop. 'fitted, made firm', √ṛ; for form and meaning, cp. Lat. rā-tu-s, 'settled.'] [L.]

Professor Maurice Bloomfield praises the idea of ṛta. It is a high thought, he says, that is in many ways similar to the Confucian idea of 'order, harmony, and absence of disturbance.' In the Veda it presents itself under the threefold aspect of (a) cosmic order, (b) correct and fitting cult of the gods, and (c) moral conduct of man. So we have in connection with it a pretty complete system of ethics, a kind of counsel of perfection.'

(a) As the basis of cosmic order, ṛta rules the world and nature. The maidens dawn, daughters of heaven, shine on successive mornings "in harmony with ṛta. It is from the seat of ṛta they awake. The sun is placed in the sky in obedience to the ṛta. The gods themselves are born of the ṛta or in the ṛta they show by their acts that they know the ṛta, observe the ṛta, and love the ṛta."

(b) Bloomfield takes a lower estimate than Belvalkar and Ranade3 do of the religion of the earlier period of the Rigveda, yet he points out that the performances of the ritual are not always regarded as merely merchandise—the accusation that rules his estimate—wherewith to traffic for the blessings of the gods. The sacrifice fire is described as kindled under the 'yoking of ṛta,' or, as he would put it, 'under the auspices of world order.' Again, the god of fire, is 'scion of the ṛta' or 'first-born of the ṛta.' Prayers take effect in accordance with ṛta.

(c) "In man's activity the ṛta manifests itself as the moral law. Here it takes by the hand the closely kindred idea of truth, satya. Untruth, on the other hand, is an-ṛta, more rarely a-satya, the same two words with a or an, the prefix of negation. The two words satya and anṛta form a close dual compound, 'truth and lie,' 'sincerity and falsehood.' They remain the standard words for these twin opposites for all Hindu time. Truth and lie include by an easy transition right and wrong."4

oṁ. This word represents the strong nasal breathing made with expanded nostrils before and after the recitation of the Veda,

1 Religion and Philosophy of the Veda, Vol. I, p. 19.

2 Opinion of Vedic Index. 3 CP., p. 3, with Note.

4 Maurice Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, p. 126.

[karman—gandharva—Gautamá] 211

a preparation of the voice for the utterance, and a conclusion thereto, accompanied by devotion to what is to be, and to what has been, recited.

No doubt at first it was simply the preliminary tuning of the voice while one concentrated one's mind on what was about to be uttered. Then it came to be repeated at the close.

As thus introducing and concluding the sacred words, it came to be regarded as itself sacred, and the mysteries and magnitudes of what it thus introduced and concluded came to be regarded as comprised in itself. In fact there came to be no limit to what on potentially held.

The vowel o being regarded by Hindu grammarians as composed of a and u, the full pronunciation of om was held to be AUM, that is three elements, A, U, and M, with, in addition, nasal utterance, and much mystical and philosophical significance came to be attributed to each of these four items.

It would be of interest to investigate whether we have here what became the Jewish and subsequently the Christian Amen.

karman, deed [from √kr, perform, act, do].

The name given to the doctrine of post-mortem rewards and punishments for the good or bad action of the soul in its previous embodiments.1

gandharva, 'sky-elf.' In the Rigveda the gandharva is a bright being dwelling in the sky with his spouse apsaras, the water nymph. This union of the elf and nymph in the sky is regarded as typical of marriage. The gandharva is therefore connected with the marriage ceremony. Each of these single beings becomes a class of beings. In the Panca-vimśa Brāhmaṇa the gandharvas and apsarases are regarded as presiding over fertility and are prayed for by those who desire offspring. In the Rigveda the gandharva is wind-haired, has brilliant weapons, and wears a fragrant garment. In the Epics they come to be celestial singers.2

Gautamá, 'descendant of Gótama,'3 a common patronymic. Uddālaka Āruṇi (Selection 10 [CU. 6]) and Hāridrumata (Selection 7 [CU. 4.4.-9]) were Gautamas.

Gotama is several times mentioned in the Rigveda, but never in such a way as to denote authorship of any of the hymns. It seems clear to Macdonell and Keith that he was closely connected with the Angirases, for the Gotamas frequently refer to Angiras. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa he appears as a Puro-hita or domestic priest of Māthava Videgha (perhaps 'King of the Videhas'), and as a bearer of Vedic civilisation. In the same Brāhmaṇa he is presented as contemporary of Janaka, king of the Videhas, and of Yājnavalkya, and as author of a stóma ('song of praise').4

1 CP., pp. 26-, 75-, 106. 2 VM., pp. 136-. 3 Go-tama means 'the biggest ox.' [M.] 4 Vedic Index.

212

[Chāndogya Upaniṣad—Janaka—Taittirīyas]

Chāndogya Upaniṣad, ‘The Secret Teaching in the Chant,’ chanda, from meaning ‘pleasure; will’ [its root being probably identical with vścand, shine, glance (for *skandh, cp. Gk. xanthos, gold-yellow; Lat. cand-ēre, glow)1] came to signify a ‘sacred hymn’ and also ‘metre.’ In the Upaniṣad, a special chant used at the sacrifice, the Ud-gītha (‘Loud Chant’) is brought forward for reverence and its varied significance declared; but it is, as Belvalkar and Ranade point out, simply representative, the ‘schematic presentation’ of the Sāman (‘chant’) as such.2

Janaka, king of the Videhas, was noted for his interest in the problems of Being and his liberality to philosophers. We find him holding great disputations of divines at his court regarding the ultimate basis of things. It was in his day that the new teaching rose among the divines of the Kuru-Pancālas3 whose territory was the upper plain of the Jumna and Ganges country, adjacent on the east to the territory of the Kosala-Videhas. The capital of the Kosalas was Ayodhyā, that of the Videhas was Mithilā.4 The boundary between the Videhas and the Kosalas was the Sadānīra river, probably the modern Gandak, which, rising in Nepal, enters the Ganges opposite Patna. Janaka’s territory thus corresponded roughly to the modern Tirhut.5

We find the men of the new learning eager to bear their knowledge to others, and Janaka was desirous to become acquainted with it. We read of a great gathering of the Kuru-Pancāla Brahmins at his court, at which the King desired to know which of them was most learned in scripture, and of Yājnavalkya, the great apostle of the new learning, carrying off the prize, against nine disputants, of a thousand cows, to the horns of each of which ten pādas (of gold) had been attached.

In Selection 12 (BAU. 3-4.7; 4.22-25) we have a famous private interview the king held with the champion philosopher who, chary although he was in communicating his secret doctrine, at last makes it known to the King.

Taittirīyas, Partridge Disciples.

These were a school that accepted the Black Yajur-veda, and the origin of their title is accounted for as follows.

There are three Vedas. The Rig-veda (the Veda of Verses), which was recited and is the original; the Yajur-veda (the Veda for Sacrifice), which consists for the greater part of Rigveda verses set in sentences to be used as formulae for muttering

1 L.

2 CP., p. 214.

3 The name Pancālas indicate they formed an aggregate of five (pañca, five). A. A. Macdonell, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. II, p. 22.

4 See ‘Janaka’ and ‘Videha’ in Vedic Index.

5 Id., Vol. II, p. 230.

[púruṣa]

213

at the sacrifice; and the Sāma-veda (the Veda for Tunes),

which is made up of Rig-veda formulae adapted for chanting

at the sacrifice.

The Yajurveda originally had the directions as to use of the

formulae, explanations, legends regarding the gods, and so on,

mixed up with the formulae, or 'mantras,' as they were called.

But a new school arose which separated the formulae from this

explanatory matter. These reformers, chief of whom was

Yājnavalkya, named the Veda of the old school 'the black

Yajurveda,' because it contained these mingled or uncleared

texts and their own Veda, 'the white Yajurveda,' because

their texts were separated from the explanations.1

One can well guess, then, that the Taittirīyas to whom this

Upanishad belonged were a school of priests who received

their name 'Taittirīyas,' that is, Partridges, 'dark-coloured

birds,' because they, in contrast to the Reformers, used at the

sacrifice the mingled or 'black,' uncleared, texts of the

Yajur-veda.

A legend,2 which vindicates that as the true explanation of

the name, and also shows that the two schools had little love

for each other, is handed down, which relates that Vaiśam-

pāyana, the first in the line of the teachers of the Black

Yajur-veda School, was offended with Yājnavalkya, who,

although he was one of his twenty-seven pupils, promoted

the clearance we have mentioned of the text; and bade

him disgorge the original uncleared Veda he had committed to

him, which Yājnavalkya promptly did, disgorging it in the form

of tangible fragments. The master then commanded his other

disciples, who were loyal to him, to pick up these dark, un-

cleared texts. Whereupon they took the form of partridges,

and swallowed them. It is easy to see which of the two schools

told the story.

púruṣa, person.

The continual heightening of meaning of this word is of

interest.

There seems little doubt that it is derived from √ pr, fill,

and that accordingly the famous passage in the Bṛhad-

Āraṇyaka Upanishad, where the Creator, becoming severally

what we name breath, eye, voice, ear, mind, fills the human

form to the tips of the nails,3 illustrates its meaning. It is

the filled-out being we behold when we look upon a man.

Belvalkar and Ranade from certain statements made in the

Brāhmaṇas find clear evidence that the original meaning is

'the human being with his peculiar bodily structure,'4 which

1 See Lanman, Sanskrit Reader, pp. 355-6.

2 Recorded in Monier Williams's Sanskrit Dictionary.

3 BAU., I.4.7. 4 CP., p. 428.

214

[púruṣa]

well accords with the above suggested derivation; that is to say, man simply as we look upon him. This our two scholars find to be its almost exclusive use in the earlier Upanishads. This reference to what is merely external is illustrated by the use Lanman records of it1 to indicate a servant, as we in English use the word 'man.'

But the thought in the above-mentioned myth told upon this first meaning. It came to be understood that this filled-out form was filled-out by breath, and so was a form of the breath. Thus did the viewless breath come to be identified with the puruṣa.

We find in the Taittirīya Upanishad the position taken of several such persons as making up the man: first, outermost, the person made of food, the person whose body is the flesh; next, the person made of breath; then, the person made of the gaining-seeking mind; next, the person composed of self-less intelligence, and finally the person made of bliss (Selection No. 3).

In very early times the conception was held of the world as a gigantic man, whose eye was the sun, body the air, breath the wind, and so on. In the famous Puruṣa-hymn of the Rigveda2 this puruṣa, as he is there called, which 'is this all,' as the hymn puts it, is brought before us and we are told that from his eye was produced the sun, from his mouth the wind, from his navel the air, from his feet the earth, and so on. There we have the air filling out the world-person, while the wind, the moving air, is conceived as his breath.

Then we find a new phase setting in. The person of each individual was believed to exist beyond death, indeed to pass on and be the person in one body after another. So it came to be felt that this form of viewless breath needed an encasement of some sort to contain itself in its transmigration. It was therefore held to possess a body of its own, quite distinct from the body we look upon, a subtle body, known as the lingam,3 no bigger than a thumb, understood to reside in the heart.4

1 In Voc. to Sanskrit Reader.

2 RV., 10.90.

3 For lingam see note on BAU., 4.4.6(a), No. 12, p. 189.

4 L. D. Barnett in an essay entitled "The Genius: A Study in Indo-European Psychology," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Oct., 1929, p. 731–, describing the fravashis of the later Avesta, the sacred book of ancient Iran, tells us these are presented attached to each good being, as a guardian genius or divine counterpart to protect him, her, or it, against the demons and to fight on the side of Ahura Mazdāh (the Wise Lord) and the Good against the spirits of Evil. These champions for the Good dwelt collectively, for the most part at least, in heaven, but they were also individually attached to the being they guarded. Indeed, Dr. Barnett tells us, there is a story that the amesha spentas (immortal holy ones), the archangels created by Ahura Mazdāh, framing by order of Ahura the elemental body of Zarathustra, placed Zarathustra's fravashi inside (i.e. inside the elemental body, according to the wording of Dīnk, VII.

[púruṣa—Prajā-pati]

215

As a natural extension of this new thought it came to be imagined that, instead of the sun and other cosmic elements being simply members of a world-person, each element was inhabited by its own person, and that it was so also with man, each human element, be it eye, speech, ear, and so on, having within it its own puruṣa.

It was early felt that the macrocosm and the microcosm corresponded to each other, and the idea came to be reached that the human elements were the cosmic elements on the human plane. So the person in the eye looking out from its dark chamber was regarded as indeed the person looking out from the sun (Selection 16, p. 147).

Meantime the Self was coming to be acknowledged in its true supremacy. A passage in the central teaching of the Upanishads, denominating the Self as ‘the Person taught in the Upanishads,’ describes that Person as ‘plucking apart and putting together these [lower] persons and passing beyond them.’1

We shall remember how the Self in that central teaching is declared to be none other than the Spirit, the Brahman, which makes the world to be what it is. So we have the next and final step easily made. The persons in the various cosmic and human elements—be it ‘the immortal person made of light who dwells within the wind’ and the similar ‘immortal person made of light who dwells within the breath’; or ‘the immortal person made of light who dwells within the sun,’ and the similar ‘immortal person made of light who dwells within the eye’; or other cosmic and human correspondent puruṣas—are all held to be, each in its special manifestation, ‘none other than this immortal Self (Ātman) or Spirit (Brahman) which is all this.’2

So does puruṣa become at last the One Supreme Personal Absolute.

Prajā-pati, ‘the Lord of Creatures.’

Prajā, f. (1) procreation; (2) offspring, children, descendants; (3) creatures; esp. (4) folk, subjects of a prince.

[√jan or jā, be born, produced, come into being. Cp. Gk. ge-gon-ōs, born, e-gen-eto, became; Lat. genuit, begat; Eng. kin.

• pra, forward, onward, forth. Cp. Gk. and Lat. pro, before; Eng. fore.]

páti, m. (1) master, possessor; lord; ruler; (2) then (like Eng. ‘lord’), ‘husband’. Cp. Gk. pósis, husband; Lat. im-pos, stem, im-pot, not master of. [L.]

1.14ff., of the Bombay edition, and VII. ii.14 of S.B.E.). Thus we have in ancient Iran its own peculiar expression, in general and in particular, of the puruṣa we find in Aryan India. No doubt fravashi is a later form of the word puruṣa.

1 BAU 3.9.26.

2 BAU. 2.5.1.ff. [CP. p. 429].

216

[prāṇa]

Belvalkar and Ranade trace the progress of this god.

In the Veda the name is first an abstract epithet, meaning 'protector of the peoples, lord of progeny,' and is applied to Savitr, the sun-god, Indra, the storm-god, and so on.

Later in the Veda, the term is applied to a more or less distinct individuality and brought into connection with the pro-creative function in nature. So when world-genesis came to be conceived as a creative process Prajāpati naturally became World-creator as well as World-protector. Hence arose a number of anthropomorphic myths. This we may call his cosmic stage.

Next, in the Brāhmaṇas comes his ritualistic stage, where he becomes, to quote Oldenberg's words, approved by our two scholars, 'an apex to the Pantheon set up by the priesthood, a god moving to and fro with each breeze of fantasy,'1 being used, they tell us, to 'sanction and explain numberless large and small ritualistic practices.'

In the Upanishads his pre-eminence rapidly disappears. The mention of him there is of a god who as the Creator of the creatures and their Lord was revered in days gone by, a 'somewhat shadowy and uninteresting member,' as Belvalkar and Ranade put it, 'of the Vedic Pantheon.'2

prāṇa, 'breath.'

From √an, 'breathe' [cp. Gk. anemos, 'wind,' and Lat. anima, 'soul'] and pra [cp. Gk. and Lat. prō and Eng. forth, fore].

I. Breath.

The usual number of the breaths is five and we find these distinctions made:

prāṇa (√an+pra, 'forth'): 'breath' generally; with 'forth-breath,' 'out-breath,' as its proper meaning.

apāna (√an+apa, 'away'): 'out-breath.' When prāṇa and apāna are contrasted, however, prāṇa means 'out-breath' and apāna 'in-breath.' Deussen conjectures that apa and √an may here mean 'cease to breathe,' or, to put it literally, 'breath-away,' that is, 'breath absent,' the opposite of 'breathing-out,' and so, 'in-breath.' Another significance of the word is the 'away-breath,' the breath that passes downward and 'away' through the anus.

vy-āna (√an+vi, 'asunder'): the branching breath; 'tra-versing the whole body and maintaining its general functional equilibrium' (L. D. Barnett).

ud-āna (√an+ud, 'up'): 'up-breath,' 'mounting through the neck to cause voice' (L. D. B.), 'the breath which conducts the soul from the body at death' (Deussen).

1 Oldenberg, Die Weltanschauung der Br. Texte, p. 32.

2 CP. pp. 342–6.

[prāṇa]

217

sam-āna (√an+sam, ‘together’), ‘conspiration’: ‘travelling round the bowels and stomach, causing the ‘fire that digests food’.(L. D. B.). According to a late Upanishad (Amṛtab. 34.37) it dwells white as milk in the navel (Deussen).1,2

II. Senses or Functions, ‘vital breaths.’

But the prāṇa also may mean ‘breath’ as ‘life’ and so the prāṇas the senses and functions as ‘life breaths’ or ‘vital airs.’ These, Macdonell and Keith tell us,3 are differently numbered —six, seven, ten, eleven, twelve, as the case may be. There were said to be seven in the head: the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, and the mouth. Exactly what organs were comprised when more than seven were mentioned is not certain. We find the two breasts counted in, the navel, perhaps the suture in the crown of the skull, taste, speech, and the organs of evacuation.

III. The changing significance of prāṇa in the Upanishads.

Belvalkar and Ranade trace for us the changing significance of prāṇa in the Upanishads.

In the earliest Upanishads it means simply the breath, but it is classed as the one pre-eminent indispensable faculty, in fact, is stated to be ‘all that is, no matter what,’ and is declared to be inscrutable and exhaustless.

But soon, even in the earliest Upanishads, a still inner entity superior to it is spoken of. In the Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upanishad (1.4.7) the Creator comes into view entering the body he had created even to the tips of the nails, the while he takes to himself the name and function of the breath, and of other faculties. After the earliest Upanishads, we find this entrant being, who has thus taken to himself the function of breathing, declared to be the Self or Soul (Ātman) and to be essentially composed of intelligence. Thus the ‘breath’ has become no longer an independent faculty, but dependent on the Self. In fact, in the account in the Taittirīya Upanishad (2.2; No. 3 in our Selections) it, the person made of breath, is only one of the forms of the Self; and the Kena Upanishad, going still further, declares that not one of the vital airs or faculties can exercise its energy save at the instigation of the central power, the Self—that the Self is ‘the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech, the breath of the breath’; while the Praśna Upanishad maintains that the Self does not simply assume, as we found in the above-mentioned passage of the Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upanishad, the name and function of the breath, nor, as we have just found in the Kena, simply energise it, but is itself the producer of the breath and its subdivisions as well as the controller thereof.

1 Vedic Index.

2 See Deussen, Philosophy of the Upanishads, pp. 264, 276–280, and L. D. Barnett, on p. 187, in notes to his translation of the Bhagavadgītā.

3 Vedic Index.

218

[Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad—bráhman]

Nevertheless new dignities set in for the breath. We find it in the later Upanishads described as enduring beyond the span of a single life, accompanying the Self as the Self goes on from one body to another; and eventually dropping indeed all the physiological functions that originally belonged to it, and becoming, in the Praśna and Kaushītaki Upanishads, almost a synonym for the Highest Entity, the Brahman.1

Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad. ‘The Great Collection of the Secret Teaching in the Forest.’

bṛhad, adj. ‘great.’ √bṛh, ‘be thick, great, strong.’ [L.] āraṇyaka, adj. ‘of the wilderness or forest’ [literally ‘of the strange land,’ from araṇa, adj. ‘distant, strange’]. [L.] bráhman, neuter, ‘Spirit.’ This seems to give best the proper meaning of the term.

In the majority of its occurrences in the Rigveda the word means ‘hymn’ or ‘prayer,’ with the thought first of the emotion that hymn and prayer imply.

The great St. Petersburg Dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth explains it as meaning: “(1) devotion (conceived as a swelling and filling of the soul with a striving toward the gods, in general any pious expression at divine service; (2) holy speech, especially the magic formula; (3) the word of God; (4) holy wisdom, theology, theosophy; (5) holy life, especially as being a life of chastity; (6) the Brahman, the highest object of theosophy, God regarded as impersonal, the Absolute.” Geldner defines it as “the ecstatic emotion (often induced by the ceremonious partaking of the juice of the Soma plant) with which one is possessed when about to perform a deed of valour or an act of piety”; and Deussen, as “prayer conceived as the will of man striving upwards towards the holy or the divine.”2

In this case the derivation assumed is √bṛh, ‘be thick, great, strong.’ [L.] Cp. Gk. bruō, ‘to be full to bursting’ (used especially for plants, for example, of a young shoot teeming with white bloom, but also used metaphorically of men, as swelling (e.g.) with courage, prophetic faculty, and so on); meaning also ‘to be full of (anything),’ and (absolutely) ‘to abound,’ ‘grow luxuriantly.’ The Greeks named the tree-moss, liverwort, the clustering male blossom of the hazel, and catkins generally, bruon; the black vine and also the white vine they called bruōnia, hence our name ‘bryony’ for the latter [Liddell and Scott1]. Oldenburg says that the word appears to be related to the Irish bricht, magic, magical utterance.3

Now, we are to remember that, as Professor Stanislav Schayer points out, “to man in his primitive condition of culture the division between the spiritual and the material is unknown. He conceives things as possessed with soul and,

1 CP. IX.18, where references are given.

2 Geldner’s and Deussen’s definitions are reported in CP. p. 346-.

3 Die Lehre der Upanishaden, p. 46.

on the other hand, psychical conditions as composed of matter. Anger, joy, hate and love in the technique of magic are dealt with as substances."1 This primitive lack of discrimination has proved itself very persistent. A writer,2 quoted by Professor S. Angus, says that "it is indisputable that the Greek never completely stepped out of this pre-logical mentality. Even in their philosophy it is only when we come to the Stoics that we find the distinction made, so obvious to us, between the subjective and the objective." As to spirit, which is our immediate concern here, even the Stoics regarded it as 'a quasi-material penetrating substance,' Professor Angus tells us. Such a conception, he says, was the common view of the Graeco-Roman world. It was Plotinus, he tells us, who first established the immateriality of Spirit.3 It would seem indeed that it is to Descartes and the course of philosophy he initiated we owe the clear-cut conception we have to-day of the distinction between spirit and matter.

So we are not to suppose that the Rigvedic poets in their early day, some thirteen centuries before Christ, can have had anything but a quasi-material conception in their mind of the power that stirred within them when they intoned their hymns, calling it Brahman, 'that which makes to swell,' because it acted so in their hearts. We must not be surprised if we find them thinking of it as a sort of fluid or as a current of fire. Yet for them in their day it seems to have been just what we now understand when with our more analytical mind we speak of 'the Spirit.' Of nobility of mind in the early Vedic period we learn from Belvalkar and Ranade. These investigators find in these reciters a pure and free spirit of spontaneous rejoicing in and reverence beneath lofty gods. But with this quasi-material view of the spirit there was danger that spirit might be regarded as a substance itself possessed of power, not as simply a carrier to the gods of prayer and praise, but independent of the gods, and, since it was in the heart of him who recited, subject to the reciter's will and management. This view we find creeping in in the later Vedic period. It showed itself in the elaboration of the prayers and the sacrifices, for prayers and sacrifices were coincident, the prayers being said when the offerings were libated.

This elaboration showed itself not only in the ritual acquiring minutiæ, subdivisions, and lengthy sessions, but also by taking from the old recited hymns, the greater part of which had been composed in adoration of the gods, formulæ, which were at first simply muttered at the sacrifice, and afterwards set in metre for chanting. The original collection of hymns was called the Rig-Veda, the Veda (that is, 'the knowledge')

1 Jahrbuch der Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft, 1928, p. 63-.

2 Macchiovo, Zagreus, p. 165, cp. id. Orfismo e Paolinismo.

3 S. Angus, The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World, p. 140.

220

[bráhman]

expressed in Verses (Rig): the collection of Formulæ, the Yajur-Veda ('The Knowledge for the Sacrifices (Yajur)'); the collection of these Formulæ set for chanting, the Sāma-Veda ('The Knowledge set for Chanting (Sāma)'). These three came to be known as 'the Threefold Knowledge,' and had each their own class of priest.

It will be noticed that the greater part of the Yajur-Veda and we may say all the Sāma-Veda are but forms of the Rig-Veda.

So, round the conception of Bráhman (Spirit moving in prayer) the eagerness of these divines revolved. Their view of it changed as time went on. Belvalkar and Ranade thus describe the course of their thought.

First, Bráhman from meaning simply an isolated prayer, came to mean the whole three Vedas we have mentioned (Rig, Yajur, Sāman). Then these were regarded as infinite. The story is told of one of the Rigvedic seers who had devoted himself for three life-lengths to Vedic studies, and had to lie down aged and infirm, who was informed by one of the gods that all he had as yet learnt was but three handfuls of three heaps big as mountains.

Again, the isolated prayer was magnified in importance, declared to be in itself, without any of the other prayers, the very and true Brahman.

Then Bráhman was separated out as different from the Vedas it inspired. 'The hymns are finite, the chants finite, the formulae finite, but of what constitutes brahman there is no end.'1

Next Bráhman, the true Bráhman, was considered to be beyond the three Vedas altogether. They might be indeed called Bráhman, but only called so, they were the Lower Bráhman, the Bráhman expressed in name or sound.2

Then Bráhman came to be believed to possess a concrete individuality, as we speak of 'the Spirit.'

When the sacrifice came to be believed to be a cosmic force, as we see in the Horse-Sacrifice described in Selections 1 and 2, Bráhman, regarded now as the whole sacrifice in miniature, was believed to be a significant influence in the production of the Universe, or indeed to be itself all these varied exhibitions of power that make up the world. Thus Bráhman is identified with the wind into which the five divinities, lightning, rain, moon, sun, and fire die and out of which later they come to life; with fire; particularly, with the sun. Yet the relation of Bráhman to holy prayer and formula is never forgotten.

Then we find Bráhman declared to be a personal god, to be Prajāpati, the Lord of Creatures, himself, and doing his work of creating, or still further as the self-existing principle of the world, and so lording it over Prajāpati.

1Taitt. Sam. VII, iii. 1.4. 2References in CP. p. 353.

[bráhman]

221

This theistic view of Bráhman becomes pantheistic in passages that describe Bráhman making an offering of itself into beings, and an offering of beings into itself, or in texts which speak of Bráhman being the tree (material cause) out of which the world was fashioned.

The final stage of this exaltation of Bráhman was its identification with the Self or Soul within 1

It was this final meaning reached in the Brāhmaṇas that was the gospel of the Upanishads, and it is found, our two scholars tell us, in the earliest texts, yet the majority of the texts in the first two groups of their allotment of Upanishad passages to successive periods uphold the earlier meanings of Brahman. It is in what they make their third group (the passages where Uddālaka and Yājnavalkya exhibit their teaching) that we find this final meaning firmly fixed, the group which accordingly our two scholars denominate the Upanishadic Group properly so called. In this group, as we run through it, we find first a number of incomplete views about the Brahman (for example, its identification with some solitary fact or phenomenon of the outer or inner world) stated and rejected, and Brahman declared to be the one in-dwelling Self, the one thread by which this world and the other world and all things are tied together, and of each thing the inner controller, the goal of all man's aspirations.2 Next, we have a clear cut distinction formulated between the lower and higher aspects of Brahman which are already distinguished in the Brāhmaṇas. Then comes a higher aspect still. Brahman is declared to be entirely beyond qualities, infinite and immutable, expressible indeed only in negative terms—‘Neti, Neti’ (‘No! No!'). In the third place we have a consistent description of the identification already mentioned of the Brahman without with the Ātman within, together with a correlation in full detail of the physical entities of the Brahman without, the macrocosm, and the psychical faculties of the Ātman within, the microcosm.

Fourthly, we have several texts where the method is set forth in detail of knowing the Bráhman-Ātman through the 'states of the Soul,' and through mystic contemplation. Then, finally, we have an exaltation in which thought rises to the Absolute. The category of Bráhman, the impersonal spirit, is either dropped out altogether or relegated to a subordinate position as the personal Brahmā or Prajāpati, the Lord of Creatures, and upon the Absolute (considered either as the Ātman (the Self) or the Akshara (the imperishable), a sort of theistic aspect is imposed. This subordination of the Bráhman to the Absolute we find carried on into the next and last group of Belvalkar and Ranade's classification, the group which for this and other reasons they name Neo-Upanishadic.3

1 CP. pp. 351-4.

2 BAU. 3.8.

3 CP. p. 355-7.

222 [brahmán, etc.,—Mitra—Muṇḍaka Upanishad—Yājnavalkya]

brahmán, masc. (1) one who has to do with Spirit (bráhman, n.) and therefore with prayer, divine praise and divine science, a Brahmin, a priest, theologian, divine. (2) The universe-pervading Spirit personified, the god Brahmā (brahmā being the form of the nominative singular). [L.]

brāhmaṇá, masc. (1) one who has to do with Spirit and so with same significance as brahmán (1).

brāhmaṇa, neut. a saying concerned with Spirit, the dictum of a priest on matters of faith and cultus; esp. a Brāhmaṇa as designating a Collection of these dicta. [L.]

mánas, n. mind, in its widest sense as applied to the powers of conception, will and emotion: thus (1) ‘the intellect,’ ‘the thoughts,’ ‘understanding,’ ‘mind’; (2) ‘reflection,’ ‘excogitation,’ perhaps ‘the thing excogitated,’ ‘praise,’ or ‘devotion’; (3) ‘wish,’ ‘inclination towards’; (4) ‘desire’; (5) ‘feeling,’ ‘disposition,’ ‘heart.’ [L.] √man, ‘be minded’: (1) ‘think’; (2) ‘consider something (acc.) as something’; (3) ‘think fit or right’; (4) ‘think upon,’ ‘set the heart upon’; (5) ‘have in mind or in view.’ [Cf. Gk. me-mon-a, ‘mind,’ i.e. ‘fix the thoughts on,’ ‘wish,’ ‘strive’; and the indirectly connected Eng. ‘mean.’ [L.]

In the Rigveda the mánas is regarded as residing in the heart.

Mitra. The god so predominantly associated with Varuṇa that only one hymn is addressed to him alone. He dwells with Varuṇa in a palace in heaven and well nigh shares every particular of Varuṇa’s activity. Comparing the hymn that concerns the two, Professor Macdonell finds the attribute ‘bringing men together’ proper to him. The name in Sanskrit means ‘friend,’ but Dr. E. J. Thomas says that the form of the word has never been explained. The conception, Dr. Thomas says, is that of a powerful, beneficent, being, conceived at a stage far beyond that of the deification of natural phenomena, and refers to the hymn RV. 3.59 to show that there is no evidence, but rather the contrary, for regarding him as a sun-god.1

Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, ‘The Secret Teaching for the Shaven.’ muṇḍa, adj. ‘having the head shaved,’ ‘bald.’

Thus we see that this Upaniṣad was not to be taught except to those who had their heads shaven, that is to monks.

Yājnavalkya, meaning ‘descendant of Yajnavalkya,’ the name of a sage mentioned in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa as an authority in ritual. He is said to have been the pupil of Uddālaka Āruni, a Brahmin of the Kuru-pañcālas, who dwelt on the upper plain of the Jumna and Ganges. He is presented in the Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upanishad as holding disputations at the court

1 Vedic Hymns, p. 60, where RV. 3.59 is translated.

of Janaka, the King of the Videhas, who lived much further

east, in the region corresponding roughly to the modern Tirhut.1

Varuṇa. Professor Macdonell points out that from the oldest

Rigvedic period Varuṇa and Indra tower above the rest of the

gods as leading deities about equal in power. Varuṇa is the

supreme moral ruler. Indra is the mighty warrior.2 This

predominance of moral qualities no doubt accounts for the

fact he notes, that Varuṇa's personality is more fully developed

on the moral than on the physical side. He has a face, eye,

arms, hands and feet, and actively moves. Associated with

him is Mitra, who dwells in Varuṇa's golden palace in heaven

and rides with him in his car. The word mitra often means

'friend'3 in the Rigveda, and so close is the character of Mitra

to Varuṇa that, Professor Macdonell tells us, Mitra has, in the

mention we find of him, hardly an independent trait left.

Only a single hymn is addressed to him alone.4 The car in

which the two ride shines like the sun, and we find a poet

praying (i.25.18) that he may see it on the earth.5

Varuṇa is not only the upholder of order (ṛta)6 in nature,

but also in morals. In him the three heavens and the three

earths are deposited. His eye is the sun. He beholds all

secret things, things that have been or shall be done. The

very winkings of men's eyes are numbered by him, and what-

ever a man does, thinks, or devises, he knows. His wrath is

roused by the infringement of his ordinances, an infringement

which he severely punishes. Falsehood is frequently men-

tioned. Disease is inflicted on those who neglect their worship.

On the other hand, Varuṇa is gracious. He unties the rope

that binds the transgressor and removes the sin, even the

rope from the sins of men's fathers. There is no hymn to

Varuṇa (and the Ādityas7) in which the prayer for forgiveness

of guilt does not occur, as in the hymns to the other deities

it is prayer for worldly goods that is always presented.

The sun is the eye of Varuṇa. It is also the eye of his

companion. In their golden abode in heaven, their spies sit

round these two gods and behold the two worlds. The spies,

acquainted with sacrifice, stimulate prayer. Thousand-eyed,

they look across the world, descend and enter houses. This

conception, says our scholar, may well have been suggested

by the spies a strict ruler on earth has round him.8

Indra, on the other hand, is in the atmosphere, primarily

the thunder-god, secondarily the god of battle. He is the god

1 See Vedic Index, arts. "Uddālaka, Yājñavalkya, Videha."

2 VM. p. 20.

4 Id., p. 27.

6 See ṛta in Voc.

8 Spies, however, Professor Macdonell points out, are not peculiar to

Varuṇa and Mitra. They are also attributed to Agni, to demons, and to

the gods in general. [VM. p. 23.]

Q

224

[Vi-jnāna—Vi-rocana—véda]

of the strong arm. He is excessively fond of drinking soma. Under its influence he becomes intoxicated, boasts of his great and capricious deeds and is even driven to parricide, and also suffers from drinking to excess. Thus is Indra in moral status far below Varuṇa and the other great Indian gods.1

As to the course of Varuṇa as time went on, Professor Keith remarks that "the history of Indian religion is the history of the decadence of Varuṇa before the claims, on the one hand, of the warrior god Indra, the god par excellence of the Indian warrior, and, on the other hand, of Agni, the god of the sacrifice and of the sacrificial priest, and of Prajāpati, in whom the cosmological and pantheistic views of the priesthood found their expression."2

"With the growth of the conception of Prajāpati," Professor Macdonell tells us, "the characteristics of Varuṇa as a sovereign naturally faded away, and the dominion of the waters, only a part of his original sphere, alone remained to him in Post-Vedic mythology."3

See also Introduction, p. 9-.

vi-jnāna, 'discernment.'

From (a) jnā, 'know'; 'have knowledge of a person or thing,' 'recognise,' 'become aware of,' 'learn,' 'notice.'

(b) vi, preposition, 'apart,' 'asunder,' 'away,' 'out'; denoting intensity in descriptive compounds, and separation or non-agreement in possessive and prepositional compounds.

So vi-jnā means 'distinguish,' 'understand,' 'know,' 'recognise,' 'consider as,' 'observe,' 'find out.' [L.]

Belvalkar and Ranade understand it in the Sanatkumāra Exposition (CU. 7) to mean 'the act of intellectual solidarity,' which evidently is its meaning in Yājnavalkya's Speech to Maitreyī (Selection 13, BAU. 2.4=4.5). [CP. p. 230.]

Videhas. See Janaka.

Vi-rocana, 'The Shining One.'

The Chief of the demons in the Indra-Virocana story, Selection 15, CU. 8.7-12 [rc, 'shine' (cp. Gk. leuk-os, 'bright'; Lat. lux for lūc-s, 'light'; Eng. 'light') and vi, preposition, 'apart, asunder, out.'] [L.]

véda, m. (1) 'understanding,' 'knowledge'; (2) esp. 'the sacred knowledge,' handed down in the three collections of verse formula and chant, the Rig- Yajur-, and Sāma-vedas, respectively, held to be revealed, and hence called śruti, 'heard (from heaven,)' in contrast with other sayings handed down, which are simply smṛti, 'remembered (as the utterances of men).'

1 VM., pp. 19, 64, 65.

2 Religion and Philosophy of the Veda, p. 101.

3 VM., p. 28.

[véda—Sata-patha Brāhmaṇa—Śāṇḍilya—Śveta-ketu] 225

[√vid, see: perfect tense veda, an old preterite-present, 'have seen or perceived,' and so, 'know.' Cp. Lat. videre, 'see'; with veda cp. Gk. oida and Eng. I wot, gerund to wit, noun wit, 'understanding.' [L.]

(a) Rg-veda, 'Sacred knowledge recited in hymns.' rc, f. a hymn of praise. [Cp. arkā, 'gleam.'] [√rc, beam; praise; sing (of the winds); honor.]

(b) Yajur-veda, 'sacred knowledge consisting of texts of the Rigveda to be muttered as formulae at the sacrifice.' yajus, n. sacred awe, worship.

[√yaj, 'honor' a god, 'worship,' 'worship with prayer and oblation,' and so 'consecrate, hallow, offer,' 'sacrifice.' Cp. Gk. hág-os, 'worship,' 'sacred awe,' 'expiatory sacrifice.'] [L.]

(c) Sāma-veda, 'sacred knowledge consisting of texts of the Rigveda adapted for chanting.' Sāman, n. 'song.'

Śata-patha Brāhmaṇa, 'Sacred Directory of a Hundred [that is, very many] Paths [that is, Lectures1],' is, Prof. Macdonell tells us, the most important work in Vedic literature, next to the Rigveda. Its geographical data point to the land of the Kuru-Pañcālas, where flow the upper Jumna and the upper reach of the Ganges, as the region where it was composed. As it is the longest it is also the latest of the Commentaries, Prof. Keith allocating it to shortly before the time of the Buddha, that is about 600 b.c. The Buddha lived from 563 to 483.

Śāṇḍilya, 'descendant of Śaṇḍila,' the patronymic of several teachers.

The 'Doctrine of Śāṇḍilya' (CU. 3.14, quoted on p. 87, occurs also as 'Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa,' 10.6.3, and in abbreviated form as BAU. 5.6). This Śāṇḍilya is the most important of the Śāṇḍilyas, and in that Brāhmaṇa is cited several times as an authority. His Agni or 'sacrificial fire' is there called 'Śāṇḍila.' From that it appears clearly that he was one of the great teachers of the fire ritual recounted in the fifth and following books of that Brāhmaṇa.2

Śveta-ketu ('white brightness'3), a Brahmin, son of Uddālaka. Macdonell and Keith tell us that Śvetaketu is repeatedly mentioned in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa,' and that in the 'Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa' he is quoted on the vexed question of the duty of the seventeenth priest appointed at the ritual of the Kauṣītakins to notify errors in the sacrifice. They add that he was a person of some originality, for he is described

1 Macdonell, Imperial Gazetteer of Indra, Vol. II, p. 230.

2 Vedic Index.

3 śvetá, 'white,' cp. Gothic hweits, Eng. white [Macdonell, Vedic Reader for Beginners]. ketu, m. brightness; pl. beams [√cit, 'look, appear, shine,' cp. Gothic haidu-s ('appearance, manner,' i.e.) 'way.' AS. hād, 'way, manner, condition.' Eng. -hood, -head (as in maidenhood, godhead), Ger. -heit. [L.]

226

[sat—sat-tva—sat-yá]

in the Śatapatha as insisting on eating honey, a luxury pro-

hibited to students of sacred lore. Like his father, he lived

in the Kuru-Pancāla country in the upper plain of the Jumna

and Ganges, which bordered on the country of the Kosala-

Videhas. The Kuru-Pancāla-Brahmins were noted not only

for their culture, but for their missionary activity, and we find

Śvetaketu in the Śatapatha travelling about with fellow

Brahmins in the Videhas country and figuring among the

Brahmin disputants at the court of Janaka, the King.1

Macdonell and Keith further tell us that all references to

Śvetaketu belong to the latest period of Vedic literature, and

that it is therefore not surprising that the 'Āpastamba Dharma

Sūtra' should refer to him as an avara, or person of later days,

who nevertheless was regarded as a seer (ṛṣi) by special merit.2

(a) sat [for as-at].

1. neut. of sant [for as-ant], participle (of √as), being, existing.

2. adj. real, genuine, true, good.

3. (of people), good, noble, excellent.

4. sat-ī, f. a good, true, virtuous (wife), (hence Anglo-

Indian Suttee).

5. n. the existent, existence.

6. sat-kṛ, make good, treat well, receive kindly.

√as. (1) ‘be, exist’; ‘be present or on hand’; ‘take place, happen’; (2) ‘be,’ with predicate possessive genitive, signifies ‘belong to’; as-ti mama (is of me, i.e. is mine, i.e.), ‘I have.’

Sanskrit has no verb for ‘have.’ [Cp. Lat. es-t, Eng. is.]

(b) sat-tva.

1. n. condition of being, beingness, existence, essenti-a.

2. n. condition of being good, absolutely good being, good-

ness, the highest of the three qualities of the universe.

3. m. n. ‘a living being,’ ‘creature.’

[Formed from sant, just as the artificial Lat. essent-ia, ‘beingness,’ that on which a thing depends for being what it is,’ from essens, a quasi-participle of esse.]

(c) sat-yá.

1. adj. ‘real,’ ‘true,’ ‘existing in reality,’ ‘truthful, trusty, faithful.’

2. neut. satyam, ‘the real,’ ‘the true,’ ‘reality,’ ‘truth,’ ‘truthfulness,’ ‘faithfulness.’

[Radically akin with Gk. eteo-s, ‘true,’ but of different formation, since the Cyprian shows that eteos stands for *eteFo-s.]

The above analyses of Lanman’s show that when we have

sat, sat-tva, or sat-yam presented to us we have by no means a

merely metaphysical term as Being was among the Eleatics,

but a term having in it the significance of actual existence, life,

high moral quality.

1 Śatapatha Brāhmana, XI. 6.2.1.

2 Vedic Index.

[Śveta—Satya-Kāma—sāṁ-sāra—Hāri-drumata] 227

The context is to be looked at to give us the exact signifi-cance in any instance, but it is for us to notice initially the actuality and moral quality of the conception when we find Hindu philosophers deriving all things from sat.

Satya-kāma (‘lover of truth’: satya, truth (see satya)+kāma, ‘wish, desire, longing’; ‘love’; at end of possessive compounds, ‘having’ desire for . . ., ‘desirous of . . .’ √kam, ‘wish, ‘will,’ ‘desire,’ ‘love.’ [L.]

Our Selection No. 7 describes Satyakāma’s initiation by Hāri-drumata as a student of sacred lore, although his birth as a Brahmin was uncertified.

We find him come to be cited as an authority in doctrine in the Brihad-Āranyaka and Chāndogya Upanishads. He is also mentioned in the Aitareya and Śatapatha Brāhmaṇas.1

saṁ-sāra, the Wandering [of the soul from one body to another]. Literally ‘surge’ or ‘flood.’

Derived from √sr̥, run swiftly, glide, flow [cp. Gk. hormē, rush, onset, spring, whence hormaō, rush on; halma, spring; Lat. salire, spring. [L.] Also compare Lat. altus, high; and Gaelic, allt, mountain stream; + sam, prep. ‘together,’ used to intensify the meaning of verbs. Thus saṁ(s)kṛt, Sanskrit, from √kṛ, perform, accomplish+sam, means the ‘thoroughly-done, well-fashioned (language)’; and, here, saṁsāra the ‘thorough wandering,’ the ‘constant irresistible flow or journeying’ of the soul (from the acquire-ment of one body to the acquirement of another).

Belvalkar and Ranade bring forward beliefs in the Ṛigveda that imply the doctrine of re-embodiment, but they point out that is not until the end of the Brāhmaṇa period (which passed into the Upanishad period) that we find the doctrine definitely expressed. Its ultimate origin, whether it arose outside or within the Āryan immigrants into India, is a matter of controversy, they tell us; but ‘the essential Āryan contribu-tion to the full-fledged doctrine’ they discover as coming, first, from the Āryan belief in pantheism or panpsychism, which made it possible to conceive of the soul inhabiting not only specific totems, but almost anything in the animate and in-animate creation; and, secondly, from the theory of Karma,2 which the Āryans came to hold, and which regulated the soul’s wanderings and gave the dogma a moral background.3

Hāri-drumata, ‘descendant of Haridrumant.’ The patronymic of the member of the Gautama family, who in our Selection No. 7 (CU. 4.4–9) accepts Satya-kāma as a pupil under him of sacred lore.

The literal meaning of Hari-drumant is ‘connected with the hari-dru, ‘hari-tree’ (Pinus deodara).’

1 Vedic Index. 2 See karman in Voc. 3 CP., p. 81.

Conclusion.

THE ONE PERFECT LIFE FOR ALL.

I. INTRODUCTION .. .. .. .. .. 230

II. The Assistance Bishop Westcott here gives us 230

III. Westcott on the Quality of Christianity .. 232

IV. Westcott's Definition of Christianity .. 233

V. The Scriptures on the Coincidence of the Transcendent and the Empiric in the One Perfect Life for us all .. .. .. 235

VI. The Pioneers' Report .. .. .. 238

VII. The Faltering of the Eagle Wings .. .. 239

VIII. Yet, Apartness from the Height is Intolerable 243

IX. The Reason for the Wretchedness at Separation is that we are Separate from our True Self .. .. .. .. 244

X. A Further Survey of the Self. A New Parable: An Ocean .. .. .. .. 246

1. The Upper Depths: The Self so far Discerned: 246

(a) The Individuality of the Self, } Common 246

(b) The Universality of the Self, } qualities 250

(c) The Mutuality of the Self, } of the Self 251

(d) The Sinfulness of the Self: Peculiar to the Upper Depths .. .. .. 254

2. The Lower Depths: The Truth of the Self, even its Perfection, at last reached .. .. 256

(a) Now a Deeper Testing .. .. .. 256

(b) The Desire for Perfection .. .. .. 257

(c) The Necessity of Perfection for Existence 257

(d) The Cognizance of the Lower Depth .. 257

(i) By the Upanishad Fathers .. .. .. 257

(ii) By the Poet of the New Democracy 258

(iii) By the Irish Poet Æ .. .. .. 259

(iv) In the Bible .. .. .. .. 261

CONCLUSION

XI. JESUS IS GIVEN BY GOD AS THE PERFECT SELF .. 262

(a) The First Feature: Individuality .. .. 264

(b) The Second Feature: Universality .. .. 264

(c) The Third Feature: Mutuality .. .. 265

(d) The Fourth Feature: Perfection .. .. 267

Other Features: (e) Creative Power, (f) Restorative Power .. .. .. .. 271

XII. THE TRUE HEIGHT OF MAN .. .. .. 272

XIII. HOW THE ‘WAITING SEED’ HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO ITS FLOWER .. .. .. .. 274

(a) The True Nature of Man .. .. .. 274

(b) The Assay of the Archetype.. .. .. 276

(c) God’s remedy to make good the failure of the flesh to reproduce the archetype was the revelation that the archetype had been reproduced in the flesh, even in Jesus .. .. 278

XIV. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT .. .. .. 278

(a) The psychic is itself neutral as regards morality; but, when free will came to be introduced into it, the need for a moral decision was at once laid upon it .. .. .. 278

(b) We are taught that a man’s nature is either good or bad .. .. .. .. 279

(c) The de-vitalised archetype (the ‘waiting seed’) needs to be quickened by the Spirit .. 280

(d) The contrast between the Flesh, as it has come to be in man, and the Spirit .. .. 281

(e) The position St. Paul takes with regard to the Flesh .. .. .. .. 282

(f) The Flesh in him who puts on the new man is entirely forsaken. The whole man is now filled with the Spirit. Of the Spirit alone he takes cognizance and is completely under its rule 283

(g) Yet the Flesh has its glory .. .. .. 284

(h) And yet the body awaits redemption .. .. 285

(i) The Spirit is a means to efficiency .. .. 286

XV. THE SUCCESSIVE DEPTHS OF THE SELF REVIEWED FOR OURSELVES .. .. .. .. 287

(a) The Degenerate Self .. .. .. .. 287

(b) The Self in its true manifestation .. .. 294

(c) The Ultimate .. .. .. .. .. 295

XVI. THE SELF CREATIVE .. .. .. .. 301

XVII. MIND AND LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE .. .. 304

XVIII. THE WORLD-PERSON IS LOVE .. .. .. 309

230

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

XIX. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED OF THE GLORY OF THE Self

(a) What Walt Whitman has shown us

(b) What the Upanishad Men of the Spirit discovered

(c) The Bible revelation

(d) Only the last of the three unveilings of the glory of the Self satisfies

XX. OUR FINAL VIEW OF THE WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT HAS BEEN TOLD US

I. INTRODUCTION.

We have presented to the reader, in our Introduction to the Selections, a sketch of the Sacred Tradition of the Aryans and of the Secret Lore which was its climax. What now of Christianity?

II. THE ASSISTANCE BISHOP WESTCOTT HERE GIVES US.

Brooke Foss Westcott was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge from 1870 to 1890, and then became Bishop of Durham, and, still in active work as bishop, died in 1901. He was easily the most looked-to-for-guidance and inspiring theologian of his day. He combined in a wonderful way the most minute word-for-word study of the text of the Greek Testament and attention to detail in whatever he undertook with ascent, like a ready mountaineer, to a height from which he could descry and describe for those below the true character of the detailed landscape in which they found themselves.

In the mystery of the Incarnation he found the key that unlocked all other mysteries of Being and Life, and multitudes of folk—both those who had thought little and those who had thought much—received insight and uplift from his teaching thereon. That during his professorship at Cambridge Westcott had come to know much regarding Indian thought in general, the extracts we give from his writings as Appendix V will sufficiently testify. When,

ASSISTANCE OF BISHOP WESTCOTT

231

however, we peruse his book entitled the Gospel of Life,

which contains the substance of lectures he gave during

that time to specially keen students upon Christian doctrine,

we find that, when he discusses Hinduism as one of the

" Prae-Christian Solutions of the Problems of Being," while

he is well up to his date as regards his knowledge of the Veda

and Brāhmaṇas, and speaks of two great philosophical

schools, the Vedānta (by which he may mean the authentic

Vedānta presented in the Upanishads, but most probably

means subsequent systemisations thereof) and the Sāṅkhya,

characterising these two schools as presenting "the profound

speculations of the few, and as witnesses for the loftier

strivings and the sad hopelessness of men, standing over

against the declining polytheism like the systems of Plato

and Aristotle,"1 yet he does not mention the Upanishads.

This non-acquaintance of the learned Professor with the

Upanishads we can readily understand when we note that it

was not until 1897, seven years after Westcott's Professorship

was over, that Paul Deussen published a translation of the

Upanishads into a European tongue, German; and not

until 1900, a year before Westcott's death, that the first

translation into English, Max Müller's, appeared.

What specially concerns us, however, in our present study,

is the definition Westcott gives of Christianity in the above-

mentioned lectures. It is a definition which, to his mind,

presented the teaching of Holy Scripture expressed in a form

which the modern mind would appreciate. What is re-

markable for us is its coincidence with the teaching of the

Upanishads, as will be presently shown to the reader. Con-

sequently the non-acquaintance we have pointed out of

Westcott with these documents while he was delivering

these Lectures enables us to reckon him an unbiassed witness

to the said coincidence.

After his Cambridge period, however, Westcott came to

know at least so much of the Upanishads as to mention

them in a Tabulation in the Cambridge Companion to the

Bible, published in 1892, and to describe them as "containing

passages of the highest speculative interest, inquiries into

creation, being, metempsychosis, etc., and as giving rise

to the six systems of Hindu philosophy."

1 Gospel of Life, p. 157.

232 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

In these later years indeed there was an additional acquaintance for him with India through correspondence with the four out of his five sons that had taken up mission-work there, and it was in this later period of his life that the saying came to be attributed to him (which, whether genuine or not, well accords with his keenness to learn regarding Indian thought and his opinion as to the agency through which he thought such knowledge would best be gained), that it was much to be desired that an Indian Christian should present and estimate for the consideration of the West what was the teaching of the Upanishads.

We do not wish to assert that Westcott would have given a complete consent to Upanishad teaching. Our one point is—and we believe that our reader will come to agree with us—that Westcott's definition of Christianity does in a remarkable degree help those who contemplate it to appreciate, if not also to criticise, the main teaching of the Indian Forest Fathers with whom we are concerned.

III. WESTCOTT ON THE QUALITY OF CHRISTIANITY.

(a) Christianity is Absolute.

Before we state Westcott's Definition of Christianity, however, let us notice what the quality was that he claimed for Christianity. Christianity “is absolute,” he said. “It is not confined by any limits of space or time or faculty or object. It reaches to the whole sum of being and to the whole of each separate existence.”

And thus he worked out his statement: “Christianity is absolute. It claims, as it was set forth by the Apostles, though the grandeur of the claim was soon obscured, to reach all men, all time, all creation; it claims to effect the perfection no less than the redemption of finite being; it claims to bring a perfect unity of humanity without destroying the personality of any one man; it claims to deal with all that is external as well as all that is internal, with matter as well as with spirit, with the physical universe as well as with the moral universe; it claims to realise a re-creation co-extensive with creation; it claims to present Him who was the Maker of the world as the Heir of all things (Heb. i.

WESTCOTT'S DEFINITION OF CHRISTIANITY 233

2); it claims to complete the cycle of existence, and to show how all things come from God and go to God (Rom. xi. 36; I Cor. xv. 28)."1

(b) CHRISTIANITY IS ACTUAL.

Further, it will be already seen by what we have just quoted that for Westcott Christianity, while absolute in the sense of not being confined within the limits of space and time, was yet within these limits manifested. Absolute it was, but also actual. Of that he thus writes: "We have here the interpretation of events in the life of One who was truly Man. Christianity is not a theory, a splendid guess, but a proclamation of facts."2 "The Word, we read, became flesh."3 He notes consequently 'the terrible contrast' between 'man's power' and 'man's achievement.' "No one can look," he says, "either within or without and fail to see clear marks not only of imperfection, but of failure.4 But"—and here is his point—"Christ as he lived and lives, justifies our highest hope. It was, we read in St. Paul, the good pleasure of God 'to sum up all the things in Christ,'5 and 'through Him to reconcile all things to Himself'6."7

IV. WESTCOTT'S DEFINITION OF CHRISTIANITY.

'Absolute' and 'actual'! How then does Christianity resolve what appears to be at first sight a dualism irreconcilable?

It does so, Westcott maintains (proving his point by bringing forward the texts we have already adduced and others) by being 'a life' (and here comes what we call "Westcott's Definition of Christianity"), "the One Perfect Life." On that he expresses himself thus: "The Gospel is the revelation, the gift, the power, of a perfect human life, offered to God and received by God, in which every single human life finds its accomplishment."8 In another passage he puts it this way: "Christianity is not an abstraction, not simply a participation in a common nature, but a life which is (as

1 Religious Thought in the West, p. 345-; also on p. 248 of the Gospel of Life.

2 Id., p. 345. 3 Id., p. 348. 4 Id., p. 349. 5 Eph. i. 10.

6 Col. i. 20. 7 Religious Thought in the West, p. 350.

8 Gospel of Life, p. 256.

234

THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

we apprehend it) personal (compare Eph. iv. 15-)," being " the union of believers in one Person, a vaster life than that which is realised individually; a life in which humanity becomes one."1 "Here is the One [Westcott's italics]," he says elsewhere, "in whom all men find their fragmentary being capable of reconciliation in a higher Personality"2 Thus was Christianity, he eagerly maintained, the fulfilment of what we read in the First Chapter of Genesis, "man made in God's own image and after his likeness,"3 the appointed "sovereign of the world."4 He noted the passage in Colossians5 where Christ is declared to be "all things and in all,'6 and gave this as his comment: "Whatever is, He is. There is but one life."7

And he draws as follows his deductions of what this One Perfect Life means for the individual, for mankind, and for nature.

First, with regard to the individual: "The Person of the Lord includes all that belongs to the perfection of every man; meets us at every point in our strivings; and discloses something to call out in us loftier endeavour. The Spirit of Christ brings the power through which each one can reach his true end. As we contemplate Him, our sense of His perfections grows with our own moral advance. As our power of vision is disciplined and purified, we see more of His beauty."8

Next he portrays what the One Perfect Life means for mankind: "In the Lord's humanity is included not only whatever belongs to the consummation of the individual, but also to the consummation of the race, in all stages of its progress in regard to the whole inheritance of our nature, enlarged by the most vigorous use while the world lasts. It is true, I believe, without exception, in every realm of man's activity, true in action, true in literature, true in art, that the works which receive the most lasting homage of the soul are those which are the most Christian, and that it is in each work the element which answers to the fact of the Incarnation—that is, to the fellowship of God

1 Id., pp. 232–4, being deductions from Acts xvii. 24–30, Gal. iii. 26, 'Col. iii. 11.

2 Id., p. 56. 3 Gen. i. 27, 28. 4 Gospel of Life, p. 242.

5 Col. iii. 11. 6 Westcott's translation. 7 Gospel of Life, p. 234.

8 Id., p. 300.

TRANSCENDENT AND EMPIRIC

235

with man as an accomplished reality of the present order—which attracts and holds our reverence."1

And thus he writes with regard to nature: "In the fulfilment Christ has brought of the destiny of man lies the hope also of the material world. Something is in store for it, we gather, answering to the redemption of man's body. Christ is shown in Holy Scripture to stand essentially in some ineffable yet real connection with all finite being. The whole tenor of revelation, as I conceive it, leads us to regard the Incarnation as involved inherently in Creation. There is a prospect of a holy unity which shall hereafter crown and fulfil creation, as one revelation of Infinite Love when 'according to his purpose' the Father has 'summed up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth.' "2

V. THE SCRIPTURES ON THE COINCIDENCE OF THE TRANSCENDENT AND THE EMPIRIC IN THE ONE PERFECT LIFE FOR ALL.

This meeting of the Absolute and the Actual, in the One Perfect Life, in fact, their constituting it; how marvellous it is! Yet we see that it must be. If the life were not in the absolute it could not be perfect. If it were not in the actual, there would then be no moving or doing.

In the following manner the Scriptures bring the double aspect before us.

St. John the Evangelist tells us: "In the beginning the Word was with God and was God and through Him all things came into existence," that in him was 'life,' and 'the life' was the "light of men."3 Yet he goes on to declare that the Word 'became flesh,'4 and throughout his gospel Jesus is described as 'a man.'5 The Jews murmur that one 'whose father and mother they know'6 should say, "I am the bread come down out of heaven." In the opening of the First Epistle the transcendence of the Word

1 Gospel of Life, pp. 299-301.

2 Thoughts on Revelation and Life, from B. F. Westcott, Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, edited by Stephen Phillips, p. 244—.

3 John i. 1-4. 4 Id., i. 14.

5 Id., i. 30; iv. 29; vii. 46; viii. 40; ix. (passim); x. 33; xi. 47, 50; xviii. (passim); xix. 5.

6 Id., vi. 42; cp. i. 45.

236 THE SECRET LORE OF INDIA

who became flesh is still emphasised (for he is described as 'the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father'), but no less is the 'coming in the flesh' insisted on, the writer stating to his readers, "that which we have heard, have seen with our eyes, and our hands handled, that declare we unto you."1

Further, we have in St. John's gospel not only the miracles Jesus wrought which he tells the Jews are the works of his Father in him, which so astonished all men, and were, we are told, signs to his disciples of his glory; not only are we told of 'authority in himself' being bestowed upon him by the Father, and wonderful control over matter being his, such as walking on the water; but he is also presented to us as a traveller 'wearied with his journey,' who rests by a well asking one who comes to draw water to appease therefrom his thirst.

On the one hand we hear Jesus say, "Before Abraham was, I am"2; and, more wonderful still, "I and the Father are one"3; and yet, on the other hand, the Jews who had taken up stones to cast at him, give as a reason for their anger: "For a good work we stone thee not, but because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."4 But the Lord does not withdraw his divinity nor his humanity. He answers: "Is it not written in your law, I said Ye are gods?5 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?"6 That is

1 I John i. 1–3.

2 Id., viii. 58. (Moffatt translates "I have existed before Abraham was born.")

3 Id., x. 30, 33.

4 Id., 34–36.

"I said, Ye are gods."—Ps. lxxxii. 6.

The last three verses of the Psalm are thus translated by Professor Driver in his Parallel Psalter:

6. 'I said, "Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High

7. But in truth ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

8. Arise, O God, judge the earth for thou hast an inheritance in all the nations.'

Professor Briggs, in his Commentary on the Psalms, explains that in this Psalm God is presented as standing in the midst of the governors (here called 'gods') of the nations who are holding exiled Israel in subjection. He is giving sentence against them for their unjust judgment and their lack of defending the poor and needy among His people.

TRANSCENDENT AND EMPIRIC

237

to say, having announced divinity for himself, a sharing in divinity he claims for men, namely for those mentioned in the Scripture he quoted.

Indeed the Evangelist declares in the First Epistle that the means by which the Spirit of God shall be known to speak in a Christian teacher is the Spirit’s confession that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: if the Spirit in the teacher does not so’ confesses, the Spirit speaking in him is not of God, but is of the Anti-Christ.1

We turn over the pages of other Scripture and we find the same coincidence. The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus being ‘in all points tempted like as we are, and yet without sin’;2 the Epistle to the Ephesians—of Christ as one in whom ‘all things are summed up, the things in the heaven and the things upon the earth,’ and yet as ‘having been raised from the dead’ and evidently therefore having been subject to mortality3; the Epistle to the Colossians, on which the Epistle to the Ephesians is based, gives wonderful detail as to ‘all things being created in him—thrones, dominions, principalities, powers’—yet speaks of ‘the body of his flesh’ and of his ‘death’4; the Epistle to the Romans describes him as “Of the seed of David according to the flesh,’ yet declares him to have been ‘declared’5 [by God] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by his being raised [by God] from the dead.”6

When we pass to the Synoptic Gospels we find therein the same insistence on the union of the transcendent and the empiric. In them Jesus is brought forward as of the genealogy of David, yet with no human father, but of the

Westcott, in his Commentary on St. John, at the place where this Psalm is quoted, makes this noteworthy comment: “Such a phrase as that in Psalm lxxxii. 6, really includes in a most significant shape the thought which underlies the whole of the Old Testament, namely that of a covenant between God and man, which through the reality of a personal relationship [italics by the writer now quoting] assumes the possibility of a vital union. Judaism was not a system of limited monotheism, but a theism always tending to theanthropism, to a real union of God and man. It was, therefore, enough to shew in answer to the accusation of the Jews that there lay already in the Law the germ of the truth which God announced, the union of God and man.”

1 I John iv. 2, 3. 2 Heb. iv. 15. 3 Eph. i. 10, 20.

4 Col. i. 16–22.

5 ‘declared,’ RV.; Greek horistheis, translated ‘appointed’ in Grimm-Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament, and ‘determined’ in margin of RV.

6 Rom. i. 4.

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Holy Spirit begotten1 and being indeed 'God with us'2;

circumcised the eighth day; having the Most High for his

Father, yet brought by his parents to the passover at

Jerusalem; verily dead and buried, and women going with

spices to embalm his body from immediate decay, yet

meeting the women as they return from the empty tomb

with the cry 'All Hail'; declared, in the gospel of St. Luke

and in the Acts, to be taken up after his resurrection into

heaven and received by a cloud out of his disciples' sight;

and, as such, afterwards proclaimed to have been exalted to

the right hand of God, as one whom the heaven must

receive until the restoration of all things.3

VI. THE PIONEERS' REPORT.

Let us now come back to our eager thinkers in the Forest

of Hindustan.

Let us recollect what we have heard them say.

First, we found Ṣāṇḍilya announcing in his Creed,4 “This

whole world is spirit. The person consists of purpose. He

who is made of mind; whose body is life, whose form light,

whose conception truth, his body (ātman) the space over-

head, containing all works, all desires, encompassing this

whole world–this soul of mine within the heart is smaller

than the kernel of a grain of millet, yet greater than the

earth, than the atmosphere, than the sky, than these

worlds.”

Does not this recall what we have just quoted from St.

John regarding the 'Word' of Creation, which 'became

flesh’? 'Purpose' and 'mind' (especially when we

remember that in Sanskrit manas (mind) denotes not only

reason, but emotion and will) bespeak the 'Word.' The

very terms of St. John are here–'life,' 'light,' 'truth':

so too such declarations as we found in Colossians and

Ephesians regarding 'all things in him.'

Again, take Uddālaka's announcement to his son: 'That

which is the finest essence. This whole world is that which

has That for its soul. That is reality. That is the Self.

1 Matt. i. 20, That which is begotten in her [the mother of Jesus] is

of (ek 'from, out of') the Holy Spirit (RV. margin).

2 Id. i. 23.

3 Acts ii. 33; iii. 21.

4 CU. 3.14 (p. 87).

THE FALTERING OF THE EAGLE WINGS 239

That are thou, O Śvetaketu."1 Do not these statements give us the same universal qualities?

And has not the most famous of Uddālaka's pupils, Yājnavalkya, shown us the transcendent still more clearly when, placing his hand on his breast, he declared: "This Self, the light in the heart, he is the great Unborn, in whom are all things, from whom are all things, the one seer, taster, speaker, thinker, understander, in himself existent. Herein is immortality"?

VII. THE FALTERING OF THE EAGLE WINGS.

The mountain of the world's desire !—the Seat of the Ruler, the very awfulness and height of which attract, as our eyes travel up, and regarding which we say in our heart of hearts, Thither would I ascend, and there be enthroned —Am I not born a citizen free, no slave, but king in and over the world in which I now find myself?

Here are our Forest Hermits, in we know not how long a succession, surveying the height and finding themselves there.

Here are also our Christian seers. For them too a long education, more full and diverse than that of the Forest Hermits. We may note its stages. First the intuition that the nation or the king was to God as a son to a Father. Then the revelation that God had made man at the beginning "in His own image and after His likeness." Then that men as men were held to be sons of the heavenly Father. Then Jesus comes before us, ascending out of the water of his baptism, seeing "the heavens rent asunder and the Spirit as a dove descending upon him, while a Voice came out of the heavens: 'Thou are my beloved Son, in thee I am well-pleased'2; who has been given to us as the Perfect Son; who could say to the Jews 'which of you convinceth me of sin?'3; who was ever obedient to the Father's will; in whom therefore as the true image and likeness at last of the Father, all the begotten of God are enabled, if they abide in him, to bring forth (as we learn in the Parable of the Vine4) that fruit of perfection which the Father requires.

1 CU. 6.8.7. (p. III).

3 John viii. 46.

2 Mark i. 10, 11.

4 John xv, 1—8.

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Here then is man at last in his true height, the height at which God created him. For the Eagle Evangelist this was the “witness that God hath borne concerning his Son.” Not to accept it “made God a liar.” “The witness was this,” he tells us, “that God gave unto us eternal life and this life is in his Son”1. The Father indeed “only,” we are told in the First Epistle to Timothy, “hath immortality.”2 Nevertheless St. John declares of the Son that “as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son to have life in himself;3 and this further, of those that have the Son: “He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son, hath not the life.”4

But the eagle-wings falter. Not of St. John. We have noticed how unflinchingly and with what unambiguous contrast of the empiric he keeps the humanity abreast of the height and declares that it is just in that height that it has its home and its origin. The Word which was not only “with God,” but “was God,” “became flesh,” was beheld as “a man.”

So the evangelist. But, looking elsewhere, we discover that the height and the eagle are not found together.

Take, first, our very Upanishad prospectors with all their insistence on the closeness of the transcendent and the empiric. We find indeed Śāṇḍilya saying: “This whole world is spirit. The Person is made up of purpose, of mind. His body is life, his form light. His conception is truth. All works, all desires [and so on] he contains. This whole world he encompasses. He is spirit. He is within my heart, smaller than the kernel of a grain of millet, greater than the worlds. Into him I shall enter on departing hence.” And we have noticed how Uddālaka and Yājñavalkya both hold that the self that is in all of us is none else than the great Self of all. Yet for these Eastern sages the Self is alipta5 (unattaching and unattached), and to such an extent that he is indifferent to good as well as to evil. So are the transcendent and the empiric, after all not incorporate.

1 I John v. 9–11. 2 I Tim. vi. 16. 3 John v. 26. 4 I John v. 12.

5 a-lipta: a, privative prefix, and liptá, past participle of √lip, (1) besmear, rub over a thing with a thing; (2) smear a thing over or on a thing; stick (trans.) onto. Cp. Gk. to lipos, grease, a-leiph-ō, anoint; liparos, greasy, shiny. [L.]

THE FALTERING OF THE EAGLE WINGS 241

So, there is not with these Forest Philosophers 'the Word that was with God and was God' becoming 'flesh'; not the 'taking of the manhood into God,' as the Athanasian Creed puts it. There is no Incarnation.

Next, if the Forest Fathers with such apprehension as they had of the Transcendent felt that it must be 'unattaching and unattached' to the human life in which it dwelt, much more can we readily understand that the Jews, with their God of awful mystery and purity, should shrink from the thought of any attachment of God to humanity. We are therefore not surprised when we find that, when the startling revelation of the Incarnation—of 'the Word who was with God and was God' becoming 'flesh,' 'a man' —was proclaimed among these, indignation should seize them and that they should take up stones to cast at him who declared it of himself, exclaiming: 'Not for a good work do we stone thee, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.'1

We can realise further that with men of such a mind, be they Jews, or Gentiles that had come to accept the Jewish revelation of the majesty of God, even though they became Christian, the eagle wings should still falter. The 'becoming flesh' would constitute a serious offence. We can forecast that among them men should arise, who, while, as Christians, they accepted as the gospel for the world that the Son of God had come and shown himself in a body, should yet teach that his body was not actual but only in appearance.

But we have noticed what St. John wrote regarding these last. They were for him 'false prophets.'2 The Spirit in them was not of God. It was 'the spirit of the Anti-Christ already come into the world.' It was to maintain the actuality of the Lord as verily a man that he wrote his gospel in which the Lord is declared to be the Word 'become flesh,' and described as 'a man,' as one who was 'heard, seen, and handled.'

These men came to be called Docetae from the Greek dokein,3 'to seem,' seeing that for them the body of Jesus had only seemed to exist. But there were certain men who,

1 John x. 33. 2 I John iv. 3. 3 See article 'Docetism,' p. 835b, in Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

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like these, deemed themselves Christians and who did believe in the reality of the flesh of Jesus, and yet are fairly classed by the historian as Docetae, because they held a view similar to the aliṅta doctrine of the Upanishad fathers, namely, the thorough apartness in Jesus of the spiritual from the psychic. Such was Valentinus who contended that the spiritual in Jesus passed through the psychic "just as water flows through a tube." That is to say, the spiritual had nothing whatever to do with the psychic. It was "unconcerned," as Śāṇḍilya said; "unattaching and unattached," to quote the description of Yājnavalkya.

But the Church would not part with the actuality of the Perfect Man. All these teachers she condemned as heretics. In fact, it was her condemnation of them and her consequent distinction from them, that commenced that consolidation of believers in the Incarnation that we know as the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless there came a juncture later when many leaders of the Catholic Church itself refused to stay at the height. In the beginning of the fourth century Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, and those who thought with him, expressed their denial, not of the actuality of the flesh of Jesus, but that, being the Logos (‘reason’), the Logos took the place in him of the soul, and hence denied that he was man in man’s proper completeness.1 And they laid stress on his designation as the Son of the Father, and then maintained that, since he was Son and a son is after a father, therefore "there was when he was not,"2 thus denying his eternity, and, consequently, that he was really God. But Athanasius, the chief of the deacons in the same Alexandria, arose to be champion for the faith as St. John had announced it, and brought the Church to incorporate in what has proved to be the foundation-creed of the Church, the Nicene, a decisive clause against the Arians—‘of one substance with the Father,’ as our English Prayerbook translates the Greek, or (to give the literal translation) ‘of the same being3 with the Father’—which,

1 See Weigl: Christologie d.h. Athanasius, p. 10.

2 Article "Arianism," in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography.

3 ‘being.’ Professor Bethune-Baker points out with regard to the Greek word, which is ousia, that "it means the inmost being of the Father,

APARTNESS FROM THE HEIGHT

243

since it states the identity of essence of the Son with Father,

proclaims the essential Godhead of Jesus.

VIII. YET, APARTNESS FROM THE HEIGHT IS INTOLERABLE.

Great then is the height. Here is the Word that was 'with God in the beginning and was God,' through whom

'all existence came into being,'1 become 'flesh,' become 'a man,' as St. John proclaims in his Prologue and Gospel—

become 'the Self' as we know it, as the Upanishad fathers well designate a man, fastening thus upon the essential

that makes each of us 'a man'—'seen with our eyes and with our hands handled,' as St. John proceeds to say in the

First Epistle.

Great the height, yet all through the ages we find men declare that apartness from that height of all heights is

intolerable.

Our Forest Fathers thus express themselves. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we find: "In the beginning from the

non-existent was Being (sat) produced, which itself made itself a Self, which is the essence2 [of existence]. On getting

the essence one becomes blissful. Who would live if this bliss of the infinite (lit. space overhead) did not exist?

Truly this essence causes bliss. But let one make a cavity, an interval, therein, then he comes to have fear."3 In the

Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest we have, at a great gathering of Brahmins, King Janaka had called

his very self. The translation 'substance,' which comes to us through the Latin, is not satisfactory; 'essence' hardly

conveys to English ears the real meaning; and 'nature'—though 'nature' is certainly included in the sense—is quite

inadequate by itself. 'Being' is the nearest equivalent we have. The phrase is intended to mark the distinct

personality of the Son on the one hand—he is in himself, he has his own existence; while, on the other hand, it

declares that he has his existence from no source external to the Father, but is of the very being of the Father and

belongs to his being—so that the Father himself is not, does not exist, is not to be conceived of as having being,

apart from the Son. . . . Of nothing originate could it be said that it was 'from the essence of God.' But the essence

of the Father is the sphere of being of the Son. He is inseparable from the essence of the Father. To say 'of the

essence of God' is the same thing as to say 'of God' in more explicit language."—The Meaning of Homoousios, J. F.

Bethune-Baker, p. 61.

1 John i. 3 (Moffatt's translation).

2 'essence,' ráṣa, m., the sap or juice of plants, esp. of fruits; and so, the best or finest or strongest part of a

thing, its essence or flos. [L.]

3 TU. 2.7.

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together, desiring to know which of them was the most learned student, two inquirers asking Yājnavalkya to explain "Him who is the Spirit (brahman) present and not beyond our ken, who is the Self in all things." To the first inquirer he describes him as "he who breaths with your breathing, your self." To the next he further describes him as "he who passes beyond hunger and thirst, beyond sorrow and delusion, beyond old age and death." And to each he gives as his parting word: "Aught else than this Self (ātman) is wretched."1

And where shall we find the misery of apartness from God more passionately expressed than in the Bible? Thus the Psalmists: "My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh also longeth after Thee in a barren and dry land where no water is."2 "As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. . . . When shall I come and appear before God."3 "Thou art the thing that I long for. Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee?"4

With different apprehensions of the nearness, the cry repeats itself down the ages in such words as we find in the Confessions of St. Augustine: "Thou hast created us unto thyself, and our heart finds no rest until it rests in Thee."5

IX. THE REASON FOR THE WRETCHEDNESS AT SEPARATION IS THAT WE ARE SEPARATE FROM OUR TRUE SELF.

But why this wretchedness at separation? If the height is so awful when we gaze up at it, how can it be that we should yearn to be there, yea to be as close as we can, even, if only that may be, identified with it?

The reason we find expressed, or implied, in the disclosure that we have just been relating made in the announcements of our Indian sages and in the New Testament that, as we look up, terrible although the majesty is, we have the strange conviction that the Height is our own true self. Immeasurably beyond us-so immeasurably that we must

1 BAU. 3.4, 5.

2 Ps. lxiii. 2 (Prayer Book Version).

3 Id., xlii. 1, 2 (RV.).

4 Id., lxxiii. 24 (PBV.).

5 Confessions of Saint Augustine, i. 1. Trans. Charles Bigg, D.D.

THE REASON FOR THE WRETCHEDNESS 245

bow in worship before it—and yet of the measure appointed for us! Up there, each of us feels, nay is certain, is himself, himself—his conscience will warn him—as he ought to be.

That is the discovery made known in secret, yet so determinately, by our quiet Forest-thinkers as their gospel to such of their pupils as they deemed fit to receive it. "That are thou," we have heard Uddālaka say to his son. Yājnavalkya we have just quoted declaring to an inquirer, "He who breathes with your breathing is the Self of yours which is in all things."1 At the same great gathering of Brahmins where he thus answered an inquirer, another questioner, none less than Uddālaka, his teacher of old, asked him whether he knew "the thread, the so-called Inner Controller, by which this world and the other world and all things are tied together, for he that had that knowledge knew the Spirit (brahman), the worlds, the gods, the Vedas, created things, the Self, everything?" To which the sage, become a famous authority, replied: "He who, dwelling in all things, controlling all things, yet other than all, and not known by any, is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal."2 And we read in the Secret Teaching in the Chant that five great house-holders, who had been pondering Who is the Self? What is Spirit? went to this same Uddālaka as to one who they knew was 'studying exactly' the Self that belongs to all men, and he took them to another student of the Self, King Aśva-pati, Aśva-pati, because he was not a Brahmin, would not receive these six inquirers as pupils. But, after having made clear his reverence for them and the sacrifice, he gave them the result of his meditations thus: "You who inquire of me eat food in this world only, knowing as you do this Self that is found in all men as if something separate [from each of you as an individual], but he who reverences this Universal Self as of the size of a span thus [here the king stretched his fingers across his forehead] as measured upon one's self [or 'by thinking about one's self'],3 he eats food in all worlds, in all beings, in all selves."4

1 BAU. 3.4. (p. 244). 2 BAU. 3.7.

3 Explaining these alternative renderings, 'measured upon one's self,' 'by thinking about one's self,' Hume points out that the word here, abhi-vi-māna, may be derived either from √mā, to measure, or from √man, to think, or indeed may be intended to 'pregnantly refer to both.'

4 CU. 5.18.1.

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X. A FURTHER SURVEY OF THE SELF.

A NEW PARABLE: AN OCEAN.

1. The Upper Depths: The Self so far Discerned.

Let us then embark upon this ocean of the Self, and take, as experts to do the testing for us, these Indian philosophers, certain mystic English poets, and the Bible.

Certain characteristics we find these several authorities reporting, that are of interest to us now, the first (let us so order them) Individuality; the second, Universality; the third, Mutuality. These are found throughout the whole ocean. But we have to notice that there are two grades of it, the upper in a disturbed condition, the lower—placid. The disturbing power in the upper waters let us take as an emblem of sin; and the placidity as an emblem of purity. So, two other characteristics of humanity, besides these just mentioned, we shall have to consider, Sinfulness and Perfection, the first a characteristic of the upper depths, evident at once, a characteristic of man as we find him; the second, of the lower depths, not easy to see, yet a necessary feature, man as he ought to be.

(a) The Individuality of the Self.

First, then, Individuality.

Individuality. By that we mean the self-containedness of the self. It is its nature that it should be self-contained. All beside it, even each of those whom it deems to be self as itself, is objective. As self the self is alone, unique, none capable of being placed by it in its stead. No one else is there. And it is the centre of a sphere possessing a limitless periphery. That is the experience of each of us.

The dependence of the self on itself alone is certainly a moral experience. The self holds itself alone to be responsible for its acts.

Negatively, this means that the self has nothing outside itself. To recognise anything as being outside itself would be to deny its own constitution.

(i) The Upanishads.

That aspect of the Self is well, although strangely, displayed in our Second Selection.1

1 P. 54.

A. FURTHER SURVEY OF THE SELF

247

According to that Brāhmanic account, Death, being emptiness, covered the world at the beginning. There could only be emptiness, for that was at the beginning of things. But, argues the Upanishad, emptiness is hunger. So Death, being hunger, desired for himself a body that should be his food, that is a body that should satisfy his craving to be filled. It was that desire that set all creation a-going. Not all at once does Death produce a body that satisfies him, but at last he does so. On that body (come to be, alas ! as the reader knows, in very unsatisfactory form) he feeds. As he produces it, he draws it back again into himself. But behold he feels pride in the fulness that now becomes his arise within him. At once he discerns that to entertain such a sentiment is to be untrue to himself. So he passes the body he has thus acquired into nothingness —subjects it to fire—before he may receive it. He has thus effected that he is in the condition of receiving nothing, is being filled with nothing, has returned in fact to his original and true nature, which requires him to rest in himself alone.

Here is (according to the interpretation we have ventured to give of the Upanishad) the body of entire self-surrender, the spiritual body, the body, which St. Paul teaches us (as we will presently bring before the reader) is the body of the true man, the man out of heaven who is made in the Creator's image and after his likeness.

Here, then, is the self-containedness of the Self. Self-containedness may be said to be the most prominent characteristic of the Self in the teaching of the Upanishad Fathers. The characteristic is summed by them in the epithet well-known to students of their teaching, svayam்-bhū ('in himself existing').

We have quoted in our Notes Professor Schayer's insistence that it is just the self as each of us knows it in his own bosom that these sages have in mind, no abstract Ego.1

(ii) Walt Whitman.

It is this individuality, uniqueness, self-containedness, of the Self, its centrality for each of us in the midst of the one limitless world, that is the message of the enthusiastic American, Walt Whitman, to his fellow men. In his preface

1 P 179.

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to his First Edition1 of his collected poems, which he published in continuously enlarged form under the title Leaves of Grass, he thus describes his mission as a poet and his view of the importance of the individual: “Most of the great poets are impersonal. I am personal. . . . In my poems all revolves round, concentrates in, radiates from myself. I have but one central figure, the general human personality typified in myself. But my book compels, absolutely necessitates, every reader to transpose himself or herself into the central position, and become the living fountain, actor, experiencer, himself or herself, of every page, every aspiration, every line.”2

In his By Blue Ontario’s Shore he drives the point home in his usual, bluff, fashion:

I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things.

It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great.

It is I who am great or to be great. It is You up there, or anyone.

It is to walk rapidly through civilisations, governments, theories,

Through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals.

Underneath all, individuals.

I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals.

The American compact is altogether with individuals.

The only government is that which makes minute of individuals.

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual—namely to You.

And thus he descants in his Song of the Rolling Earth:

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you.

The divine ship sails the divine sea for you

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,

You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky.

For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and the present and the true word of immortality.

No one can acquire for another—not one.

No one can grow for another—not one.

1 Pub. 1855. 2 Quoted in Art. Whitman in Encycl. Britannica.

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249

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him.

The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him.

The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him.

The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him.

The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail.

The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience.

And no man understands, any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.

(iii) The Bible.

What of the individual in the Bible?

The study of what is told us in the Bible of the relation of the individual to God brings the view that the Bible takes of the individual clearly before us.

There are two lines of development. They run like strands of one thread. At one time the one strand, at another time the other strand, shows itself the more prominent.

The one strand is the revelation of the majesty of God.

It is hard to say in whom that shows itself more strongly, in an Elijah of the early days, or in the Jews of the later days, after the Canon of the Old Testament had been “closed.”

And between these earlier and later times we find the question put by the Evangelic Prophet of the Exile: “Who hath meted out the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? . . . Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.

The inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers. He bringeth princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.”1

The other strand is the revelation of affinity to God. We find the idea accepted that is found elsewhere, that the king is God’s son. Later we find men as men declared to be sons.

In the first chapter of Genesis it is the individual, be it male or female, that is created by God in no less than his image and after his likeness.

We read “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

And in the second and third chapters we find God conceived as possessing individual

1 Isa. xl. 13 (margin), xv. 22, 23.

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form and acts, fashioning out of the ground, breathing into the clay, walking in the garden where the first pair are and speaking to them as if he were a man. So the account in the previous chapter of the individuality of what God fashioned in his image need not surprise us. And we have in the revelation of Jesus in St. John ‘a man’ who is ‘heard, seen, with the eyes and with the hands handled,’ declared to be the Word that was with God and was God, and shown to us proclaiming in the temple against the protests of those who brought against him his individual manhood, ‘I and the Father are One.’

(b) The Universality of the Self.

A second characteristic our experts find in the Self is Universality. This wonderful Self, contained in itself, finds itself in all things.

Yājnavalkya we have found declaring to certain inquirers: “He who breathes with your breathing is this Self of yours which is in all things.”1 And to Maitreyī: “This priesthood, this knighthood, these worlds, these gods, these beings, everything here, is what the Self is.”2

And we have seen Aśva-pati place his hand across his forehead and have heard him say: “He who reverences the Self that is in all men as of the size of a span, measured upon one’s self [or ‘by thinking about one’s self’], he it is who eats food in all worlds, in all beings, in all selves.”3

Our Poet of the Far West, after his manner and in his very different circumstances from those of our Āryan sages, also insists, as we already have noticed, upon the range, far as he can think, of the self in his bosom.

Thus he exclaims in the Song of Myself, another of the Leaves of Grass:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns.

1 BAU. 3.4 and 5.

2 Id., 2.4.6 (p. 133).

3 CU. 5.18.1. (p. 245).

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251

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man.

Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion.

He includes in himself even the rocks and vegetation:

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss,

fruits, grains, esculent roots;

And the rain:

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?

Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have.

He is integral also with the sea:

You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you

mean.

I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers.

I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me.

We must have a turn together. . . .

Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse. . . .

Sea of stretch’d ground swells,

Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths. . . .

Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,

I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all

phases.

Still wider he feels himself to be:

My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps;

I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents;

I am afoot with my vision.

(c) Mutuality of the Self.

What of the third feature, Mutuality, which we said our

experts would report as being present in the Self?

To that we find our Eastern Fathers making an approach,

but only an approach. We are told indeed that the Self

is ‘made of everything,’1 from it ‘whatever is’ has come,2

and in everything it is the inner thread, yet we find that the

Self in Śāṇḍilya’s Creed is unconcerned and in Yājnavalkya’s

teaching is alipta (unattaching and unattached), Yājnavalkya

adding that, so thorough is the unattachment, the Self is

unconcerned and unmoved whether an act be good or evil.

There is here accordingly no mutuality, but a merely-artificial

connection, such as we noticed was held by the Christian

1 BAU. 4.4.5. p126.

2 BAU. 4.5.11, p. 134.

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gnostic Valentinus with regard to the spiritual and psychic in the Word become flesh. In the teaching of our Forest Fathers all things are in the Self and the Self is in all things, but when that is said, all is said. The Self is thoroughly indifferent to that to which it gives being and in which it is the uniting and moving power. No sociability is here in the Self, far less mutuality, sociability's strongest form.

One would have expected it otherwise from the sages' announcement of 'That art thou' to each pupil.

No doubt the chief reason for this attribution of thorough unconcernedness and unattachment is to preserve the Self in its undisturbed and true majesty.

Yet such teaching, at any rate, meant the refusal to admit anything like Mutuality, any feeling of concern or care between the One, the Great Self from Whom all proceeds and which is present in everything, and the Other in which it is present.

It is to such as our Poet of the Far West that we have to turn, would we realise the social nature of the Self. His verses are made up of declaring it.

This from his Song of Myself:

I do not ask who you are. That is not important to me. You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.

To the cotton-field drudge . . . I lean; On his right cheek I put the family kiss.

To anyone dying, thither I speed. . . . I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will.

O despairer, here is my neck. By God, you shall not go down ! Hang your whole weight upon me.

And thus he describes himself as the hounded slave:

I am the hounded slave. I wince at the bite of the dogs. Hell and despair are upon me. . . . I clutch the rails of the fence.

I fall on the weeds and stones. . . . The riders spur their unwilling horses . . . and beat me Violently over the head with whip-stocks.

Or as the wounded:

Agonies are one of my changes of garments; I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.

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253

His self is also one with the animals. He gives us not only

the negro driving the long drag with its four horses and

exclaims:

I behold the picturesque giant and love him

but he adds:

I do not stop there.

I go with the team also.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy

shade,

What is it that you express in your eyes?

It seems to me more than all the print I have read in

my life.

Then this of the birds, at the sight of the wood-drake and

the wood-duck rising at his step and circling round before

him in the air:

I believe in those wing'd purposes,

And acknowledge red, yellow, and white, playing within me,

and further:

The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread

wings,

I see in them and myself the same old law.

Yet with all this seeing of one's Self shown forth in

others, even as the lower life, even (as we saw in our

quotations lately) as the very mica in the rock, there is no

absorption of the Other. Nay, the Other is more truly itself.

The Self and the Other are both in the Self. Here is the

high water mark of sociability. It rises to mutuality.

Thus, in his Birds of Passage, the poet sings his song

To You:

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of

dreams. . .

Your true body and soul appear before me.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that

you be my poem.

I will leave all and come and make hymns of you.

None has understood you, but I understand you.

None but would subordinate you. I only am he who will

never consent to subordinate you.

The words of his we quoted, when we had the individuality

of the self brought before us, taken from his Song of the

Rolling Earth, will come to our memory:

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially

for you.

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The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself. . . .

No one can acquire for another, not one.

No one can grow for another, not one.

And thus in the Song of Myself he plainly declares Mutuality as the law of the Self:

I believe in you, my soul. The other I am must not abase itself to you;

And you must not be abased to the other.1

(d) The Sinfulness of the Self.

But the qualities we said would be announced by our experts as features of the Self as they examined these upper depths are not yet fully told. We have had individuality universality and mutuality brought before us. But we added a fourth quality on which we expected information, namely, sinfulness. These are the disturbed portion of the waters, the cause of the disturbance being sin.

We saw that our Forest Fathers maintain that the Self does not attach itself to anything and therefore is ‘alipta’ unsmeared: and yet they admit it does declare ‘I did wrong.’:2 and we mark their stern discipline of the body, their plain abhorrence of evil deeds, their flight from acquisitive ceremonies, their determination to know nothing but the One Self in all things, as proofs that they were conscious of the smearing of the Self after all, and admitted the decadent quality we now have before us.

But it is to our poet of the seething millions across the Atlantic, the ‘free-companion,’3 who, as we have seen, identified himself with humanity and the material world so widely and deeply, that we find a truer appreciation of the sinfulness of sin. We shall find the cause not only in that wide acquaintance, but still more in the greater sensitiveness to sin that one would perforce possess who had been brought up in a community among whom the Bible was the chief of books, and who tells us that he went thoroughly through the Old and New Testaments, with the perusal of other literature, when he undertook the foundation reading for his poetry.4

1 § 5 of the Song of Myself. 2 BAU. 4.4, 22.d.e.

3 § 33 of the Song of Myself.

4 See A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads, p. 441.

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255

This is his apostrophe to his fellows in his Song of the Open Road:

Whoever you are, come forth ! or man or woman come forth

Out of the dark confinement ! out from behind the screen !

It is useless to protest. I know all and expose it.

Behold through you as bad as the rest,

Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,

Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd faces,

Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

And here is the self that comes for the poet from behind the screen of the dresses and trimm'd faces and dancing and supping:

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession.

Another self, a duplicate of everyone, skulking and hiding it goes,

Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities,

polite and bland in the parlors,

In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,

Home to the houses.

Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,

Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbon and artificial flowers;

Keeping fair with the customs; speaking not a syllable of itself,

Speaking of anything else but never of itself.1

Yet no report of the extent and depth of sin in humanity,

its horror, and its terrible origin is so strong as that of the Bible.

Jeremiah says: “The heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately sick: who can know it.”2 And this our Lord's indictment: “Out of the heart of men evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,

covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishmess.”3 St. John including,

as he writes, himself with his Christian readers for whom he requires sinlessness as the true fruit of their Christian birth:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and

1 From the Song of the Open Road, §13.

2 Jer. xvii. 9.

3 Mark vii. 21, 22.

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the truth is not in us";1 and this also: "The whole world lieth in the evil one."2

Yet more. Our Lord presents the good and evil in men's lives as the result of differences of nature. Thus he speaks with regard to false prophets in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them."3

And deepset indeed in the spiritual world is this different nature. The Lord, explaining his parable of the Wheat and the Tares, declares that the good seed that produces the Wheat is sown by the Son of Man, that the evil seed that produces the Tares is sown by the Devil; and of that good seed he says, "These are the sons of the kingdom," and of the tares, "These are the sons of the Evil One."4 And St. John writes: "He that doeth sin is of the Devil. . . . Who-soever is begotten of God cannot sin. . . . In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil."5

2. The Lower Depths: The Truth of the Self at last Reached.

We have supposed as yet that our experts' testing apparatus has only reached as far as the upper depths of the ocean of humanity, and these upper waters we discovered to be affected throughout by a wild storm that made the waters heave and break into foam, causing in fact a mighty disturbance. The storm is sin. And we have discovered that the Bible maintains that here is not simply disturbance but radical alteration, so that where there is sinfulness there is a new, a decadent, nature; and such a change of nature that, while man in his origin is the child of God, here he is the child of the Devil.

(a) A Deeper Testing.

But now we ask our experts to take longer lines. We will have them tell us regarding the depths undisturbed,

1 I John i. 8. 2 Id., v. 19. 3 Matt. v. 16–20. 4 Matt. xiii. 37–39. 5 I John iii. 8–10.

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257

where, beneath the tumult, the ocean moves in its true placid strength.

To put our parable into fact. We wish to listen to what the teachers we have taken may have to tell us regarding humanity in its perfection; or, rather indeed, whether they will tell us that there is such a humanity: for it takes a strong faith to believe that there is such.

(b) The Desire for Perfection.

Not that we do not desire perfection. Perfect each of us would be. We know that sin is contrary to us, unmans us, makes us unfit to stand before God. It ruins our temporal good. Of all that our experience and our conscience assure us.

(c) The Necessity of Perfection for Existence.

Indeed, when we think over the matter, we discover that the mere fact of existence means perfection. Each thing must be what it is or it would not be. Man must be man. This fretworn, distracted creature we are so intimately aware of cannot be the true creature, but only his miserable counterfeit.

To put the argument theologically: God made nothing imperfect. Be anything imperfect, it can only last temporarily. It must recover itself or perish. For only that which is accepted by the Creator can remain before him.

Consequently our difficulty is not to imagine perfection existing, but to imagine that sinful men should exist. The mystery is explained by the fact that men are not automata but endowed by God with free-will, and with that free-will have acted and continue to act against God to their own undoing, under the will of God, who by this means and with many warnings puts their manhood to test.

(d) The Cognizance of the Lower Depth.

We listen then eagerly to the reports of our experts as to the essential Perfection of the Self.

(i) By the Upanishad Fathers.

We find in the quaint Brāhmaṇic account in the Aitareya Upanishad of the Creator bringing to the cosmic powers

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(fire, wind, death, the waters, etc.) first a bull and then a horse, in vain as an acceptable dwelling-place in which they may find their respective abodes. But, when he leads up to them the Person (puruṣa) [that is, the Person as such, in human form], the cosmic powers exclaim 'Well made!' and the sage who tells the story adds: 'Verily, the Person [as such, in human form] is a thing well made.'1

We have heard Śāṇḍilya describe the nobility of the Person, declaring that his form was light, his conception truth, his body (ātmā) the limitless space overhead (ākāśa).2

Uddālaka also at the close of his Parable of the Ordeal through which the truth-speaker passes safely exclaims: "This whole world has truth as its soul. That is Reality. That is the Self. That art thou, O Śvetaketu"?3

And Yājnavalkya, speaking of the Self that is among the senses, the light in the heart,4 says: "This is the great unborn Self who eats the food everyone eats, the giver of good. He finds good who knows this."5

(ii) By the Poet of the New Democracy.

Next we turn to our bluff poet of the New Democracy, and we find in his Song Universal, contained in the series he entitles Birds of Passage, exactly and verbally perfection proclaimed.

In this broad earth of ours,

Amid the measureless grossness and slag,

Enclosed safe within its central heart,

Nestles the seed perfection.

By every life a share or more or less,

None born but it is born. Concealed or unconcealed the seed is waiting.

And this we have from his poem To You:

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,

From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light;

But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color'd light.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you !

You have not known what you are. You háve slumber'd upon yourself all your life.

1 Aitareya, 2.2.

2 CU. 3.14.

3 Id., 6.16.3.

4 BAU. 4.3.7.

5 Id., 4.4.24.

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The mockeries are not you;

Underneath them and within them I see you lurk.

Whoever you are, claim your own,

Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements,

pain, passion, dissolution.

Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what

you are picks its way.

(iii) By the Irish Poet Æ.

We turn to another poet, who, in his green, carefully

cultivated, well-populated, island of old romance, close to

Britain, its inhabitatnts romantically-minded still, gives us

his glittering word-pictures that show a deeper absorption

of the New Testament than do the broadly-coloured long-

extended pageants of the Poet of the great metropolis of

the new million-fold nation across the Atlantic, Æ, or, to

give him his name, George William Russell. Here is how

he describes the King who is so feebly apprehended, and is

yet our true self, the Man not yet self-perverted, but as he

came from God's hands, God's archetype of man in the

individual.

We will notice he entitles his poem Krishna. It was long

before the Krishna cult began that our Upanishad sages

taught their doctrine, but their doctrine is found (as where

not in Hindu religious thought?) in that cult. So under

the name Krishna hides the 'Unitive Self' of the Forest

Fathers, and our Irish poet has here taken over the Name

for the 'Perfect Self' of the Christian Faith.

Krishna.

I paused beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings

at play.

The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its

ecstatic morn;

And yet the sages spake of It as the Ancient and Unborn.

I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed

His claim

To be the purest of the pure.

I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk and ruddy

glare

And saw the King of Kings, outcast, reel brawling through

the starlit air;

And yet he is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient

wisdom tells.

I saw the King of Kings again . . . a form so darkened

and so marred;

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And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise.

I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold ;

And yet he is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold,

The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim,

And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him.

I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust ;

And yet He is the life within the Ever-living Living One,

The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all

The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall.1

And thus the same poet sings of the presence of the King in the multitudes that throng the City of the poet’s residence.

Under the Twilight.

. . . The stars appear

O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare.

. . . I know there lies

Open somewhere this hour a gate to Paradise. . . .

Or am I there already, and is it Paradise

To look on mortal things with an immortal’s eyes? . . .

Mine eyes beget new majesties: my spirit greets

The trams, the high-built glittering galleons of the streets

That float through twilight rivers from gallaxies of light.

Nay, in the Fount of Days they rise, they take their flight,

And wend to the great deep, the Holy Sepulchre.

Those dark misshapen folk, to be made lovely there,

Hurry with me, not all ignoble as we seem.

The earth melts in my blood. The air that I inhale

Is like enchanted wine poured from the Holy Grail.

What glimmer was it then? Was it the flash of wings

As through the blinded mart rode on the King of Kings?

O stay, departing glory, stay with us but a day,

And burning seraphim shall leap from out our clay.

The Night Shuts out the Twilight.

. . . The night draws down.

Exiled from light, forlorn, I walk in Dublin Town.

1 The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, p. 498–.

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Yet, had I might to lift the veil, the will to dare,

The fiery rushing chariots of the Lord are there,

The whirlwind path, the blazing gates, the trumpets blown,

The halls of heaven, the majesty of throne by throne.1

(iv) The Bible.

Thus the Upanishad Fathers and these two English poets.

Yet how much more thoroughly is perfection proclaimed

and required for man in the Bible !

On what is the very first page of the Old Testament as

the Jews have handed it down to us we are told that God

made man in His own image and after His likeness. There

is perfection indeed.

Nor do the Scriptures suffer us to let the perfection of the

person be simply a 'waiting seed, concealed, or unconcealed,'

which is as much as Walt Whitman will grant. In the

Bible the flower of the seed is required.

In Deuteronomy the command is given to the people:

"Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God."2 In what

is known as the Priests' Code, Noah is declared by the

prophet to be 'perfect,'3 and the Lord declares to Abram,

"Walk before me and be thou perfect."4 The Lord bids

Moses say to all the congregation of the people at Sinai:

"Ye shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy."5 In

the Psalms 'the perfect man' is the man set forward for

everyone to strive after and it is so also in the New Testament.

Our Blessed Lord commands his disciples, "Ye shall be per-

fect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."6 St. Paul prays

with regard to the Thessalonian Christians "that the God

of peace himself may may sanctify them wholly, and that

their spirit, soul, and body be preserved entire, without

blame, in the presence7 of our Lord Jesus Christ."8 The

Roman Christians he speaks of as having 'died to sin,'

and asks how they can 'live any longer therein.'9 St. John

in his Epistle, while he says that "those who say they

have no sin deceive themselves and the truth is not in

them"10, yet states as an axiom that "whosoever is begotten

of God cannot sin"11; and in his Gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus

1 The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, p. 496-. 2 Deut. xviii. 13.

3 Gen. vi. 9. 4 Id., xvii. 1. 5 Lev. xix. 2. 6 Matt. v. 48.

7 'presence,' RV. margin. Gk. 'in the presence' (parousia, lit., 'a being

near').

8 I Thess. v. 23. 9 Rom. vi. 2. 10 I John i. 8. 11 I John iii. 9.

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that until a man is begotten from above he cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God.1

XI. JESUS IS GIVEN BY GOD AS THE PERFECT SELF.

So then we have had our experts acquaint us with their discoveries regarding the Self: the Upanishad Fathers, the Poet of the Far West, and the Poet of the Emerald Isle, and, expert of experts, our wonderful Holy Scriptures. They have told us the qualities of the upper depths. They have let down their testing line also into the deeper, the foundation, waters, the waters undisturbed by the storms playing on the surface, to which the upper waters, alas very far down, have yielded; and have become, by the yielding, so much affected.

We have noticed that it is in these lower depths that the ocean is revealed in its genuine character; that, to change from parable to fact, in the depth of our heart, in the innermost of each of us, is the man as he ought to be, the man unchanged by the Evil, the Perfect Son, the true Self, the image and likeness of God as it came fresh from God’s hands, unsullied, of which the Book of Genesis tells us, ‘the archetype’ (as Dr. Westcott calls it). But has the archetype ever been, or is it ever to be, brought to expression? Is the actuality possible? Must not the tempest of sin always triumph, or rather, must not the will of man always give way to it, and so the man archetypal be only an aspiration, a mirage of refreshment and beauty that lures the traveller to find that the beauty and greenery have vanished and that round him, thirsty and hungry, is only an arid waste; to find, that is to say, in man’s perfection only a dream, a deduction of certain theologians, a fancy only—for the rapture of certain mystical poets?

The answer of Christianity to that question is that the Perfect Man is no dream. Man as he ought to be has been sent from on high. The Perfect Son obeying completely his Father’s Will and unaltered by Sin has been seen, and heard, and with the hands handled.

1 John iii. 3, 5.

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Let us then with reverence and wonder contemplate him. Here is the Perfect Self before us. Here is 'the light that lighteth every man,' St. John tells us.1 "The head of every man," St. Paul tells us, "is Christ."2 We shall accordingly expect to find in Christ the qualities our experts have reported as belonging to the Self, individuality, universality, mutuality, and such other qualities as there may be that have not been reported as yet. Only we shall expect to find all qualities here in their true purity and intensity. We shall miss the feature that so despoiled the upper waters, making them broken and striated, namely sinfulness. The full strong humanity of sinlessness and perfect righteousness, so far down in the depth of the flood, will here have risen to the surface and will be flowing strong, unbroken and free. Instead of sin we shall find perfection at last. Not that He who is revealed as the Perfect One was not tempted. We are told that he was 'in all points tempted like as we are.'3 But here, if we may continue our simile of the ocean, the tempest might play on the surface and perhaps ruffle and chill (we remember the distress in the Garden and the cry on the Cross), but it never broke the strong flow of the tide. He is given to us as the One in whom was no sin.

To guide us in our humble review of his glory let us listen to him as he speaks of himself to his disciples in the Gospel according to St. John in the Parable of the Vine: "I am the true Vine.4 My Father is the husbandman. Ye are the branches."5

With the true Vine before us let us inquire as to these qualities our experts have found in the Self. We shall find that our expectation of their presence will not fail us. Let us take them in the order we have already adopted: Individuality, universality, mutuality, perfection. We shall find ourselves adding thereto. Where indeed may those who survey the Perfect Self stop short in their survey?

1 John i. 9. 2 I Cor. xi. 3. 3 Heb. iv. 15.

4 In his Commentary on St. John's Gospel, Dr. Adolph Schlatter quotes, with regard to this Parable, Jerem. ii. 21, and Ps. lxxx. 9, and adds: "Accordingly the vine is 'true' when it actually bears fruit. Israel, it implied, is not the true vine, because it does not bear fruit unto God." We at once think of the wild grapes of Is. v. 2, and the Barren Fig Tree of Matt. xxi. 19.

5 John xv. 1-8.

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(a) THE FIRST FEATURE: INDIVIDUALITY.

Jesus then is before us in the Scriptures, first, as an individual. He moved as 'a man' among men, was 'heard by the multitude, and wrought among them wonderful works, making his self-hood known by his very present announcement in our Parable: 'I am the true Vine.'

We need hardly remind ourselves that it is the Self in the proper and only true meaning of the term, that is here before us, as it is before us all through, as we peruse our Upanishads, our mystic Poets, or, as here, our Holy Scripture, the self limitless, contained in itself, that resides in the mortal body (conceived to be so residing on account of our thinking in terms of space-time), but does not belong to the order of mortality. We recognise at once that that is the case here, in this passage of St. John's Gospel now before us, when we observe the Lord's injunction, that his disciples are to abide in him as the branches abide in the Vine. Dr. Adolph Schlatter in his comment on the passage brings out well the contrast between 'with him' and 'in him.' He points out that in comradeship with their teacher the disciples had been till then with their Lord. There we have what we may call the material self. Now Jesus declares in view of his death anticipated to be so near, that a spiritual fellowship, a being in him, is to be their relation to him in the future. Not that we are to deem that the approaching death was necessary for that mode of relationship. Already in the Gospel has Jesus spoken of himself as 'bread to be eaten.'1 It is the spiritual 'taking in,' the spiritual indwelling, that is the true relation always between the teacher and those whom he teaches, be the teacher and the taught present with each other in the body or not. And Jesus is given to us as the limitless Self living in the flesh the perfect life. That is the marvel of the revelation of Jesus.

(b) THE SECOND FEATURE: UNIVERSALITY.

'The Vine!' Does it seem to us a narrowing emblem?

It means the Church of God, those whom God has chosen and called out. So to Isaiah the Lord spoke of Israel, his Elect Nation, as his 'Vineyard' and 'pleasant plant';2 and

1 John vi. 32, 35, 51, 63.

2 Isa. v. 1–7.

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the Psalmist sung of Israel brought out of bondage by the

Nile as 'the Vine out of Egypt.'1 The emblem had then

indeed a 'narrow significance. It meant one Nation only

which was chosen out of all others. But with Jesus it has

gained Universality. Here is nothing short of a new

humanity. Here, St. Paul tells us, is the Second Adam.

He bids the Colossians "mortify their members that are

upon the earth," for in putting on Christ they have "put on

the New Man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after

the image of him that created him, where there cannot be

Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian,

Sythian, bondman, freeman: but Christ is all and in all."2

Here, in brief, is, as Westcott expresses it, "One" in whom

all men are "to find their fragmentary being capable of

reconciliation."

Universality indeed! Behold the proclamations of Scrip-

ture regarding the One Perfect Life! View the prospect

that rises before us when we meet such a passage as this

from the Colossians: "In Him, the Son of God's love,

the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, were all things

created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible

and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities

or powers; all things have been created through him and

unto him; and he is before all things and in him all things

consist."3 Yea, nothing is to be from the Vine, the Body of

Christ, excluded. If now, with the Epistle to the Hebrews,

"we see not yet all things subjected to him,"4 we are told,

in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that the Church which is

his body is the fulness of Him "who is reaching his fulness

through all things in all."5

(c) The Third Feature: Mutuality.

Further, as we listen to Jesus in the Parable of the Vine

in which he proclaims himself to his own, we hear him

describing a complex of personality involving a mutuality

between him and his own.

We note that, in contradistinction to plants that show a

great stem from which the branches spring, the vines,

1 Ps. lxxx.

2 Col. iii. 5, 10, 11.

3 Id., i. 13-18.

4 Heb. ii. 8.

5 Eph. i. 23. (Westcott's translation in his Commentary on the Ephesians.)

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climbing by tendrils or adventitious roots, may be said to be composed entirely of branches. Again, as to fruit, with most fruit-trees the mass of the tree, with its trunk branches and foliage, is dominant; the fruit is but a scattering of gleams throughout it. With the vine on the other hand the fruit is dominant. The plant itself, although it has produced the bunches of grapes, presents itself as but a straggling collection of leafy tendrils, the sight of which makes the spectator wonder at the richness of fruit that hangs from it.

The Vine then may be said to be made up of its tendrils. So does the Lord, saying, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches," present himself as embodied in His own. The Lord gives up himself that in Him the begotten of God may live. We recollect that this parable is presented just before the Lord's prayer for consecration of himself as a sacrifice that he may draw all men unto himself. We remember how we are told in the Epistle to the Ephesians that Christ "loved the Church and gave himself up for it."1

Looking again at the relation of things we see that this giving is mutal. If the Lord on the one hand gives himself up initially to his disciples, the disciples on the other hand give themselves up to him: Christ's life becomes their life.

This living of Christ in the disciple and of the disciple in Christ is indeed, as we know, a principle of the Christian life. How often does St. Paul exhort his fellow Christians to live as the body of Christ and members in particular thereof; to be true to their being in Christ and to Christ being in them. "Christ in you," he tells the Colossians, is "the hope of glory."2

It is in the Self of the mutuality is centred. The glorious Lord gives himself. Admission into his body is by the personal disposition of repentance and faith, through which each believer at his baptism puts on the New Man. The apostle accordingly thus describes what his acceptance of Christ has involved: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me, and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me."3

1 Eph. v. 25. 2 Col. i. 27. 3 Gal. ii. 20 (margin).

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In the Gospel according to St. John, earlier than where the Parable of the Vine is brought before us, Jesus to the hungry multitude who listen to him in the wilderness after he has satisfied them with material food, announces himself as (better than even the manna which came out of heaven of which their fathers did eat but did die) the bread of life which came out of heaven that a man might eat thereof, and not die, but live for ever, which Bread was his flesh which he would give for the life of the world.1

We are to notice that this giving up of the psychic to the spiritual is the life of the self. For the psychic must eventually die. That is the lesson, according to its light and as we have interpreted it2, of the Second Brāhmaṇa of the Great Book of the Secret Teaching in the Forest, which we give as our Second Selection. We shall remember how in St. John’s Gospel, when Jesus, present among the Jews from whom he had already won converts, was told that certain Greeks (representative of the great world outside Jewry) were desirous to see him, he cried to the multitude with reference to his approaching death: “The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abides by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that holds his life (psychē) dear is destroying it, but he that makes his life of no account in this world3 shall keep it unto life (zoē) eternal. . . . I, if I be lifted up out of4 the earth will draw all men unto myself.”5 And how often does Jesus in the Synoptic gospels also declare the same lesson, as, for example, in these words: “Whosoever willeth to save his soul (psychē) shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his soul for my sake and the gospel’s shall find it.”6

(d) The Fourth Feature: Perfection.

But more! As we gaze on Jesus we see, as we have already noted, a feature, influencing all that we are told of him, that was not discovered in the upper depths by our surveyors of humanity. In these upper depths the waters were wind-tossed and broken by sin. The true nature of humanity was therefore in that upper region not easy to

1 John vi. 48-51. 2 P. 247. 3 ‘world,’ kosmos. 4 ‘out of,’ ek.

5 John xii. 20-25. “He that holds . . . in this world ” is the translation in R. F. Weymouth’s New Testament in English Speech.

6 Mark viii. 35.

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discover. In fact the disturbance was a proof, as we have learned, of another nature having set in.1 Only by a long paying-out of the line, so that its recording instrument reached below the far-down extending tumult could the waters in their purity, man in his proper condition, be discovered, the man that ought to be, which is 'the waiting seed, concealed or unconcealed, of Perfection' of our Far-Western's poet's verses, our Near-Western poet's hidden 'King.' But now we see it actual in Jesus, the true Vine, the One Perfect Life, in whom all who are begotten of God must abide would they fulfil their birth.

So, in Jesus, as he is given to us, is perfection no dream, but actual. Here at last is man as God made him, and as the Scriptures require, the Man Perfect.

The word used for 'perfect' in the Hebrew of the Old Testament is tāmīm, which our lexicon tells us means 'sound, wholesome, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity.'2 In the Greek of the New Testament the word is teleios, which means 'brought to its end (telos), wanting nothing to completeness, perfect.'3

And now it is for us to notice, as we look upon Jesus, what manner of perfection the Lord enjoins.

First we notice the height he requires. In Deuteronomy Moses says to Israel, "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God." Jesus, addressing his disciples, raises the perfection thus required of them of old time to the highest height: "Ye shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."4

Next, when we inquire as to the quality of the perfection we find that, as a prelude to the injunction we have just quoted, the Lord has been bidding his disciples to live thus: "Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you that ye may become sons of your Father which is in heaven for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust."5

1 P. 30.

2 Brown Driver and Briggs's Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.

3 Grimm's Lexicon of the New Testament, revised by J. H. Thayer.

4 Matt. v. 48. R. F. Weymouth in his New Testament in Modern Speech gives the meaning thus: "You, however, are to be complete in goodness as your heavenly Father is complete."

5 Matt. v. 44, 45.

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And we have further light on the quality of the perfection afforded by what the Lord requires of the rich young man who came to him, saying, "Good teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life." Being asked as to his knowledge of the commandments, the young man replied: "Teacher, all these things have I observed from my youth." Then did the Lord say, "One thing thou lackest (or, in St. Matthew, 'If thou wilt be perfect'); go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."1

It is to be noticed also that, when explaining the Parable he had given of the Sower, Jesus tells his disciples that it is those who are " choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life," that, although they are the good seed sown by the Son of Man, "bring forth no fruit to perfection."2

But it is the sinlessness of the Lord's perfection, perhaps most awakens our wonder. St. Paul writes of Christ to the Corinthians as one who 'knew no sin.'3 In the First Epistle of St. Peter we are told that " Christ who suffered for us, did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; when he was reviled, reviled not again."4 In the Gospel of the Evangelist who so insists upon Jesus' coming in the flesh, the Lord says to the Jews, " which of you convinceth me of sin?"5 The same evangelist in the First Epistle declares "in him is no sin."6 In the Epistle to the Hebrews we are told that, although he was "in all points tempted like as we are," he was "yet without sin."7

All that declared of one who had been 'a man'! And so—let us notice—no less required of all men! The Lord in the Old Testament commands Israel to be holy as he is holy. We realise as we read the Psalms that no sin may be found in the man whom God would accept. St. Paul insists again and again that the putting on of Christ means a death unto sin.8 St. John, in the First Epistle, tells his readers that, although if they say they have no sin they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them.9 Yet he declares later, " whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, cannot sin, for God's seed is in him."10 And that quality of

1 Mark x. 17-22; Luke xviii. 18-33; Matt. xix. 16-22.

2 Luke viii. 14.

5 John viii. 46.

8 Rom. vi. 1-7.

3 2 Cor. v. 21.

6 1 John iii. 5.

9 1 John i. 8.

4 1 Pet. ii. 21-23.

7 Heb. iv. 15.

10 Id., iii. 9.

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the Perfect Son, seemingly so unattainable, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, who closely studied the Scriptures in this respect, accepts as not only plainly required and plainly bestowed, but also absolutely necessary for man's salvation. He makes Faithful tell Hope; that "unless he could obtain the righteousness of a man that never had sinned, neither his own, nor all the righteousness of the world, could save him."

To all this our conscience bears witness. We know in our hearts that no man that sins can stand before God.

As another feature of the Lord's perfection, we may observe also his perfect harmony with the heavenly Father. In St. John Jesus declares to the Jews: "As I hear, I judge."1 "Verily, verily, I say unto you the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing; for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner."2 So close is the harmony that later on in the Gospel Jesus declares: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand the Father is in me, and I in the Father."3 To Philip at the Last Supper when he and his own are gathered together, thus he declares: "The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works."4 Here is the root of that dependence on the Father for the works that he did, which we find recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.

What of other features of the Lord's perfection? For where may we stay? Have we not had, in the quotation we presented some time ago to the reader, our theologian, who, by one who was more acquainted than any with his life and work as bishop, was entitled 'the adoring student,' writing this confession?—"We see more of his beauty as our power of vision is disciplined and purified. In his humanity is included whatever belongs to the consummation of the individual and of the race, not only in one stage, but in all stages of progress, and in regard to the whole inheritance of our nature, enlarged by the most vigorous use while the world lasts."5

1 John v. 30. 2 Id., v. 19. 3 Id., x. 37, 38. 4 Id., xiv. 10. 5 Gospel of Life, p. 300.

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Two features at least occur to the writer which, if we would have an adequate view, seem to need more attention: the creative and the restorative power which the Scriptures tell us belong to the Son.

(e) Creative Power.

First, Creative power. We have indeed already touched upon that, and we might gather the following texts regarding it. The statement in the Prologue of St. John that through the Son as his Word the Father brought all that exists into existence. The statement which the Lord himself makes later on in the Gospel: “My Father worketh even until now, and I work”1; and what we are told shortly after: “As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself.”2 In the Epistle to the Ephesians we shall remember Jesus is declared to be reaching his fulness ‘through all things in all.’ The Church is in that last passage declared to be his body, and Dr. Westcott, whose translation we have here quoted, explains that the teaching of the passage is that it is by “Christ’s bringing by a continuous process all things into living union with himself through the Church,” that the End shall be reached,3 that End, in which St. Paul tells us God shall become at last, through the victories of the Son, ‘all in all.’

(f) Restorative Power.

Second, Restorative power. The Son is not only the Father’s means of creating, but is also, as we have already indicated, the Father’s means of bringing back to himself what he has through the Son created. “God so loved the world,” we are told in the Gospel according to St. John, that he “sent the Son that the world through him should be saved.”4 We have already quoted Jesus in St. John, declaring himself to be the Bread of Life, of which if a man ate he should have life eternal; “and the bread which I will give,” he explains, “is my flesh, for the life of the World.”5 Here is that entire giving up of self which we have already noted and which is the central energy of the

1 John v. 17. 2 Id., 26.

3 Westcott on Eph. i. 23, in his Commentary on the Epistle.

4 John iii. 16, 17. 5 John vi. 51.

T

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ministry of salvation that is portrayed both in St. John and

in the Synoptic Gospels. No testimony to that over-

whelming self-surrender in order that others might be

brought into the kingdom of God is stronger than the

railing of those who passed by as he hung on the Cross.

" Ha ! thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in

three days, save thyself," with the mocking meanwhile

among themselves of the high priests with the scribes:

" He saved others, himself he cannot save."1

Here then is the One, in whom, as the theologian who

has given us so much guidance puts it, each of us is to find

himself 'capable of reconciliation.'2 That is our necessity,

St. John tells us. " The witness of God concerning his

Son," he says in the First Epistle, is this: " That God gave

unto us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son. He that

hath the Son hath the life: he that hath not the Son of

God hath not the life."3

XII. THE TRUE HEIGHT OF MAN.

Let us rest our eyes again upon the height of this Sonship

at last revealed in its perfection in Jesus. How stupendous

it is, like one of the Himālayan summits ! Nay, no earthly

height can compare. Have we not heard Jesus proclaim,

" I and the Father are one," and noted the Evangelist write

in his prologue that the word that became flesh in Jesus was

" in the beginning with God and was God" ?

Yet there it stands, as a revelation of Man. The learned

Church Father, Irenaeus, born about 130 in Asia Minor,

became Bishop of Lyons in 177. Shortly after that, he wrote

a book which he called A Refutation of Knowledge Falsely So

Called. It was an exposition of the Divine Economy and the

Incarnation, and came to be regarded as a criterion for sound

doctrine by later theologians, especially by those of the Greek

Church.4 Taking in his purview the history of mankind, he

describes thus, in a sentence quoted in a note by Dr.

Westcott,5 what he believes was the change that came in

Jesus: " Not from the beginning were we made gods, but at

1 Mark xv. 29-31 ; Matt. xxvii. 39-42; Luke xxiii. 35, 37. 2 P. 234.

3 I John v. 9-12. 4 Art. " Irenaeus " in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14.

5 On p. 319 in Essay on the " Gospel of Creation " in his Commentary on

the Epistles of St. John.